The Slow Travel Concentric Reading Circle book club selection for the month of September is The Lady in the Palazzo by Marlena de Blasi, 371 pages.

I've just read a review by Megan Brenn-White, who writes for the Let's Go travel series.

Meeting date: Saturday 15 September, at 5:30pm Pacific, 6:30 Mountain, 7:30 Central, 8:30 Eastern. For Australians, that’s 10.30am on Sunday the 16th of September. It's usually at the end of the month - but as I'll be in Italy...

The CRC book club chats take place in the Gold Star Chat Room.

New members are always very welcome. Please take the time to read about the Concentric Reading Circle here. We meet nine times a year, skipping June, August and December. We save the longer books (over 400 pages) for after a break.

I'm looking forward to seeing you at the next meeting. The last one was terrific! You can read the transcript if you like. It was quite a stimulating discussion.

The book is available through Amazon and many major book stores. I'm getting mine from the mall, from either Dymocks or Angus and Robinson (please note what country I'm in).

If the time doesn't suit you, or you can't get to the meeting, either join in the discussion we have on the board, or PM or email me with comments which I will include in the final transcript.

P.S. The last weekend in October book is "Don't Let's Go To The Dogs Tonight" by Alexandra Fuller, 336 pages.

I'd like to join, but have never been in a book club. (Though I am always reading something.)

I really enjoyed Marlena's newest book and would read it again to join in. Rob was making it his next read and can, I would still have time to re-read it.

I love the Italian phrasing and words she inserts and the recipes aren't bad either.

May I join in?

You bet, Miss Wendy!
There's no need to read it again unless you really want to. You'll remember it when we start talking about it, I'll bet.

I liked this one the best of the trio that she's written about her life in Italy. I loved all of them, but this more than the others. I felt like she finally settled down into her groove with these stories and this book flowed like silk for me.

I tell my book club members about this wonderful book club that has members form every corner of the Universe...I ask them to join in, and they are a little nervous about the 'people you meet on the internet!' I agree and tell them that it's a darkly dangerous crew we have here on the Concentric Reading Circle!

"A book lying idle on a shelf is wasted ammunition. Like money, books must be kept in constant circulation. Lend and borrow to the maximum -- of both books and money! But especially books, for books represent infinitely more than money. A book is not only a friend, it makes friends for you. When you have possessed a book with mind and spirit, you are enriched. But when you pass it on you are enriched threefold." ~ Henry Miller
Brenda

this book is an awesome read! I love everything she has written!

I started her Dolce e Salata but got interrupted and can't remember what I have read.

The review link above would put it in the genre of what my B-i-L calls olive oil literature and I hesitate to read more of this.

Also, library does not stock it and they are unlikely to order it and stock it in time for the meeting.

But tell me how you are liking it and I might see if friends have it.

I just finished the book, and I LOVED it!

Like the others, I think I liked this one the best of the three.

I am disappointed that there aren't more books to come. Would love to take one of her gastronomic tours, but the one in the book sounds pretty highend and probably nothing I could afford.

Nancy

My copy has arrived - beautiful dust jacket! I hae enjoyed the first chapter so far.

Of course since we were in Orvieto last month, we went to the address in the book and from the street, zoomed in to try to take pictures INSIDE her living room. We can see (if you look REAL close) the ceiling and the drapes! lol

Leslie, it just gets better and better as you turn the pages. Enjoy

I like the writing on the pizza, Palma. Everyone/thing looks like it was a great time had by all.
Thank you for sharing.
W

Book club meeting next weekend.

And are you all happy to have the next one after that in November? I am traveling soon and need some extra time.

The book for discussion in November, on Saturday the 24th at 6.30pm MT will be "Don't Let's Go To The Dogs Tonight" by Alexandra Fuller, 336 pages.

Sounds exciting!

Oh what fun that should be! I read de Blasi's latest out loud to my husband and he said it was his favorite of all the books we've read together.
We love Orvieto, and the book gave us some new places to visit last time we were there (the coffee roasters!) as well as reminding us of old favorites.
Anne

Anne, I love Orvieto too. The more I go there, the more I want to go. I'd really like to spend several days there and get to know it well.

