Last night, I went out with friends for dinner in the town of San Giovanni in Persiceto. We enjoyed a meal at the Grassa Gallina (the Fat Hen), arriving around nine p.m. and staying until Midnight.


We toasted our recently engaged friends - the reason for the get-together in the first place - and tucked into the three breads provided for the meal: Foccacia with rosemary and garlic; thick, handmade grissini (crispy breadsticks); and a crispy flatbread called "streghe" - witches. All of it tasty enough to make a meal of, if necessary. Of course, it wasn't.



My starter was a pasta made with rosemary - big chunks of the herb gave it a wonderfully savory flavor - served with mushrooms and a sauce made from pureed cannellini beans. Sooo good! Alle had a risotto made with wine, thyme, sausage and Parmigiano Reggiano, served over a pumpkin puree. It was good enough that I wished I'd gotten it too - not instead, but too! 


My main dish was brasato di guancialino - braised veal cheek - served with roasted potatoes, two quail eggs, small onions and a polenta muffin with a bit of cheese inside. The meat and the sauce which accompanied it were both rich and savory - positively delectable! Yum! Alle had veal tongue, which came with similar accompaniments - except his polenta muffin was made with pumpkin, too. That was pretty tasty, but the veal tongue? Um, no, thanks. One day I'll be courageous enough to try, but not this time.


Dessert was also wonderful, of course. I had torta a mele e amaretti: a small apple cake - just diced apple in an amaretto cake, with warm vanilla syrup poured around it. Mmmm... Alle's selection was fiordilatte agli amaretti e caffè, a semi-frozen sweet served with amaretto and coffee drizzled over it. Mmmm....!



Good food, good friends, good times. The best recipe possible for a wonderful evening. 


We made it home after one a.m., still pleasantly stuffed from the meal - not uncomfortably so, either. (At no point in the evening did we ever feel like we'd had too much or overindulged.) I went to check my mail - as is my habit - before bed, and found to my delight that my launch date had been confirmed: I would have the launch in the place I'd hoped, right in the heart of London!


That I slept at all is nothing short of a miracle. Ha! But I did, after posting the updates here on the site and on Facebook. This morning was my usual routine - breakfast, check mail, update as necessary. Then, remembering something from the conversation on the way home last night, I decided to go try on clothes so I could plan my outfits for the launch and for the other readings I'll be doing in November.


Still buzzing with anticipation, still pleased with last night's wonderful dinner, I let my attention slacken at the wrong moment.


BOOOM!!! SPLAT!!! Those are the sounds I made - or seemed to, anyway - as I tripped over the box and managed to crack my knee (and most of the rest of me) on the marble floor in my office.


Now I'm sitting up in bed, with an icepack on my knee, hoping I'll make it to my meeting at the school tonight. I'm aching all over, of course - it was a hard enough fall to daze me for a bit - but ultimately I think I'll be fine. I'll have some "owies" for a while, though.


Yeah, I'm still happy. And I'll be forced to take it a tiny bit easier, sure. But I'm still excited and can't wait to get out there and share Ask Me if I'm Happy with the world.


So, ciao for now!


Kimberly

2) Write blogs. Lots and lots of blogs. Harder than it sounds, because I'm still trying to..

I've got a lot to get done!















And so little time to do it in!

















And yet, I can always find a little time...






























for a little rugby.

Ciao for now!

Hello, all! I fell behind a bit this week, so I thought I'd share a little something from my upcoming release, Ask Me if I'm Happy, this week. So, please allow me to present to you:

1) What nerve he has—and where do Italians learn that smirk, anyway? Is it genetic or something? If I never see that look again, it’ll be too soon.

2) “Amazing… I mean, what are the odds of reading an article and having the author sitting right across from you on the train like some average Joe? Or, in this case, like some average Giuseppe?”

3) He shrugged modestly, a faint pinkness shading his cheeks. “We all read the magazines in the doctor’s office, whether we have an interest in fashion and gossip or not.”

4)  “Most of what you see in here isn’t mine. These treasures belonged to my predecessor.”

“Oh, what happened to him?”

“He died.”

Oops.

5)  “It means that I, well… I teach English at a language school in Padova. It’s nothing special, not a very big school. Just me and a few other English teachers, a Chinese teacher, a German teacher, a couple of Spanish and Portuguese teachers… I’m rambling, aren’t I?”

“Sì,” he grinned, “but it’s quite charming.”

6) Pragmatism forced away the thought, yet it returned when his eyes met hers straight-on. The draw of his eyes was almost tactile. She straightened her shoulders until she felt the back of the chair, hard and unyielding against her spine.

7) …When they stepped apart, his hand slipped down to caress her cheek, to encourage her to smile. “Emilia, dai—fammi un sorriso.”

There was no reason to resist, yet she felt the tugging at the corners of her mouth as though it was happening to someone else, somewhere else. The piazza, so bustling and noisy moments ago, seemed to have gone silent, or might have been drowned out by the rhythm of her heartbeat as Davide moved closer to her again.

