Another set of essays from an older American living in Italy? How odd, but nice nonetheless. This time our narrator is the good Ms. Marble who tells of her years in the Eternal City beginning 1960. And perhaps because of that early date, this turns out to be a vastly different memoir from if it had been written now, of course: already, by the time the early 2000s hit, the traffic snarls are legendary...

But happily, the majority of the book is set in less congested times. The titular terrace is a very fine piece of property indeed, boasting a view of the delightfully-named Chiaso del Amore Divino and being a 10-minute walk from the Vatican. Well, then! That's not enough, no sir, because the good lady is a gardener and consequently has the jealousy-inducing 'rooftop garden' that I can only dream of and which has LEMON TREES IN POTS, I ask you! (This is one of the dreamed-of features in my future home, when I grow a green thumb of course.)

She and Robert are parents to two youngsters and go about life in Italy very much in sync with the local lifestyle. They shop every day for produce, own a country house in Canale (more jealousy surged), navigate the local bureaucracy with the adequate amount of patience, and needless to say speak fluent Italian. The couple comes across as grounded and compassionate, both with an admirable curiosity flashing through that would make them lovely dinner guests.

And with that I will conclude this very inadequate review, for what else is there to say? I enjoyed this slim and refreshing set of vignettes extremely. I wish that we'd done up our balcony already and I'd read this along with a crisp glass of some Italian white. Never mind, it's been far too cold anyway to do that, but now I'm tempted to seek out her "Notes from a Roman Garden" even if it will be very heavy on the green-thumb business. ( )

The author writes about her life as an expat in Rome, Italy. While her life isn't terrible exciting, it is interesting to get a glimpse at Italian life via an outsider who isn't entirely an outsider. Although I've never been to Rome, when I went to Milan, I saw a lot of Marble's observations at play. ( )