Four Seasons in Rome - Anthony Doerr

Four Seasons in Rome

By Anthony Doerr

  • Release Date: 2007-06-12
  • Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Score: 4
4
From 337 Ratings

Description

From the author of the acclaimed Pulitzer Prize-winning #1 New York Times bestseller All the Light We Cannot See and Cloud Cuckoo Land, a "dazzling" (Azar Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran) memoir about art and adventures in Rome.

Anthony Doerr has received many awards—from the New York Public Library, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the American Library Association. Then came the Rome Prize, one of the most prestigious awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and with it a stipend and a writing studio in Rome for a year. Doerr learned of the award the day he and his wife returned from the hospital with newborn twins.

Exquisitely observed, Four Seasons in Rome describes Doerr's varied adventures in one of the most enchanting cities in the world. He reads Pliny, Dante, and Keats—the chroniclers of Rome who came before him—and visits the piazzas, temples, and ancient cisterns they describe. He attends the vigil of a dying Pope John Paul II and takes his twins to the Pantheon in December to wait for snow to fall through the oculus. He and his family are embraced by the butchers, grocers, and bakers of the neighborhood, whose clamor of stories and idiosyncratic child-rearing advice is as compelling as the city itself.

This intimate and revelatory book is a celebration of Rome, a wondrous look at new parenthood, and a fascinating story of a writer's craft—the process by which he transforms what he sees and experiences into sentences.

Reviews

  • Four Seasons in Rome

    5
    By Jenny Rae Muir
    Impossibly wonderful writing, full of beauty, surprise and love. I will be reading it again, and again.
  • A wonderful journey beautifully described!

    5
    By AnneMRld
    Loved this intimate walk with a beautiful young family during their year-long adventure in Rome. I was there in September of 2004, and have been longing for an extended trip back. Thank you to Andrew Doerr, as you brought to life all of my senses, intricately weaving color and images to allow me the feeling of being there with you. Thanks for bringing me along! I highly recommend this read right now, January 2022, because it is a reminder of how beautiful our human experience is. -Annie, Boston, MA
  • Exquisitely Poingant

    5
    By Gogo Kitty
    This book captures the mystery and eternity of Rome in the most personal ways. I am reading in preparation of a return trip to Rome. Each page instills longing to see what Doerr sees and go where he goes. The everyday lives of this simple family provide a wonderous journey through Rome's neighborhoods and centuries. I am captivated and will read again and again.
  • Four Seasons in Rome

    5
    By Hat36
    If you have just finished All the Light We Cannot See, and want to read more by Anthony Doerr; if you have spent time in Rome; if you have traveled with small children, this is an very amusing book, and a great read.