Donald Trump’s campaign for the Republican nomination had barely started when there was a flurry of editorials comparing him to Italy’s former prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi. Commentators such as Jacob Weisberg and Beppe Severgnini noted that the similarities went beyond the womanizing and unnatural hair. Berlusconi and Trump both said their business acumen would make their countries work again, that they were political outsiders untainted … Continue reading Circle Game

The past few years have brought a wave of Scandinavian television dramas to British and American television screens. Shows such as Denmark’s “Borgen,” “The Killing” and “Follow the Money” the Swedish “Wallander,” the Swedish-Danish “The Bridge,” and even the original-language films of Stieg Larsson’s Lisbeth Salander trilogy have given viewers exotic characters as well as new cinematic settings and styles. Nordic content has also produced … Continue reading Mørke Horisont

I recently returned from a trip to Pakistan. Before I left, worried friends wondered why I would visit a country they thought ranked with Somalia for appeal — hot, dangerous and anti-American. True, Karachi is no one’s idea of a beauty spot and the daily crime map of the Karachi Express Tribune is full of red flags. Power supply wobbles, drinking water is dodgy and traffic is … Continue reading Letter from Karachi

When I separated from my husband more than a decade ago, Italians and Americans were surprised to hear that I didn’t plan to return to the United States. They were even more surprised to learn it was virtually impossible to do so legally while keeping my children. Not too many years later, both children went to boarding school and then college in the United States. … Continue reading The Logic of Milan

While on holiday in the United States, I enjoyed time with my children, watched interesting films and lectures, and got in some great skiing. But what stood out was time spent at the table with several generations of families and friends. I listened to a 96-year-old who’d escaped the Gestapo on skis, to college students just back from abroad, to 14 year-olds who’d never left … Continue reading Ways of Sharing

With national debate raging over university tuition costs, campus security and freedom of speech issues, Dr. Seuss weighs in with a new version of “If I Ran the Zoo.” If I ran the U Getting in is where I would start, By making applications much more like art While essays and scores prove you can write There are better ways to show you are bright! … Continue reading If I Ran the U

David Winner’s novel “Tyler’s Last” is a tribute to American novelist Patricia Highsmith and her best-known creation Tom Ripley. Highsmith (1921-1995) both tinkered with and tailored the art of the psychological thriller and Winner honors her by walking down that same path. Here, two stories intertwine in a book-within-a-book. The first involves the physical decline and erotic obsession of an “old lady” author struggling to … Continue reading Tyler’s Last

The harbingers of Christmas in Milan are here. As moss for crèches pushes chrysanthemums from my flower stall, Christmas cards displace school supplies at the stationer’s and up. All this makes me remember my first Milan Christmas in 1992. Like Mary, I was expecting a December baby. I was also away from home. But while angels watched over Mary, a smoking gynecologist watched over me. … Continue reading Memories of Mangiagalli

World War I is America’s forgotten war, overshadowed by World War II and remote from living memory. In early November, I set out to find it. With my dog as co-pilot, I drove from Milan to France to retrace the footsteps of my great-uncle, Lothar R. Long, who served in the U.S. Marine Corps’ 6th Machine Gun Battalion. First stop was Nancy. After breakfast in a … Continue reading Hello to “Over There”

German is a notoriously difficult language with labyrinthine sentences and confusing grammatical cases. As Mark Twain pointed out: “Some German words are so long that they have a perspective.” But Twain was on to something. One of German’s most attractive features is the compound words whose wholes express more than their parts. Think of “Weltschmertz” (literally “world” + “sick”) or Zeitgeist (“time” + “spirit”). During … Continue reading Denkmal in Berlin