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Title: Eternal City
Review: The word "journal" is part of this book's title, and it doesn't pretend to be anything else. After all, Paul Hoffman is a journalist. I've had the great good fortune to visit the Eternal City a few times, and reading Seasons is like taking another stroll along back streets and famous venues. It brought back happy memories and also reminders that Rome is a huge, noisy metropolis that is difficult to traverse. Hoffman also highlights that fact that Rome is populated by, well, Romans, as well as millions of other Italians, and conveys a sense of what it is like to live an ordinary life in an extraordinary place. The city described by this author is modern and genuine, and Hoffman's essays are devoid of the self-congratulatory tone of many other travel writers. This book is real.
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