8) A question lurked between them. It fidgeted behind her eyes, waiting to be spoken aloud. He wasn’t certain whether he dared invite it, no matter how much he hoped it was the same question he wanted to ask.

The waiter arrived to take their orders and Davide was grateful for the chance to focus on something else for a few moments. Still, his eyes were drawn back to hers. Each time he found it harder to breathe, harder to focus on the world around them. Each time, he realized all he wanted was to be able to look into those eyes uninterrupted for an hour, or perhaps for a lifetime.

9) In an instant, he saw it all: the two of them in the elevator, his hand stroking her cheek, then reaching and tugging at the elastic that bound back her hair away from her face. He could feel the silken smoothness of her hair beneath his fingertips as the elastic slid down the length of her ponytail at his urging, until it all fell free and loose against his palm.

He imagined twining his fingers in her hair, then, holding her in place and tilting her head back, her mouth opening to receive his, willing, wanting…

“Davide?”

“Sì, sì…” He shook his head to clear away the images, although he would have liked to see the vision through to the end.

10) “Cazzo!” he snarled, standing up just as Emily emerged from the bathroom, already dressed in faded jeans and a misshapen cable sweater that had once been a pale gray.

“Are you all right?”

“Oh, sì, sì; I just, how do you say… ‘stumped’ my toe on the carpet.”

“‘Stubbed’ your toe,” she corrected with a small laugh. “You ‘stubbed’ your toe on the carpet.”

He offered her an embarrassed smile in reply. “Right.”

11) “Okay. Great. I’ll see you then.” Paul stood, pushed his chair back under the table and picked up the tray which had held her drink. “I’d better get back to work.”

Smiling at him, Emily watched him go, turning her eyes back to her computer screen when she realized she was paying more attention to his retreating khakis than was appropriate. A belated blush finally rose in her cheeks and she gulped down some of her cooled-down drink before logging in to her e-mail.

12) “And then,” she continued, “there’s the fact that once I’m here, I’m thrilled to be here again. Almost every time I’ve come back, I’ve had another little ‘honeymoon’ period, you know? Where everything I see just seems so beautiful, I can’t believe I wanted to leave it in the first place.

“I fall in love with this place every time I step out of the airport. Even the people who drive me crazy make me want to grab them and give them a hug. Well, except for the guy peeing under the overpass.”

“Who is that?” Davide laughed harder than ever and Emily did the same.

“Seriously, you haven’t noticed? There’s always a man peeing under the overpass—especially when you leave the airport.”

“Oddio, Emilia. This is too much.”

“It’s true, Davide! Watch the next time you go to the airport—I’m telling you, you’ll see him! It might even be same guy.”

“So you think there’s a serial overpass pisser? Really?”

“Well, okay. I’m not sure it’s him every time. I don’t look that closely, to be honest.” 

13)  “That’s the one?” Michele tilted his head toward the door and Davide nodded. “Wow,” he said, pursing his lips in appraisal. “Che bel tocco di –”

“She speaks Italian, Miki,” Davide interrupted, knowing where the next words were likely to lead.

“–ragazza,” his friend finished. “What a sweet girl she seems to be—that’s what I meant to say.”

“She’s a woman, Miki. Not a girl.”

“And an attractive woman, at that.”

“You thought she wouldn’t be?”

“A volte si fanno trottare anche gli asini,” Michele said, making a gesture as though pulling back on reins.

At times, even donkeys can trot. Davide sighed. There goes Miki with his charming sayings again.

Ciao for now!

I've been thinking a lot about book covers this week. This comes as no surprise to anyone who knows me, or to anyone who knows any writer who is about to be published, because book covers are a vitally important part of the whole publishing package.

Sometimes, a cover makes you say "Aha!" whether you've read the story behind it or not. Sometimes it - as a dear friend of mine put it recently - "...makes me want to run for the hills. Screaming."

All of this has led me to ponder covers of books I've loved and admired over the years, some very recently, some going back quite a ways. And so, I present to you:

1) Audrey Rose by Frank De Felitta

This is one of my earliest memories related to a book: spending hours (literally) staring at the cover of this book, trying to figure out what it was about. The book came out in 1974, and I recall holding this book when I was about five years old or so - if that - which would have been in 1976. I was fascinated/horrified by the imagery, but I couldn't understand the tombstone. It wasn't until I was old enough to cope with the concept of reincarnation that I finally got it. For the record, the book was my mother's.

2) Carrie by Stephen King.
This was another one of my mother's books, from the same time period. I just sat and tried to understand what I was looking at - and failed miserably.

Once I was old enough to read them for myself, however, there was no going back.

3) Watership Down by Richard Adams.

This book is something which borders on the mythical for me. I've even blogged about it for Diiarts. (It should go up on their Power of Language blog in a few weeks.) The copy I purchased when I was about nine years old had this cover. It's burned into my psyche as one of the most beautiful and perfect covers for a book ever. I still feel you get a real sense of the tone of the book from the image - the hint of the downs beyond the rabbit (who, presumably, is Hazel); the muted, almost foreboding colors; the sense of scope in the perspective. It's a wrap-around cover, so the image of the treeline continues onto the back (where the great reviews are printed). I've often wished I had a print of the whole cover, minus the blurbs, taglines and titles. I love it that much.