Sorry, I won't be there. I will be coming back from Bris on Sunday morning and our library did not have the book.

I will look up the Fuller book at the library now.

PS. Three of our local libraries have it in stock.

I love Orvieto, too. We will have to have a GTG there sometime.

John - you will be sadly missed. I always enjoy discussing the books with you and hearing your point of view. We will look forward to seeing you at the next one.

Meeting date: Saturday 15 September, at 5:30pm Pacific, 6:30 Mountain, 7:30 Central, 8:30 Eastern.

Book club today.

I finished my copy very late last night. I have had so many tradesmen in and had a full day of it yesterday with sawing, thumping on the roof, hammering and all sorts of hooey. Lucky me.

Look forward to seeing you in the Gold Chat room in a few hours.

...hopefully...

"A good book should leave you... slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading it." ~ William Styron
Brenda

I couldn't get into the chat room because this old desk top sucks.

Ginger

Hi, I have the chat transcript for you :

2007-09-15 17:27:10.0
Leslie: G’day! How are you all?
MarciaB: Hi there. I didn't think I would be home for this, but here I am. I read the book last winter and didn't brush up but I'm game.
Leslie: I finished it late last night
BGE: Good book...
MarciaB: I read all three at the same time, guess I'm a serial sort
nancyhol: I just reread the last chapter because it had been awhile since I finished it
MarciaB: I probably liked it the best of the three, but try as hard as I did, I'm just not fond of this Lady's style of writing.
Leslie: No, I don't think everyone is.
nancyhol: I liked it the best of the three too
BGE: I also liked it the best of 3
Leslie: OK, have we all read all three?
MarciaB: Yes
nancyhol: I have
BGE: Her writing's a little bit too sweet and saccharine for me, poor lamb...
MarciaB: Exactly. I kept thinking, "Oh really?" every time she jumped out of bed, into her boots and raced into town for a coffee.
BGE: I still cannot get the picture of her out of my mind...walking through the hills and vales wearing her "little summer frock" and her work boots and fancy dancy hat... anyone else recall that image??
Leslie: I keep wondering why she insinuates having sex all the time, and is always wearing curtain material.
MarciaB: Exactly again, I got tired of her sex life, really. Curtains, that's a snort over here.
nancyhol: Maybe we are jealous!
BGE: I loved the old gentleman who gave/sold them his farm, because of the memories there being too much for him
Motherjudy: Oh - I thought you might be talking about Tilde!
Leslie: So Judy how are you today and have you read all three books?
Motherjudy: No - this is the first of hers that I've read, and I must say there were times when there were references that made no sense --I'll be picking up A Year in Tuscany from the library soon.
MarciaB: Nope, jealous is not the word. I also had a hard time, this is the first book, getting my head around how she dropped her kids, her life and just ran off to Venice. I'm a romantic, but this did not do it.
Motherjudy: Anybody but me want to hop on a plane to Orvieto tonight?
Leslie: Yes
MarciaB: Not tonight, but maybe next month
nancyhol: I would love to run off to Orvieto
Motherjudy: I enjoyed the book more as I got further into it - but still wanted a better sense of the back-story- the hows and whys of how she got there.
Leslie: One of the central themes seems to be related to Marlena and her husband being seen as outsiders – which they are in actual fact. She refers to it frequently. How do you think the towns people felt about her arrival?
BGE: I think the outsider thing is true anywhere you move to, because farming communities here do that...you're from "away" so you aren't local
MarciaB: She's a stranger, even married to an Italian, and that's how it is.
BGE: ...and an odd stranger, to boot
nancyhol: Yep, odd is right
Motherjudy: Yes Marcia - I think you are right.
Leslie: As well as being foreign, she also has strange or unusual ways
nancyhol: But I kind of liked her oddness
MarciaB: And this is what I think about when people talk about how they would love to move to Italy.
Leslie: Exactly Brenda.
BGE: So, do you think that made it harder for her to fit in?
Leslie: I'm sure it did
Motherjudy: Hey - as someone from Berkeley, she didn't seem odd to me at all. And I want to take one of her tours.
