John Berendt shares what he learned about the city of Venice and its people in the months following the fire that destroyed the city's historic Fenice Opera House.

'A Room with a View' portrays the love of a British woman for an expatriate living in Italy. Caught up in a world of social snobbery, Forster''s heroine, Lucy Honeychurch, finds herself constrained by the claustrophobic influence of her British guardians, who encourage her to take up with a well-connected boor. In the end, however, Lucy takes control of her own fate and finds love with a man whose free spirit reminds her of "a room with a view."

In this sequel to her" New York Times" bestsellers" Under the Tuscan Sun" and" Bella Tuscany," the celebrated "bard of Tuscany" ("New York Times") Frances Mayes lyrically chronicles her continuing, two decades-long love affair with Tuscany's people,

Here is the dazzling saga of two women: the brilliant, bookish Elena and the fiery, uncontainable Lila. Both are now adults; many of life's great discoveries have been made, its vagaries and losses have been suffered. Through it all, the women's friendship has remained the gravitational center of their lives. Both women once fought to escape the neighborhood in which they grew up--a prison of conformity, violence, and inviolable taboos. Elena married,...