A Thousand Days in Venice by Marlena de Blasi

"On a visit to Venice, de Blasi meets a local bank manager who falls in love with her at first sight. After "the stranger" (as she coyly calls him throughout the book) pursues her back to her home in St. Louis, Mo., she agrees to return to Italy and marry him, leaving behind her grown children and her job as chef and partner in a cafe. Although the banker, Fernando, lives in a bunkerlike postwar condominium on the Lido rather than the Venetian palazzo of her dreams, and some of his European ideas about women clash with her American temperament, the relationship works. "

The book started as a cheap romance but turned up as very nice and intelligent. It`s a novel about love and change in a mature age. It`s a love letter to Venice, to Italy,and of course, to the Italian stranger Fernando. It celebrates the joy of life and welcomes

Bulgarian Diaries by Count Robert de Burbulont (in Bulgarian).

A collection of correspondence of Count Robert de Burbulont- a secretary of Tsar Ferdinand Sax-Koburg and Great Chambalain of the palace. Very interesting observations about Bulgarians, their character and struggle for independance.

Stephen Fry- Making History

A graduate history student and a Holocaust survivor embark on an historical experiment to change the course of history.

184 pages read so far

Total pages- 926.