Rod McKuen

New York Times bestselling author Barbara Delinsky delights with a compelling story of chance, fate, and perfect timing, first published in 1998.Russ Ettinger doesn't know why the delicate young woman he found gasping for breath at the side of the road disappeared so abruptly -- or even what her name is. What he does know is he must find her again somehow. There has to be a deeper purpose behind his Samaritan act, because never has anyone so powerfully and immediately filled him with such an overwhelming desire to cherish and protect.But Dana Madison is tired of being protected. What she wants is to be respected and loved as the strong, vital, independent woman she has worked so hard to become. And so she flees from a chance first meeting with a considerate stranger, a man who could possibly play a very important role in her future ... and maybe find a permanent place in her heart.

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a journey to Italy was considered an indispensable part of a young man's education. On arduous coach journeys, they pursued the trail of ancient Rome and the Renaissance to Florence, Venice, Rome, and Naples. Artists soon followed them, and thus yearning also led Johann Wolfgang von Goethe south from 1786 to 1788. 'Goethe's Italian Journey' vividly conveys his profound enthusiasm but also depicts well-organized, early tourism. Just seventy years later, the first photographers captured stations on the Grand Tour on gelatin silver plates. Giorgio Sommer (1834-1914), like Goethe from Frankfurt am Main, and Carlo Naya (1816-1882) produced intensely poetic views of St. Mark's Square, the Colosseum, a smoking Vesuvius, and beautiful fisherwomen on Capri.

Lyrics to Rod McKuen's album New Ballads.