A Thousand Splendid Suns
Khaled Hosseini's second effort outstrips his best-selling first novel, delving into pained father-son ties.
Joseph Tusiani
"When I was a child, coffee was a luxury in Italy. Only a few people bought it, and for special occasions, a wake, say..."
The Road from Coorain
Jill Ker Conway's recalls her journey from Australia to the halls of American academia.
Leopardi clean
With your Rome roommate, there's clean and then there's Leopardi clean.
Truth and Beauty
Ann Patchett's recounts her friendship with the doomed writer Lucy Grealy.
Goodbye to all that
Enzo Ceci was unable to cope with competitive pressures; he was one of Rome's 2006 closures.
Umberto Veronesi
"[Only] five percent of breast cancer tumors and 10 percent of intestinal tumors are 'genetic,' meaning hereditary."
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
David Sedaris trawls for and finds hilarious anecdotes in family misadventures.
Last chapters
After 40 years, the Economy, an institution in English language culture and expatriate life in Rome, had no choice but to close.
Gelato Con D’Annunzio
Leonida Fassi remembers the ice cream cake his father made for Adolf Hitler.
Tutti ‘sti nomi stranieri
You hear Arabic, Serbo-Croat, and Chinese spoken around the piazza, and most shops are Chinese-owned.
Love’s grades
My first crush was on my fifth-grade teacher, Mr. Skay.