Bestselling Travel Memoir: Excerpts from As the Romans Do

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 .Just Another Day in the Piazza:
The Show Must Go On
2. To Stay or Not to Stay:
Summer in the City
3. Centro Storico:
Meandering through the Heart of History
4. The Latest Martyr at the Colosseum:
Will He or Won't He?

5. Buon Compleanno, Giuseppe:
An Operatic Celebration
6. Sciopero:
Rome Strikes Again
7. Monte Palatino:
The "City" on the Hill
8. Business, But Not as Usual:
Money Isn't Everything
9. La Bella Figura:
The Flesh and Flash of Roman Women
10. Buon Appetito:
The Tasty Trattoria
11. La Famiglia:
Ties that Bind
12. Santa Pazienza:
The Art of Waiting, Metropolitan Pastime
13. Functional Anarchy:
Who's In Charge of This Meeting?
14. Che Bello:
Children Should Be Seen & Heard
15. Why Romans Are So Sexy:
Close Encounters of Every Kind
16. The Smallest Big City in the World
The Intimacies of Daily Life
17. Hanging the Wash & Other Joys
Romans Don't Trust Technology
18. For Men Only:
Dinner after Eight
19. Sunday in the City:
An Early Morning Run
20. Outsiders:
A Jew in Rome Is Not Like a Jew in New York
21. Breakfast in a Bar:
The Coffee Culture
22. Calcio:
The Only Game in Town
23. Retro Romans Still Do It All:
Smoking, Drinking, Sex, Fur Coats, & Suntans
24. Breaking Bread in Rome:
Hidden Bakeries
25. Mi Scusi:
Romans Forgive -- and Forget
26. Exodus:
Weekends and Getaways
27. Latin Lovers:
Real Men Don't Wear Sneakers
28. Not Only for Sale:
The Artistic Approach to Life
29. James Joyce Slept Here:
Everyone Who Is Anyone Has Passed Through
30. Rome at the Crossroads:
Natives & Immigrants through the Eyes of an ex-Pat
31. The Many Faces of Rome:
Getting Ready for the Party of the Millenniun



 

Introduction

"Imagine being three thousand years old. Suppose by some mysterious process you had managed to avoid the limitations of mortality, and year after year you keep going, adding more and more experiences to your life story until you have no choice but to repeat them because you have exhausted all possibilities.

You are the very essence of what it means to be human. You have had more than your share of victories and defeats, triumphs and tragedies, moments of glory and those of abjection, times when you wish you had never been born, and times when you want to go on forever. You have loved and lost, have abandoned and been left behind, been rich and poor, skinny and fat, lived high on the hog and been forced to scramble for a few morsels of stale bread. You have seen it all, done it all, regretted it all, and then gone back and done it all again.

You are la citta' eterna, Rome, the Eternal City.

To live in Rome is to have the capacity to endure everything life has to offer -- moments of timeless beauty followed by torrents of ugliness, the bella and the brutta mixed together in a bowl of hot minestrone that has left nothing out, that encourages you to live life from a completely different perspective. There is no more mature place on earth, and that maturity has something to teach you. Other cities may be older, but Rome still lives its past. Walk anywhere in the city or the areas surrounding it, and within minutes you are confronted with the remains of something that could be up to twenty-five hundred years old, that functioned and was vital to the daily life of the romani....

This is Rome and the Romans who live in it, a city and a people of contrasts and effusion, a place that has lived so many different lives, in so many different epochs, that all it wants to do now is exist in eternity according to the wisdom of what it has learned. The lessons are obvious. Life is to be lived passionately, excessively, publicly -- in bars, restaurants, streets and piazzas -- applying charm and style mixed with a healthy respect for tradition. Romans have big appetites, for theatrical experiences as well as exquisite food."



Excertps from As the Romans Do:
Chapter 19: Sunday in the City

Escape from America Magazine:
" Alan Epstein takes us through Rome as few others have the ability to do. His book "As The Romans Do" is a book every intended and current expatriate and visitor will want to read. Alan and his family live in Rome and make it abundantly clear that they intend to stay.This fine sketch of Rome is rendered all the more dynamic by the excellent photographs of Diane Epstein."

 

As the Romans Do
Diane & Alan Epstein featured in the media:

Oprah Winfrey Show
Books Seen on the Show
Past Shows: Choose Your Life, June 21, 2000

Redbook Magazine
Dream Job, Fantasy Life, January 2001 issue

 


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Publicity Contact

Sharyn Rosenblum
Publicist, 212- 207-7470
William Morrow/ A Division of Harper Collins Publishers
10 East 53rd Street
New York, NY 10022

As the Romans Do: The Delights, Dramas, & An American Family's Italian Odyssey
Author: Alan Epstein
ISBN# 0-688-17272-5

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