The Sunday Salon: Home (at Last!) from Italy

 

Welcome! I'm happy you joined us here at the Sunday Salon. What is the Sunday Salon? The Sunday Salon is a place to link up and share what we have been doing during the week plus it's a great way to visit other blogs and join in the conversations going on there. 

My time in Italy is over and I've returned home and finally managed to shake off my jet lag. Our trip to Italy was inspired by Stanley Tucci's series, Searching for Italy. As we traveled around the country, I chose to eat and drink something that sounded interesting every day. My complete list of foods/drinks tried is on the graphic above. I'll be posting more about our trip to Italy soon.

What I Read While I Was Away in Italy

(links go to reviews)

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante

Forbidden Notebook by Alba de Céspedes

Italian Lessons: Fifty Things We Know About Life Now by Beppe Severgnini

What I'm Reading Now:

Hello Stranger by Katherine Center

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

Where Angels Fear to Tread by E. M. Forster

What I Posted Last Week Here at Readerbuzz:

Books on My Fall 2023 To-Read List

The Sunday Salon: Italia! (Italy!)

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante: Book Beginnings on Fridays, First Line Friday, The Friday 56, and Book Blogger Hop 

...trying to return to normal life...

My muse abandoned me while I was in Italy.

Any thoughts about how I can get going on my novel again?

I began to list 3 Good Things every day in 2020. Now I've established a regular routine of writing down my 3 Good Things. 

Here are 3 Good Things from last week:

Good Thing #1:

Comic in the paper 

we saw the day we returned home from Italy.

Good Thing #2:

Author Katherine Center will be speaking 

at our library fundraiser in October.

Good Thing #3:

First meal at home 

when we got home from Italy

is Orecchetti with Veal, Capers, and White Wine,

along with a fresh salad from the garden and homemade bread.

Italy has inspired my cooking.

Weekend linkup spots are listed below. Click on the picture to visit the site.

        

I hope you will join the linkup for Sunday Salon below.

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante

  

Today's Featured Book 

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante

Genre: Fiction

Published: September 25, 2012

Page Count: 387 pages

Summary: 

Beginning in the 1950s in a poor but vibrant neighborhood on the outskirts of Naples, Elena Ferrante’s four-volume story spans almost sixty years, as its main characters, the fiery and unforgettable Lila and the bookish narrator, Elena, become women, wives, mothers, and leaders, all the while maintaining a complex and at times conflicted friendship. This first novel in the series follows Lila and Elena from their fateful meeting as ten-year-olds through their school years and adolescence.
 
Through the lives of these two women, Ferrante tells the story of a neighborhood, a city, and a country as it is transformed in ways that, in turn, also transform the relationship between two women.

 

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAY is hosted by Rose City Reader. What book are you happy about reading this week? Please share the opening sentence (or so) on BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAY! Add the link to your blog or social media post and visit other blogs to see what others are reading.

Happy Friday and welcome to the FIRST LINE FRIDAY, hosted by Reading is My Superpower! It’s time to grab the book nearest to you and leave a comment with the first line.

"This morning Rino telephoned. I thought he wanted money again and I was ready to say no. But that was not the reason for the phone call: his mother was gone."

THE FRIDAY 56 is hosted by Freda's Voice. To play, open a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% on your e-reader). Find a sentence or two and post them, along with the book title and author. Then link up on Freda's Voice and visit others in the linky. 

"We went along the rough bumpy wall, we looked into the shadows. The dolls weren't there. Lila repeated in dialect, they're not there, they're not there, they're not there, and searched along the floor with her hands, something I didn't have the courage to do."

My Brilliant Friend: My Thoughts

Read: September 2023

Two girls, both clever, both poor, grow up together in Naples, Italy, amid chaotic family situations, with neighbors who often handle problems by using violence. The two girls become friends, very close at times, sometimes estranged, throughout their adolescence. The two find ways to go to school even when their parents want to dissuade them from doing so. Both girls gradually learn ways to deal with people they don't like as well as people they do like, and it is their friendship with each other that helps them learn from each other.

The stories feel very, very real and the setting feels authentic. The characters are a realistic mix of likable and unlikeable qualities that made me enjoy watching them grow and develop. 

The purpose of THE BOOK BLOGGER HOP is to give bloggers a chance to follow other blogs, learn about new books, and befriend other bloggers. THE BOOK BLOGGER HOP is hosted by Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer.    

Do you agree that libraries should ban books? (submitted by Billy @ Coffee Addicted Writer)

NOOOOOOOOO!

     

Books on My Fall 2023 To-Read List

I've unexpectedly become a mood reader. 

Here is what I am in the mood for right now...

 

...recently published fiction...

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

Hello Stranger by Katherine Center

...nature...

What an Owl Knows by Jennifer Ackerman

The Secret World of Weather by Tristan Gooley

...rereading...

The Gold Bug Variations by Richard Powers

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

...because I want more Italy...

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante

If on a Winter's Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino

Cuore by Edmondo DeAmicis

...encouragement to write my novel...

Daily Rituals: Women at Work by Mason Currey

..classic...

Complete Stories by Franz Kafka

...book club...

The Fishermen and the Dragon: Fear, Greed, and a Fight for Justice on the Gulf Coast by Kirk W. Johnson

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. Each Tuesday That Artsy Reader Girl assigns a topic and then post her top ten list that fits that topic. You’re more than welcome to join her and create your own top ten (or 2, 5, 20, etc.) list as well. Feel free to put a unique spin on the topic to make it work for you! Please link back to That Artsy Reader Girl in your own post so that others know where to find more information.     

The Sunday Salon: Italia! (Italy!)

 

Welcome! I'm happy you joined us here at the Sunday Salon. What is the Sunday Salon? The Sunday Salon is a place to link up and share what we have been doing during the week plus it's a great way to visit other blogs and join in the conversations going on there. 

Even wonderful things must end. I'm on my way home to the US on a ten-and-a-half-hour flight from Italy this weekend. I hope to alternate resting up from my travels and visiting all of you as soon as I get home. I promise to share our Italy adventure fully with you soon.

We spent some time on our last days here wandering the old streets of Bisceglie, Italy. It's hard for this American to think about places, like the town where we are staying, that was first settled in the fourteen hundreds.

We've eaten so many great seafood dishes here in Puglia. This is an octopus, squid, and shrimp salad.

Readerbuzz is happily touring Italy in September.

I've scheduled a Sunday Salon that will post early each Saturday morning in September.

I plan to visit everyone's blogs as usual while I am away...

Here is what I am reading while I'm away in Italy...

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante

If on a Winter's Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino

The Penguin Book of Italian Short Stories

The Complete Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino

Forbidden Notebook by Alba de Céspedes ✔

Italian Lessons by Beppe Severgnini ✔

I finished one more book, and I plan to work on My Brilliant Friend on the ride home.

Weekend linkup spots are listed below. Click on the picture to visit the site.

        

I hope you will join the linkup for Sunday Salon below.