MarciaB: I think her oddness was a negative, these were small places, even Venice.
nancyhol: Do you think she still does tours?
Motherjudy: Meant to see if I could Google to find out.
Leslie: This book was written about a time in her life from just over ten years ago.
MarciaB: I read somewhere that her web page is stagnant, so who knows?
nancyhol: I would like to see current pictures of them.
Motherjudy: Wow - didn't realize it was that long ago.
Leslie: She paid the down payment in June 1997.
BGE: I found it odd that she called her husband 'the stranger' all the way thru' her first book.
MarciaB: So he was a stranger except in the sack, LOL?
Leslie: A sexy stranger with mirtillo eyes. Have you ever seen blueberry eyes??
MarciaB: Nope
BGE: Blueberry eyes...not lately
Motherjudy: Is Mirtillo blueberries or black currants?
Leslie: Blueberries.
MarciaB: Blueberries, I think, from the gelato case
Leslie: I just read it over the last couple of days so I made notes of things like that
MarciaB: I also thought she was rather vague about how they really supported themselves, since she had a book contract all along.
Leslie: I was first alerted to it not being in the present time when she paid for it in lire.
Motherjudy: Leslie - you are right.
Leslie: We were talking about how she either felt alienated from the locals
BGE: Or how she alienated herself from the locals...
Leslie: What about how near the end, she went looking for furniture in the antique store near her apartment, and the guy just stood and stared at her, crossed his arms, didn't speak to her and then she and Fernando just left.
Palma: ah...I looked for her in Orvieto this summer. Her book is in EVERY window!
nancyhol: Don't you think she was eventually accepted?
Leslie: She seemed to only relate well to people who were a bit, shall we say, different?
Motherjudy: I could relate to the alienation - in 1965 we lived for 6 months in a Paris apartment building, and never met ANYONE - we knew the local shopkeepers, but not our neighbors. It was very strange.
MarciaB: How old do you all think she was in this period?
Motherjudy: I did enjoy her descriptive ability though -- I felt like I had seen a photograph when I read her description of the people she talked about.
Leslie: Yes, very vivid writing. Look: “In a lilac sky, red clouds, thin as tulle, shake down light like sugar. – Chapter 6”
Palma: We went to the address on Via di Duomo, and Brad stood on the street zooming in the camera on her living room window. Talk about tacky tourists!
nancyhol: I would do it too, Palma
Motherjudy: Leslie - you finished the book last night -- I finished it at 5:20 this afternoon! You were smart to take notes.
Leslie: She mentions her address, number 34 Via del Duomo thirteen times! I am thinking she wanted people to go and have a look.
MarciaB: How is that for discretion
nancyhol: Is she still there?
Leslie: What floor was she on? Up on the first or up on the one above that? She had stairs to go up.
Motherjudy: We spent 3 days in Orivieto three years ago - it was fun being able to picture the market, and the piazza at the Duomo. But I wish I could go back and identify some of the other streets.
Palma: You can see the gilded ceiling and heavy velvet drapes.
Leslie: I stayed overnight just less than a year ago and before that in 03 and was there for the day in ’92.
Motherjudy: Leslie - she was on the "first" floor - the piano grande is usually the first floor above ground floor, and is usually the one with the high ceilings.
Leslie: Or "piano nobile"
Palma: It is a great time. I'd like to go there and stay a few days.
nancyhol: I would like to have a "sighting" of her and Fernando.
Motherjudy: Yep
Palma: great town
Leslie: We have a great piano nobile to look at in Venice where we are staying
MarciaB: I thought her book jacket photo was a bit scary.
nancyhol: I think her photo was a bit dated.
Motherjudy: It looked very 80s to me -- certainly not current.
MarciaB: Rather gothic, lots of makeup
Leslie: I have something for you to think about. What do you think of this statement - It’s not like “reading a book”, it’s more like “having an experience”. Do you agree with that?
nancyhol: Leslie, sure I kind of agree
MarciaB: I like to read books when I read, save 'experiences' for other mediums.
Leslie: An interesting way to think about it Nancy.
