I have been laggard about updating this blog because for the past two months Sally and I have been pushing hard on the final draft of Poland's Daughter, the story of young girl's journey through the Second World War in Poland, Soviet Russia, Persia, Lebanon, Egypt, and England, told in chapters alternating with the story of how we met and traveled together, from the dreary northwest of England to Italy's sun-drenched Mediterranean coast.

"But most of all, we were happy!" I write of our summertime idyll. "The sky is always blue in my memory of Lerici - the sunset is always glorious - the moon is always full - and the tide is always high. Sunrise or sunset, Lerici was nostro pezzo del cielo caduto in terra, our piece of heaven fallen to earth. What a distance Basia and I had traveled, from Piccadilly Gardens in the March rain! At Lerici, we lived in an eternal Now, suspended in time and space. Our castle was the center of the universe - and not just our universe, either, but the center of the entire, star-spangled, infinitely expanding cosmos. The sun rose each morning for a single purpose, to light the castle's ancient stones, to bronze our shoulders, and to warm the sand beneath our feet."

Go here for more about the research that went into this book.