And what an amazing picture of the Italian coast! I want to go there. I’m surprised that scene has not been utilized for numerous jigsaw puzzles.

Welcome back, BL.

Hello U-Dad — The whole thing makes me want to read that Tomalin Hardy bio and maybe some of those gushy poems to his wife.

BEN! It’s like a KFOG quiz at 9:00 a.m. — I need to give you some concert tickets or something for guessing (knowing, I mean) the answer to Polaris’s question. I guess my hardy, I mean hearty, congratulations will have to do. (And thank you for that bit about Byron. His name is everywhere in Italy — what a guy!)

Mary, you crack me up. The thought of anybody breathing a sigh of relief about anything I’ve done (except maybe forgetting to remind them to brush their teeth) makes me laugh.

And Byron. On my last trip to Europe, I visited Chateau Chillon on lake Geneva and read his poem, “Prisoner of Chillon” in the dungeon, not far from where Bryon carved his name on a pillar. Literary tourism is wonderful.

It is very good to have you back!

Kidding aside, welcome back. You’ve been missed.

Danielle — Wouldn’t it be great, someday, to have a small house in some wonderful country like Italy? Or England (between May and October)? Or France (if one spoke French). I’ve got to stop spending so much money on shoes and books, though, or I’ll never be able to do that.

Kate, I love knowing that about Hardy and his wife! Isn’t Claire Tomalin really, astonishingly, good? I thought her biography of Pepys was incredibly well done, and I am right in the middle of the one about Dickens’s mistress, Ellen Ternan. I didn’t know she’d done one of Hardy — a writer I really like — I’m so glad to hear about it and looking forward to reading that soon.

Hey Archie — I’d love to know more about those Dickens difficulties. I have some of my own. But I began Our Mutual Friend not long ago (that and the bio of Ellen Ternan are keeping me busy these days), and love it — it’s very, very funny. By the way, there’s some Archie-related news coming up in the next day or so, so stay tuned, okay?

Edwin — “If I was forced to have someone eat my heart,” says my son Jack, “it would have to be [insert dog's name here].” You’re so right on Edwin! And thank you for your kind words. It’s making my entire weekend complete.

Brava Bella Tai! xo, BL

You know Sandi & Yogamum, I never heard any of this stuff when I was an English major either. In fact, the lives of the poets and novelists were not really of all that much interest. It was the TEXT we were after apparently. How borrrrring. I’ll take the hearts, and the hugely disfunctional relationships, and the weird, wild lapses in judgment any old day.

Well Nova, I do remember one really drunken evening when a bunch of English grad students sat around the table after a really good dinner and everybody tried to come up with the writer who’d had the WORST life. Ted Hughes with his two suicidal wives, comes to mind…

Thank you Helen! (By the way, I really like your new site. It’s very cool looking, and fun.)

Polaris, You, being you, would naturally have committed the names of the five towns to memory and would be able, like my friend C, to recite them even in your sleep or after a good dinner. I, however, could never keep them straight so I am afraid the answer to your question will have to come from someone more attentive and much smarter than I. But you know what? I do remember that restaurant in the tower in Vernaza — we hiked up there, because we thought it was the way to the next town, only it wasn’t, so we hiked back down.

Hey Jana, Luscious and icky!! That’s just so accurate.

There’s a very interesting essay by Hermione Lee on the whole business of Shelley’s heart in her book “Virginia Woolf’s Nose: Essays on Biography.” I hadn’t heard about Hardy’s heart, but I’m currently in the midst of Claire Tomalin’s biography of him and read there that immediately after his wife’s death he wrote reams of love poems to her, apparently overcome with remorse for those ten years of silence. Fascinating stuff, this literary biography!