La Bella Lingua by Dianne Hales

For all you Italophiles and Italians out there, here's a book that you all should read. The book is titled La Bella Lingua: My Love Affair with Italian, The World's Most Enchanting Language by Dianne Hales. I don't know about Italian being the world's most enchanting languages, but it is the world's most beautiful and one of the easiest to learn. Unlike German and Dutch, which use mostly consonants and harsh, gutteral sounds (English, unfortunately, being derived from the two) Italian flows freely on the tongue and awakens the senses. Dianne, being a WASP married to a fellow WASP and living in the most WASP-y part of the US (New England) clearly loves Italy and everything Italian. Here are some interesting occurrences mentioned in the book.

• she kissed an older Italian man under the moonlight when she travelled to Italy for the first time
• she claims to speak Italian fluently and has many Italian friends
• she met Italian director Marcello Mastroianni during a screening of one of his films
• she bantered with internationally acclaimed Italian actor Roberto Begnini
• she spent a great deal of time studying the famed Italian poets, painters and composers such as Dante, Petrarch, Michelangelo and Puccini

Of course, I don't want to give them all away. As a reader, half the fun is making your own discoveries. If this book doesn't get you on the next flight to Italy, I don't know what will. I plan to book my own trip to Italy very soon. It'll be the first of many adventures, I'm sure. Mario Batali, the famed Italian chef and TV personality, says that there are two types of people: the Italians and the people who want to be Italian. After reading this book, I belong to the latter.