Palma: Brad is reading it. He got the impression she was ANGRY when she wrote it. Did anyone else think so? I read it a while ago.
Motherjudy: I don't think she was angry. I think she was just telling it like it was. Although if they had stuck me in a moldy apartment I would have been pissed.
MarciaB: I think she is rather like performance art if you know what I mean.
Palma: I like the way she writes about food.
Leslie: I found the whole concept of paying for alterations to an apartment you were only renting – bizarre.
nancyhol: Food and wine did it for me!
Palma: Of course, I like to read about food.
Leslie: Did anyone else turn to the back of the book first to read the recipes? I always do that with a book of this kind.
Palma: no, I never look in the back of a book!
MarciaB: Her cooking descriptions were more interesting but I still have a hard time imagining her walking in and almost immediately taking charge of a kitchen.
Motherjudy: I read the recipes first - and couldn't figure out til I got to the end why she chose that particular set of recipes. I enjoyed the book, mostly for the word pictures, and the characterizations. I think it must have been a challenge to try to fit into a fairly closed town (think of its physical limitations, which must make it even more insular)
nancyhol: I may have glanced at the recipes before I finished the book.
Leslie: I read a lot of books with all the recipes in the back, so I thought she might do it in this one so I went looking for them and there they were. I don't read the end of the book first, I just looked to see if she had her recipes printed
Palma: I usually won't even read a book jacket.
BGE: I always read the last few pages to see what the hell's going to happen...doesn't everyone?????
MarciaB: Really?
nancyhol: Me too
Leslie: I like to look through to see if there are any pictures as well, but she pretty well hides Fernando away
BGE: Hmmmm, does that make me weird???
Motherjudy: Wonder why I enjoyed this book so much - certainly more than some of you. It seemed very real to me -
BGE: Judy, I enjoyed reading it...
Palma: I liked it best of her three
BGE: I just had a little trouble with her sweetness and so on
MarciaB: Palma, we all seemed to like it the best of the three, wonder why.
Leslie: Hey, did you notice the number of times in this book, which she has never done before, that she refers to Fernando's overbite?
nancyhol: I saw a writeup of someone who shared a Thanksgiving dinner with them in Orvieto, and there was a photo of Fernando at the table but Marlena's back was to the camera. Anyone else see that?
MarciaB: Leslie, I do not remember that.
BGE: Does that mean he has big-time buckteeth?
Palma: I like anything that happens in Italy!
Leslie: She mentioned it several times, each time before she talked about kissing him passionately.
MarciaB: I saw that picture, Nancy - if you google her, it comes up somewhere.
Motherjudy: I would guess orthodontia wasn't big when Fernando was growing up.
Palma: But I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED, Michael Tucker's book!
BGE: So, would any of you hang out with a guy who stared at you in a restaurant in Venice?
Leslie: Well, I wondered if his teeth were starting to annoy her? I've just reread the other two books, and narry a mention
Palma: Have any of you read it?
Leslie: Yep
Palma: "Living in a Foriegn Language"
nancyhol: No, but I remember Michael Tucker from "LA Law"
BGE: So, would any of you hang out with a guy who stared at you in a restaurant in Venice
Leslie: Not a chance
Motherjudy: Yep - it was a very fast read. But what stuck out for me in that one was that it must be nice not to have to worry about financing any of it.
Palma: Couldn't put it down, and didn't want it to end.
Leslie: Did you enjoy the descriptions of the sagre? Has anyone ever been to one? Moderator Maureen wrote a great postcard called No Sagra for you! I’ve just reread it. http://www.slowtrav.com/italy/florence/sagra.htm
Leslie: I've never read a book before like this that went into so much detail about all the sagre.
nancyhol: Nope, never been to a Sagra
Palma: I'd love to go to the one in Montalcino
nancyhol: Ahhh, Montalcino
Leslie: I've never been, but I doubt if it would be my thing
Motherjudy: We were lucky enough to be in a small village near Siena for a Sagre de Pasta Sciutta. It was wonderful. If I ever did a trip report that would have been front and center as a highlight.
