Writing & Reading

Summer Dog Days–Time for Streaming & Reading August 2023 All Things Italy 

By Etta Madden | July 28, 2023
Dear Friends:  Since returning from Italy last month, I’ve hunkered down in Missouri. On a neighborhood walk this week, I saw some local grapes fattening...

A Sicilian Memoir: Simeti’s On Persephone’s Island

By Etta Madden | January 30, 2021
Mandarins and pears at an open market in Sicily. Photo: Andrew Malone , Wikimedia Commons via Flickr Mary Taylor Simeti’s memoir of...

Riding the Winter Waves: Reading for Health 

By Etta Madden | January 2, 2021
Elizabeth Blackwell writing on happiness in 1845 Here’s the second part to a post from just after Thanksgiving 2020, “Riding the Holiday...