Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Pete Loved This Book So Much He Just Took A Vacation In Italy!!!

As a bookseller, I sometimes get flummoxed when a customer makes a request such as 'I'm just looking for a good book. What can you recommend?' Then all these wonderful titles jumble around in my head and I come up with nothing but 'Uh, go take a look at Jackie's Corner' {a display at TC Lodo}.  Well, I think I've found my 'go to' suggestion for customers  eager for that special good book. It has to be Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter.  It's the kind of book you take on a trip and remember more about the novel than the vacation itself. 

Set in Cinque Terre, the scenic, cliff-side dwellings hugging Italy's northwest Mediterranean shoreline, the novel begins in 1962 when a beautiful American actress arrives by boat in need of a room at the local inn. This less than majestic inn is not on the main tourist route and has the innkeeper, Pasquale, wondering if there must be some mistake. Mistake or not, Pasquale and the actress strike up a fast friendship and share an incident that alters their lives for the next 50 years.
 
Beautiful Ruins is one of those rare novels that you can recommend to nearly everyone. I know I will.
 
--Pete

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