Palma: why, Leslie?
Leslie: Large crowds, late nights, mostly a big dining experience.
Palma: Perfect!
nancyhol: Sounds good!
Leslie: I like to read about them. But then, I like to read about a lot of things I'd prefer to watch.
Palma: Closest I've been is the food festival in Acqui Terme
Motherjudy: It was a blast -- great food, fun people, and good old fashioned dance party afterwords with everyone on the floor from the 3 year old to the 90 year old...and some of those older folks really could dance
MarciaB: Ok, I think I need to go since this multitasking is not working - I'm talking with all of you, making bread pudding from leftover holiday raisin challah and trying to watch the USC football game.
Leslie: So, you have a trip report on a sagra?
Motherjudy: It really was -- I don't have a trip report, but I might just write up a postcard - two years later~
Leslie: If you went to a sagra, what kind would it be? Mine would be a fishing village one, quiter and lots of sea air and yummy fish. Like a Camogli one
Palma: Like Camogli?
Motherjudy: Yes - I read about a fish fry somewhere near the Cinque Terre that sounded like a blast.
Palma: I think I'd want a cheese one!
Leslie: OK, I have a serious question for you. What would you say to Marlena if she said this statement in front of you: From the first days, people look at us askance.
Palma: I'd ask her how she looked at them, and what her attitude was.
Motherjudy: Hmmm - good question. Palma - spoken like a true therapist.
Palma: Perception
Leslie: She is certainly a "larger than life" character. Very highly visible.
nancyhol: She must like being "different" - she certainly worked at it.
Motherjudy: I think I would also suggest she chill, and give them time to get over their "suspicions" about any strangers.
Leslie: What did you think of the change to copper hair? It was very noticeable.
nancyhol: I thought copper hair was probably better than her stark black hair.
Palma: well, when I stay in a town for a few days, no one looks at me weird. Especially if I speak to them in Italian!
Motherjudy: Yes - but you don't wear work boots... Only sandals
Palma: She's probably a nutcase!
nancyhol: I would still like to meet her! And meet Fernando
Leslie: It would sure be an experience, but do you think it would be a restful one?
Motherjudy: I don't think she's a nutcase -- just an individualist. Also hard-headed (hmm...she could almost be an Italian)
Palma: oh, me too! I'm a nutcase too. Nothing wrong with that!
Motherjudy: I think it could be interesting to meet her -- but I don't think I'd like to live with her for any extended period of time.
nancyhol: Maybe not
Leslie: Well, who just said they wanted to go on a tour?
nancyhol: Me
Motherjudy: Yeah - but that wouldn't be a 24/7 relationship.
Palma: I'd like to go to dinner with all the characters showing up.
Leslie: She puts her all into everything she does. Her decorating, her presence, the details in her tours. I think she does everything that she does very well
nancyhol: All in all, I like her because she is different.
Motherjudy: I would love to see pictures of that ballroom decorated for the event. Palma - she even had Deruta pottery!
Motherjudy: Nancy - me too.
Palma: Maybe she'd host us a ST GTG?
Leslie: I admire her life force and her creative and descriptive writing. She lives for beauty and enhances her writing with it. I really admire that.
Palma: hey, I do my one a year!
nancyhol: Wow! What a pair that would be - Marlena and Palma!
Palma: We probably both have too many control issues
Motherjudy: She really does see things in wonderful detail and with great insight. Love her interaction with the two shepherds.
Leslie: OK, did you all ever read the article they published about a Thanksgiving meal at her house? It was called An Umbrian Thanksgiving.
Motherjudy: No - where did you see it?
Leslie: Here it is http://www.worldandi.com/newhome/public/2003/november/lf2pub.asp
Leslie: And there is a pic of Fernando in it and the back of Marlena’s head.
Palma: Oh, I want to see Fernando
Motherjudy: Leslie - thanks for the link.
2007-09-15 18:20

"Books are the opiate of the literate"

A paraphrase of something I just read and had to post.

I'm almost half way through Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight.
That's one evening's reading.
Don't forget there is just one week to go.