FOUR SEASONS IN ROME: On Twins, Insomnia and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World - Couverture souple

"Anthony Doerr is dazzling in this book, in the way he celebrates the joys as well as the pain of being a parent and in love, being a writer and being in Rome, reminding us that certain experiences never grow stale when they are expressed through the fresh eyes of a real writer."
-- Azar Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran

"Doerr's journal is a love letter written with the ear of a musician, the sensibility of a Buddha, the heart of an inamorato. Rome is the chosen beloved, but Doerr's true subject is writing."
-- Sandra Cisneros, author of Caramelo

"I loved this book which, in turn, made me laugh and weep at the relentless twins, Owen and Henry, who never sleep, the descriptions of Rome, the clouds, the light -- especially the light -- the people Doerr meets on the street, again the light, Pliny, Jonah's feet dangling from the Sistine Chapel ceiling, Shauna's steadfastness, Doerr's generous and intelligent spirit, his discerning eye and his perfect prose. Complimenti!"
-- Lily Tuck, author of Interviewing Matisse

"Anthony Doerr found himself in the perfect Eternal City with the eternal Paternal Problem: how to care for two beautiful newborn twins while still doing his work as a writer and student and observer. The result is a funny, precise, touching account of cultural barricades crossed and fatherly exhaustions overcome; a story of the universalities of parenting and the specificities of Roman life that will lift the heart of every parent and delight the mind of every lover of Italy."
-- Adam Gopnik, author of Through the Children's Gate and From Paris to the Moon

Anthony Doerr, the Pulitzer Prize­–­winning author of All the Light We Cannot See, reads his 2007 memoir, Four Seasons in Rome—available on audio for the very first time!

On the day Tony Doerr and his wife returned from the hospital with their newborn twins, he received a letter from the Academy of Arts and Letters informing him that he had won the prestigious Rome Prize, which provides a stipend, an apartment, and a writing studio at the beautiful American Academy for a year. Six months and a few Italian lessons later, they arrived in Rome.

Insatiably curious, an avid reader, and an extraordinary eloquent observer of nature, Doerr sets out to discover Rome. He reads Pliny, Dante, Shelley and visits the churches and piazzas and ancient cisterns they describe. He reads the history of the papacy and attends the vigil as Pope John Paul II lies dying. He takes his twins to the Pantheon in December to wait for snow to fall through the oculus. And he and his family are embraced by the butchers, grocers, and bakers in their little neighborhood on a Roman hill.

For anyone who loves Rome—or wants to know it—this is a gorgeous, informative audiobook. It is also an illuminating account of how a writer transforms experience into sentences, how this writer sees and captures the world.