Superficiality doesn’t run much deeper than this: If you know next to nothing about Italy, are never planning to visit, and are perfectly content to allow your impressions of the country be informed by *Under the Tuscan Sun*-like romanticism and shameless, treacly sentimentality, then *Four Seasons in Rome* is the travel book for you. Otherwise, Doerr’s constant doses of high-sugar, low-fiber commentary about his and his family’s year in Rome are only going to have you reaching for your insulin

After finishing All the Light We Cannot See, I’ll confess I was a bit addicted to Doerr’s lovely writing. Since we were about to take a trip to Rome, I thought I would pick up this travelogue about Doerr’s year in Rome as a creative writing resident. He describes the city with love and nostalgia, capturing Rome at its funniest and most breathtaking. It’s difficult to say something new about a city that has captured imaginations for millennia, but Doerr manages to do so in this story of an Idaho

What a book ! Sensual, Captivating and beautifully written. Anthony Doerr finds himself in the heart of Rome shortly after his twin boys were born. Having received the Rome Prize, an award that gave him a year-long stipend and studio in Rome he embraces the adventure and moves his family to the Eternal City. I loved so much about this book, the writing is poetic, lyrical and so vivid, the author's descriptions of Rome through the seasons are breathtaking. This is a short read at 205 pages but D

Humorless self-important dude lives in Rome for a year with his wife and newborn twins. Dude muses about Rome. Dude muses about history. Dude muses about parenthood. Dude muses about musing. Dude thinks that writing short sentences and fragments makes. The banal. More interesting. Dude's wife passes out from exhaustion and dehydration because she's been taking care of the twins by herself while dude muses. Dude muses about this for a while before he takes her to the hospital. Dude muses about th...

On the day that his twin sons were born, Anthony Doerr received a letter informing him that he had won the Rome Prize. He was given a small apartment, a studio at the American Academy, and a monthly stipend to spend a year writing in the Eternal City. Six months later, he and his wife bundled up the twins and flew from Idaho to Italy.Doerr writes about the challenges of parenting twins, especially the lack of sleep, and the love he feels for them. Communicating in Italian is another difficult ta...

I am surprised by how disappointed I was while listening to Doerr read this memoir which takes place over the course of a year in Rome. The only other book of Doerr's which I have read is All the Light We Cannot See which I loved and is a favorite. I was looking to revisit Rome through Doerr's eyes and narrative, but I never felt fully engaged which always kills a book for me. Doerr kept me at a distance and pulled me out of his leapfrogging narrative with his constant (over)use of metaphor and

I have a love affair with Italy having had the great fortune to visit it two years in a row (2010 and 2011). Venice and Florence were easy falls/love at first sight, Rome not so much. Needless to say spectacular even the first time around (it is Rome after all!), it was much more rough and tumble -- requiring more from the tourist... a bit of work, having to earn it a bit (or a lot) more than the other two locales. But on the second time around, the city easily revealed its charm almost immediat...

The day his wife gave birth to twin boys, Doerr found out he won a fellowship he hadn't applied for: a year in Rome with all expenses paid so he can write. Six months later Anthony and Shauna, Henry and Owen, leave Boise and move to Rome. He lives in the same neighborhood Julius Caesar lived and sits in the garden where Galileo sat. Ponder that! The book he was preparing to write was All the Light We Cannot See. [Now that he's moved to Paris, I'm kicking myself for not driving a few hours to Boi...

This is a lovely and enjoyable travelogue from an American writer who spent a year in Rome on a fellowship. I picked it up not just because I like travel memoirs, but also because I recently read Anthony Doerr's excellent novel All the Light We Cannot See, and he had been working on that book while he was in Rome back in 2004.Doerr and his wife moved to Italy when their twins were newborns, so besides the travel vignettes and insightful comments from a writer talking about the process of writing...

Every morning I try to remind myself to give unreservedly, to pore over everything, to test each sentence for fractures in a dream.-Anthony DoerrI read this memoir because I want to travel to Rome someday. Yet people who know me or follow my reading habits also know how much of an Anthony Doerr fan I am: his story collection, The Shell Collector, is one of my favorite story collections; his novel, All the Light We Cannot See, was the first novel I reviewed this year and is a favorite read of 202...

This was a great read - thank you Anthony Doerr for winning the award that gave you a year in Rome with your wife and babies! I definitely connected with this little memoir as I was totally soaking up the imagery and play by play in anticipation of being in Rome in about a month! I also related so well to the exhaustion of little baby boys! I loved the insight and pondering....how we view such "old world or "old history" in this modern digital society. And now I have a little bit better understa...

I love Rome and this book reminded me why. There is a lot in here about the author's kids and his writing (it is a memoir), but it's all interesting. I love his descriptions of Rome. One of my faves is (I think I'll get his right)--as he's describing all the contradictions and nuances of Rome, he uses the phrase..a metaphor along the lines of Rome being a dress strap that slipped off the shoulder. (obviously his wording is much more lovely). But, that's a great comparison for the City-- all at o...

Anthony Doerr received a writing studio for one year in Rome as part of an award he won. WOW. So he packed up his newborn twins, his wife and spent four seasons in Rome. The man has a way with words whether he is writing fiction or nonfiction. He writes beautifully which is one of the reasons I loved his book "All the Light We Cannot See". I enjoyed the descriptive quality of his writing and I enjoyed his passion, not only for his writing and his family, but for all of his surroundings.

This book gave me a lot of mixed feelings. I was looking forward to reading a book set in Italy, and of course reading about other people's sleep and parenting woes is one of my hobbies. Once I started reading, I was pleased at how well-written it was. And I think a special award should go to anyone who pens lines such as, "Trying to dress [the twins:] after a bath is like trying to put pajamas on a mackeral" or "This, I suppose, is what it means to look after two babies: any attempt to make you...