4) The Gunslinger (Dark Tower Series) by Stephen King.

There have been so many different versions of this cover, it was hard to pick just one. I went with one of the more "epic" options, since even though the first book of the Dark Tower series was the shortest, it still had that sense of epic and grand adventure packed into fewer pages. This cover is no different. It has all the emotion of the whole series - the looming ominousness of the Tower itself; the rugged, not-quite-handsome gunslinger with the crow perched upon his back (which has got to make the reader wonder - if they haven't yet read the story - what the crow has to do with anything); the sunset which settles at the foot of the shadowy Tower. It makes me want to pick it up and read it all over again, especially to savor the perfection of that opening line.... sigh...

5) Big Stone Gap by Adriana Trigiani.

I first read this title because I used to live very close to Big Stone Gap, VA. (Yes, it's a real place.) I'd heard about it on the Today show when I was living in Florida, and decided to seek it out. A friend had a copy and hadn't enjoyed it (a teenager who'd never lived outside of cities, she couldn't relate to the small-town atmosphere of the story), so she gave it to me. This is a cover, however, which doesn't quite grab me in the usual way. Later covers were better, I think, but this is the one I saw first. I like how the author's name is done, and I like the ambiguity of the sign post containing the title. Beyond that, I'm not too keen. It needs a little more "oomph" to do justice to the story inside. And it's a great read. I promise.

6) High Fidelity by Nick Hornby.

This is a great example of how a simple photo can say a lot about the contents of the book. The simplicity of this cover is what really sells it, in my opinion. As I understand it, this is a reissue of the book, and all of Hornby's titles got similar treatments for their covers. This is my favorite of the bunch, since it really does give a sense of the story inside.

7) Io Non Ho Paura (I'm Not Scared) by Niccolo' Ammaniti.

Some books I buy twice. Sometimes, I buy them twice for the cover. In this case, I bought it twice because I read it the first time in English, then read the Italian original. The Italian cover, here, is the exact one I own. I think it's absolutely perfect. You get the setting as described in the story - wheat fields stretching to the horizon, and ominous clouds dominating the scene. It manages to encapsulate the whole story, with vital elements from the beginning and the end. The fact the book is a stunningly beautiful read doesn't hurt.
The English translations have different covers, but the one I have here at home is particularly good, I think. Once again, the cover gives a strong sense of place as contained in the story. I can't recommend this novel highly enough.

8) The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov.
The only thing that might be more surreal and delightful than this novel would be the countless different covers designed for it. And yet they almost always have one thing in common: Behemoth, the demon cat. Cover designers for this particularly strange and wonderful work of art seem to fixate on Behemoth. I'm led to wonder if many of those artists own cats and see some of their own demanding master pets in this character? My copy of the book is very similar to this one, except it has an illustration of the city (presumably Moscow, as that's where the action takes place) behind Behemoth and the piggy flying 'round the moon.

9) Destiny by Tim Parks.

While you'd never know it from the cover, Destiny is a dark, moody and tragic tale, which takes place primarily in Italy. I love the fact that you don't know this based on the cover, but the bleak, numbing life of the narrator is epitomized by this image. Parks is simply one of the best writers writing about the reality of life for expats in Italy - his nonfiction strikes an exact balance between the bitter and the sweet - and his novels are equally perfect for their refusal to glorify life here. I adore him.

And hey - how clever is the insertion of the title and author here?

10) Cleaver by Tim Parks.

I grabbed this because Parks wrote it and I liked the cover. The contents didn't disappoint, and the cover is - again - a perfect image for the words inside. You get much of the feel right away - cold, distant, isolated - but the whys and wherefores are doled out in an enticing manner while you start to wonder if the protagonist's choice to journey alone to a remote reach of the South Tyrol mountains was a good one.

11) Q&A by Vikas Swarup.
I like this cover for the very simplicity of it. It's one of those which makes slightly better sense in retrospect, too. I bought this before I knew there was going to be a film version. I'm glad I did. The film was beautiful, but there were some big departures from the content of the novel. Do a comparison sometime and see what I mean.

12) A Widow for One Year by John Irving.

Another argument for "less is more". The picture hook is a key element in this story, but until you've read it, you can't quite understand the significance of it. Once you have read it, the impact finds you again and again. Unfortunately, when a film was made based on the first section of this novel, the movie tie-in cover was - in my opinion - just awful.

13) Last Night in Twisted River by John Irving.

This one stands out for me because I just finished reading it a couple of days ago. It's not until you've nearly finished the novel that you understand the meaning of the cover image, but it speaks volumes once you get it. Less is more, once again, and the stark image of this cover is a rather literal take on a moment in the story. I'll let you read it if you want to know why it strikes home for the reader (and especially for the reader who happens to be a writer).

And here I go. ;)

I just think this shot is beautiful on soooo many levels. Not all of them gratuitous, either.

Ciao!