GETTING AROUND: Train travel among the cities should be arranged in advance during tourist season. Tckets are available through Trenitalia (trenitalia.com). Here's where to have coffee: Venice Caffe Florian Procuratie Nuove, Piazza San Marco 011-39-041-520-5641 caffeflorian.com Supposedly the oldest cafe in Italy. Walk to the back bar for an espresso to avoid the high table…
May 20, 2012
Italy
For the espresso obsessed (like me), visiting Italy is like journeying to Mecca: Caffeine-loving crusaders seek answers by crossing time, language and cultural barriers to visit the drink's motherland. And although it's not a sip from an Islamic holy well, this potent secular beverage does transport devotees to a higher plane - if only until the jitters wear off. Sacred spots are…
May 20, 2012
Swim. The single, solitary, one-syllable word that makes up the title of this wonderful book makes the author's intention - and her passion - crystal clear. Swim, it reminds us. But is the title of Lynn Sherr's book a command, a suggestion, an exhortation? That one word on the cover leaves us in no doubt as to the focus we'll find on the pages within. This slim volume is not about…
May 20, 2012
India
Kumar Jain's small shop in Zaveri Bazaar, Mumbai's labyrinthine jewelry district, has the feverish atmosphere of a Wall Street trading room. Women wave calculators, quote the latest global gold prices and haggle fiercely over bangles laid out on velvet trays. These buyers are thinking about finance rather than finery. "Money can change value," said Jain, as he watched his shop…
May 18, 2012
The Kentucky Derby - the gleaming gem of the Triple Crown - is a merry-go-round of money, bourbon, horse flesh and more money. It's a festival of speed, a party of the wildest order and a celebration of Southern charm that has come to embody American sports. The tradition continued yesterday when the country's 20 best 3-year-old thoroughbreds took part in the 138th running of the…
May 6, 2012
In 2007, at the conclusion of a press conference at the Seoul Foreign Correspondents' Club, a young man received an unusual request: He was asked to remove his trousers. A reporter had found the story he had just told so astonishing that she demanded physical evidence of its veracity. Trembling, the man did so. A horrified gasp went around the room: his lower body was a lacework…
May 6, 2012
The most striking sentence of President Obama's eloquent speech to the nation Tuesday night came very near the end: "This time of war began in Afghanistan, and this is where it will end." Would that it were so. Would that it were so that the Sept. 11 attacks marked the beginning of a period whose end is soon approaching. The president thinks this, and the American people would…
May 4, 2012
Q&A
In 2009, the movie In the Loop introduced Americans to Scottish writer-producer Armando Iannucci's caustic brand of political humor. In that film, foul-mouthed Malcolm Tucker, the central character from Iannucci's long-running British sitcom The Thick of It, and a group of British pols ventured into the offices and committee rooms of Washington, D.C. In his new HBO show Veep, which…
April 22, 2012
The plot of Carol Anshaw's new novel would seem to be about the ramifications of a single, tragic event. What it really is about is narcissism in its most extreme forms. Following Carmen's wedding, her brother Nick and his girlfriend, Olivia, along with Carmen's sister Alice, her new love object and a bedraggled folk singer are driving away from the bucolic farm where the wedding…
April 22, 2012
On the 100th anniversary of the wreck of the Titanic, our fascination with the ill-fated ship appears bottomless. Surely, that's in part because we can't help contemplating the queasy-making moral choices - women and children first! - that in many cases determined who sank or survived. Charlotte Rogan manages to distill this drama about what's right and wrong when the answer means…
April 22, 2012
Perhaps the most interesting thing about Chris Pavone's The Expats is that his offbeat spy story has become that rarity - a first novel on its way to major commercial success. Here's some background: Pavone spent two decades in New York publishing, but when his wife took a job in Luxembourg, he went along in the role of househusband. His new life somehow inspired - such are the…
April 22, 2012
Every day across the United States, families struggle with the challenges of mental illness and substance abuse. The 68 million Americans with these issues include people of all income levels, races and political affiliations. Mental illness does not discriminate. Often, the difference between being overwhelmed as a family or meeting the challenges head-on and making progress against…
April 15, 2012
A Virginia mall is the backdrop for Die Buying, a fun mystery by Laura DiSilverio (Berkley Prime Crime; paperback, $7.99). After her military career was cut short by a roadside bomb, E.J. Ferris couldn't get hired by a real police department, so she chafes at that "mall cop" title while patrolling the food courts and slick storefronts of Fernglen Galleria on her Segway. When a body…
April 15, 2012
Cornelius Mack; Neither the Yankees nor years Can halt his attack. Ogden Nash wrote that verse about Cornelius McGillicuddy, who shortened his name to Connie Mack to fit into a baseball box score. Mack had a modest career as a catcher, hitting only .246 over 11 seasons, but he managed in the big leagues for 53 years, winning and losing more games than any other skipper in baseball…
April 15, 2012
