As we hunker down for the long stretch between holiday frenzy and the budding of dormant nature, it's extremely pleasant to while away gray, cold hours in reverie of sunnier climes bursting with color, fragrance, and character.

If you're like us, reality demands that these sublime reveries remain dreams. However, work responsibilities and an inflexible pocketbook can't truly keep us homebound because we have as many books as we have moods to move us through the streets, fields, and marketplaces of Italy.

For weeks we've immersed ourselves in all things Italian, eating pasta primavera and drowning sensuously in Andrea Bocelli as we've wound our way through luscious novels such as ITALIAN FEVER by Valerie Martin, HILL TOWNS by Anne Rivers Siddons, BEACH MUSIC by Pat Conroy, and the wonderful art-soaked THE SIXTEEN PLEASURES by Robert Hellenga.

Readers can also travel the breadth of the Mediterranean boot with memoirs such as Shirley Hazzard's GREENE ON CAPRI and fictional classics such as Mann's DEATH IN VENICE, Hawthorne's THE MARBLE FAUN, or the century-old LITTLE NOVELS OF SICILY by Giovanni Verga. Even the quintessential Englishman, William Shakespeare, quilled several plays with Italian settings, some made into visual stunners by Hollywood --- a feat matched by THE ENCHANTED APRIL, a lovely little novel by Elizabeth von Arnim set in sun-soaked Italy and transformed into a gorgeous movie of the same name.

Atmosphere is found in the most unlikely of places. Venice comes to life in the Aurelio Zen murder mystery series by Michael Dibdin and under the pen of the sexually adventurous author Erica Jong, while even vampire queen Anne Rice has immersed herself in Italian lore.

All these cerebral wanderings have been but appetizers for our main dishes this month --- travel narratives that illuminate the complex and culturally varied peninsula of Italy and its nearby island of Sicily.

Tuscany comes to life with UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN by Frances Mayes and THE HILLS OF TUSCANY: A New Life in an Old Land by Ferenc Mate. The authors' experiences of renovating Tuscan farmhouses and immersing themselves in ancient surroundings have much in common and yet each has a point of view --- descriptive, literary, personal --- unique and well worth reading. Frances Mayes and her husband Edward, with the help of photographer Bob Krist, take their experiences even further with a recipe-laden coffee table book called IN TUSCANY.

The Verona of Romeo and Juliet is far from Tim Parks's experience with ITALIAN NEIGHBORS and its sequel AN ITALIAN EDUCATION, both charming and candid looks at living full-time in Italy, while THE MIRACLE OF CASTEL DI SANGRO by Joe McGinniss uses soccer as a vehicle for traversing the cities and back country villages of Italy.

Mary Taylor Simeti uses her life married to a Sicilian to give us glimpses of everything from family life, vegetation, local festivals, the Mafia, and musings on the goddess herself in ON PERSEPHONE'S ISLAND. Part social history, part travelogue, and part true-crime book, MIDNIGHT IN SICILY by Peter Robb takes us to the heart of Mafia country with gripping accounts of murder and exquisitely written descriptions of Sicilian life, food, and culture that make "The Sopranos" look tame.

All of these selections highlight a different side of Italy. Like sunlight creeping across a Tuscan farmhouse, changing its crumbling walls from understated pastel to brilliant ochre, so each of these authors have used their literary brushes to paint Italy in all its fecund past and present --- the historical, the ordinary, the seedy, the corrupt, the murderous, and the artistic.

This month we dreamt of Italy...with all its blights and its glory...and now pass those dreams onto you.

--- Jami Edwards and Vern Wiessner