I love the discovery of a new book, a new author, someone whose words I have not yet read or come to know. I tend not to re-read a book as there are too many new discoveries to make.
I hear what other people have been reading, or see a book that someone else is in the middle of and I'll make a note of the author and the title. I read a review of a book that someone else has taken the time to share and I'll make a note to myself.
One of my favourite ways to discover new books is on the back of one I'm currently reading...I love to read the reviews by other authors and then make a note of who they are and what they have written. It's the possibility of finding a pearl in an oyster...the "never knowing" if the new book will be as good as I hope.
That's how I discovered Marlena de Blasi's "1,000 Days in Venice", a read rich with the author's travels in Venice, of falling in love and leaving her life behind to discover possibility in a new country, with a new language and someone she knew not very well at all. Marlena listened to her heart and allowed it to make the decisions.
I lost myself in Marlena's well woven story about love, about food, about possibility and I came away with renewed senses, most particularly with regard to food. The words on the page came over me like smooth butter being spread on freshly baked bread and when I closed the last page, I knew I wanted more..and more..and more. Of the simple pleasures in life. Of finding the possibility that something as simple as bread can leave you filling full ~ not just sated from hunger, more a feeling full of choice, desire and possibility. It reminded me of how much I loved the food of Italy when I visited as a child of 16 and how very much I have missed eating and enjoying food for what it is, what it brings, rather than just something I must "do".
Imagine the pleasure at knowing that Marlena has now worked her way through Sicily and Tuscany ~ something warm and pleasurable to help me make it through this very cold, very dim, dark winter.
