About this item
A charming epistolary novel that chronicles the love story between Emma and Frederico, former high school sweethearts who meet again thirty years later.At Dreams & Desires, 50-year-old Emma's quaint bookshop in Milan dedicated to romantic fiction, the passionate bookseller serves coffee and tea to her customers and completes order slips in pen rather than using a computer. One day, she finds a mysterious handwritten note stuck between the pages of a novel. The message is from her high school sweetheart Frederico, who is now a successful architect in New York and whom she hasn't seen in thirty years. When she finally meets Frederico again, Emma is convinced that her life is about to turn into a romance novel - an intercontinental fairy tale between Milan and New York, between two post office boxes and two lovers that are separated by the Atlantic Ocean and half a life. But Frederico is married, and their epistolary romance, punctuated by once-a-year sojourns on the island of Belle Ile, seems to have no future. Paola Calvetti's PO Box Love is an ode to old-fashioned relationships (the ones that last a lifetime) , old-fashioned habits (such as writing letters by hand in fountain pen) and old-fashioned notions (such as politeness, and the great lost art of conversation) , and will enchant readers of such perennial favorites as 84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff and Same Time Next Year by Bernard Slade.
About the Author
Paola Calvetti (born in Milan, 1958) is an Italian novelist and journalist, she leaves in Milan, is married and has two children, a son and a daughter.After graduation, she started her career as a journalist for the daily newspaper la Repubblica, contributing articles about dance and music. She wrote also for Rai 2, the second State Channel five portraits dedicated to great dance artists:Jazz City, Alvin Ailey's New York; La ville lumière, Roland Petit's Paris; Water Cities, Carolyn Carlson's Helsinki and Venice; Madrid, starring Antonio Gades and his ballet company, The Enchanted Moon, starring Alessandra Ferri, which won the first Price Award) at the FIPA (International Festival of Audiovisual programs) in 1992; and in 1990, Il ritorno, tv documentary dedicated to italian dancers working abroad.In 1999 she published her first novel L'Amore segreto (Baldini&Castoldi) based on a secret love story revealed by an old lady to her lover's daughter 40 years later. In 2000 the novel was finalist at the literary Award Bancarella and it was published in Holland, Sweden, Brazil, Greece, Japan, Rumania and in 2010 it was translated into French (L'amour secret, Presses de la cité) and Germany (Eine geheime Liebe, Goldmann).Her second novel, L'addio (Bompiani), set in the world of classic music, is the story of three women and their lifetime friendship. Calvetti's third novel Né con te né senza di te was released in 2004 and was inspired by Truffauts's masterpiece The woman next door: the omicide-suicide of two lovers narrated by their best friend.In 2006 she published Perché tu mi hai sorriso (Bompiani), a sort of psychological duel between an old mother and her daughter, imprisoned in a mysterious and passionate relationship.In 2009 she published Noi due come un romanzo (Mondadori), published also in Germany (Und immer Wieder Liebe, Goldmann), France (L'amour est à la lettre A, Presses de la Cité and 10/18); Holland (Voor Liefde zie de Letter L), Spain (Nos otros dos como en una novela, Editorial Suma de Letras) and in 2012 will be released in U.S.A (P.O. Box Love, St'Martin's Press)The main character, Emma, is a woman with a brilliant career, a wonderful son, a kind ex-husband, some fantastic friends. She feels that something in her life must change and accepts the challenge offered by fate: she has received an inheritance from an Aunt, a small stationery shop in the heart of Milan and - defying the ominous predictions of her accountant, "Faithful Enemy" - turns it into an extravagant Bookshop called Dreams & Desires, which sells "only" Love stories, because "literature is nothing but an uninterrupted stream of love". To Emma, books are a medicine for her clients: by fishing from the shelves classified as "Broken Hearts", "Missions Impossible " or Mozart's "Cosi fan tutte", Emma serves magic potions fr
