Italy, My Beautiful Obsession

Book excerpt: Italy, My Beautiful Obsession: An American Italophile Falls in Love is a travel memoir based on the author's many decades of visiting Italy. Fowler's extensive art and music education, as well as her experience as an artist and performer enable her to bring Italy's very appearance and treasured heritage vividly to mind. The book starts with her first arrival in Italy as a young woman and having to deal with the bureaucracy (a tale amusingly told!) in order to get married in Rome in 1951. It is based on her meticulously detailed private journals. This book is insightful, informative, innovative and entertaining. The author explores every aspect of Italian life and culture as she experienced it; delving into, analyzing, and revealing the essence of what makes Italy the destination of choice for so many people. She covers subjects from the country's topography to its food, its architecture and its language, to its awesome culture, its wonderful people, and more. This highly readable book appeals to those experienced travellers who have already been to Italy, know they love it, and never tire of reading about it. It also appeals to those considering vacationing in Italy, whetting the appetite to visit more than just the few highlights afforded by packaged tours. Everything in the book is seen and described through the author's personal prism. Neither a guide book nor a cook book, Italy, My Beautiful Obession contains elements of both, presented in a most enjoyable way.