Read This, Then That: An Italian Getaway with a Newfoundland Twist

Read this: If you loved Elizabeth Gilbert’s fabulous memoir Eat Pray Love (and who didn’t?)…Then That: …then you’ll want to grab love, life with both hands and dive in. Eat Pray Love struck a chord with its deep-seated honesty, self-deprecating humour, and brilliant glimpses into self-love. We fell head-over-heels for Elizabeth Gilbert. Her candid, food-loving, meditation-resisting journey toward herself called to our inner dreamers. There’s a reason we all need and love books like this. It’s like having a best friend who sits on your bookshelf and keeps on giving, even as the pages become worn and dog-eared from being read over and over. Bernardine Ann Teráz Stapleton gifts us with a book worthy of a place on that shelf, one with an exceptional Newfoundland twist. You’ll go from head-over-heels to arse-over-kettle. In love, life a Newfoundlander inexplicably finds an irresistible connection with Italy. She eats her weight in pasta, falls in love with Italians who fall in love with older women, and has a passionate love affair with the only female gondolier in all of Italia. If you’ve ever struggled with a diet, hated your naked self, or surveyed your closet stuffed with clothes, moaning that you’ve nothing to wear, you need to read this book. It’s funny, wickedly observant, and tender-hearted: a mostly true made-up fable about getting fat, eating Italy, and accepting the love letter that is our own life.“My pasta is so fresh it had flung itself at my plate. The white fish and calamari followed suit. The ravioli slaps our faces. We only stop eating out of politeness for all the eating we plan to do later.”Italy may seem like an unattainable dream in this pandemic moment, yet the world continues to rotate on its axis, and books like love, life allow us to keep our dreams and curiosity alive.“The past is never really gone. It runs parallel with the present, waiting for the perfect moment to bite. This is how we become arse-bitten.”The story begins with our heroine becoming entrapped in a dysfunctional Spanx, and unwinds through a magical country where attractions hide from the over-eager tourists, hail breaks like a heart upon cobblestones, and we all discover the best thing to wear, ever. A one size fits all. Promise.

 

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 A special thank you to Bernardine Ann Teraz Stapleton for sharing love, life in this edition of Read This, Then That and for Nicole Haldoupis at Breakwater Books for connecting us!