The first time Margie Miklas went to Italy she fell in love with the country and the people. Having dreamed of the chance to return and stay for an extended period of time, she embarked on a solo adventure and left for Italy in the spring of 2011. Spending months planning an itinerary that would take her to almost every region of Italy from the Aosta Valley to Sicily, she traveled to over fifty towns in the three months she spent there. Not speaking Italian, she learned the language by taking private lessons from a teacher who grew up in Italy. Armed with this knowledge, she was able to communicate with people she met along the way, and experience the lifestyle and culture of the Italian people. She went back to the villages of her grandparents, walked the same streets they had walked, and discovered cousins she never knew she had. "Memoirs of a Solo Traveler - My Love Affair with Italy" is based on Margie's blog, margieinitaly, which she wrote from Italy.

The story of a single woman's travels to Italy from the age of 17 through retirement. The book details all the types of accommodations such as the agriturismi, the apartments, farmhouses, vineyards, and riding centers she stayed and the romances and friends acquired along the way. Each chapter begins with the author's life at home and the reasons she returns each time.

Allison Jamison has dedicated her life to sick and disabled patients. When she takes a job as a critical-care nurse at a prominent hospital, corruptive practices threaten to shatter her illusions. An element of evil lurks around every corner... from the nurse's station to the staff lounge. Stifled by hospital politics, she must find a way to expose the wrongdoers. Even if it means risking her job.

Now a limited Netflix series starring Zoe Saldana! This Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick and New York Times bestseller is “a captivating story of love lost and found” (Kirkus Reviews) set in the lush Sicilian countryside, where one woman discovers the healing powers of food, family, and unexpected grace in her darkest hours. It was love at first sight when actress Tembi met professional chef, Saro, on a street in Florence. There was just one problem: Saro’s traditional Sicilian family did not approve of his marrying a black American woman. However, the couple, heartbroken but undeterred, forged on. They built a happy life in Los Angeles, with fulfilling careers, deep friendships, and the love of their lives: a baby girl they adopted at birth. Eventually, they reconciled with Saro’s family just as he faced a formidable cancer that would consume all their dreams. From Scratch chronicles three summers Tembi spends in Sicily with her daughter, Zoela, as she begins to piece together a life without her husband in his tiny hometown hamlet of farmers. Where once Tembi was estranged from Saro’s family, now she finds solace and nourishment—literally and spiritually—at her mother-in-law’s table. In the Sicilian countryside, she discovers the healing gifts of simple fresh food, the embrace of a close knit community, and timeless traditions and wisdom that light a path forward. All along the way she reflects on her and Saro’s romance—an incredible love story that leaps off the pages. In Sicily, it is said that every story begins with a marriage or a death—in Tembi Locke’s case, it is both. “Locke’s raw and heartfelt memoir will uplift readers suffering from the loss of their own loved ones” (Publishers Weekly), but her story is also about love, finding a home, and chasing flavor as an act of remembrance. From Scratch is for anyone who has dared to reach for big love, fought for what mattered most, and those who needed a powerful reminder that life is...delicious.

Her travel book captures the allure of Italy's Amalfi Coast, as Margie Miklas takes us on a journey of personal experiences through storytelling. An award-winning author and travel blogger, Margie has traveled to the Amalfi Coast more than any other area of Italy and has fallen in love with the beauty of its rugged landscape and rocky coastline. Through real-life stories, humor, travel advice, and practical information, she'll entice you to plan your next trip and maybe even experience your own love affair. Discover: Various transportation options and how to get around Less touristy towns and other hidden gems Local people who are happy to share their passion The cities that make the best hubs for day excursions The location that provided the inspiration to write The Amalfi Coast is waiting for you. All you have to do is make it happen. The helpful hints in this book will get you started.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The beloved memoir of self-discovery set against the spectacular Tuscan countryside that inspired the major motion picture starring Diane Lane—now in a twentieth-anniversary edition featuring a new afterword “This beautifully written memoir about taking chances, living in Italy, loving a house and, always, the pleasures of food, would make a perfect gift for a loved one. But it’s so delicious, read it first yourself.”—USA Today For more Frances Mayes, including a tour of her now iconic Cortona home, Bramasole, watch PBS’s Dream of Italy: Tuscan Sun Special! More than twenty years ago, Frances Mayes—widely published poet, gourmet cook, and travel writer—introduced readers to a wondrous new world when she bought and restored an abandoned Tuscan villa called Bramasole. Under the Tuscan Sun inspired generations to embark on their own journeys—whether that be flying to a foreign country in search of themselves, savoring one of the book’s dozens of delicious seasonal recipes, or simply being transported by Mayes’s signature evocative, sensory language. Now with a new afterword from Frances Mayes, the twentieth-anniversary edition of Under the Tuscan Sun revisits the book’s most popular characters.

SOLO IN SALENTO BEGINS WITH A LIE. Desperate to break out of a life haunted by a wretched past, a loss of faith, toxic relationships, a stressful management career, and a slow sink into domestication, Donna craves time away from everything and everyone, including her loving husband. So she lies, telling everyone she is traveling alone to research a novel she intends to write. While in Otranto, Donna masters the complex recycling system of a country where she doesn't speak the language. By applying these same trash rules to her own life, she discovers that she can sort, recycle, and discard the personal garbage that has plagued her over a lifetime. The book's universal themes of personal growth and travel invite you to come along on this transformational journey filled with mysterious sacred places, culinary delights, and the possibility of being kidnapped. Readers seeking personal realization, along with active travelers, courageous wannabe travelers, and armchair travelers, will be drawn into the magic.

"Luca Spaghetti is not only one of my favorite people in the world, but also a natural-born storyteller. . . . This [is a] marvelous book." -Elizabeth Gilbert When Luca Spaghetti (yes, that's really his name) was asked to show a writer named Elizabeth Gilbert around Rome, he had no idea how his life was about to change. She embraced his Roman ebullience, and Luca in turn became her guardian angel, determined that his city would help Liz out of her funk. Filled with colorful anecdotes about food, language, soccer, daily life in Rome, and Luca's own fish-out-of-water moments as a visitor to the United States-and culminating with the episodes in Liz's bestselling memoir, told from Luca's side of the table-Un Amico Italiano is a book that no fan of Eat, Pray, Love will want to miss.

Rachel Friedman has always been the consummate good girl who does well in school and plays it safe, so the college grad surprises no one more than herself when, on a whim (and in an effort to escape impending life decisions), she buys a ticket to Ireland, a place she has never visited. There she forms an unlikely bond with a free-spirited Australian girl, a born adventurer who spurs Rachel on to a yearlong odyssey that takes her to three continents, fills her life with newfound friends, and gives birth to a previously unrealized passion for adventure. As her journey takes her to Australia and South America, Rachel discovers and embraces her love of travel and unlocks more truths about herself than she ever realized she was seeking. Along the way, the erstwhile good girl finally learns to do something she’s never done before: simply live for the moment.

Literary tourism is a nascent field in tourism studies, yet tourists often travel in the footsteps of well-known authors and stories. Providing a wide-ranging cornucopia of literary tourism topics, this book fully explores the interconnections between the written word and travel. It includes tourism stories using guidebooks, films, television and electronic media, and recognises that stories, texts and narratives, even if they cannot be classified as traditional travel writing, can become journeys in themselves and take us on imaginary voyages. Appealing to a wide audience of different disciplines, it encompasses subjects such as business literary writing, historical journeys and the poetry of Dylan Thomas. The use of these different perspectives demonstrates how heavily and widely literature influences travel, tourists and tourism, making it an important read for researchers and students of tourism, social science and literature.