It's all a big old chain. There isn't one unconnected link.

The magical descriptions of Italy and hilarious observations about love, travel, natives and foreigners in Love in Idleness are but a few of its many pleasures. Amanda Craig has created a hot shimmery climate in which a cast of old friends, quirky family members and naughty children who make love potions come to know themselves and their hearts. A delightful brew.

From early on I valued the gift of memory above all others. I understood that as we grow older we carry a whole nation around inside of us, places and ways that have disappeared, believing that they are ours, that we alone hold the torch for our past, that we are as impenetrable as stone.

She read books quickly and compulsively, paperback after paperback, as if she might drift away without the anchor of the printed page.

This was life, I supposed, running and running and running, and realizing along the way that the phantom was getting closer.

My god has always been a laissez-faire deity, giving you the initial goods and sending you on to make your way.

Life on earth, filled with uncertainty and change, seemed far more difficult than what lay beyond the grave.