Letters to Juliet: Celebrating Shakespeare's Greatest Heroine, the Magical City of Verona, and the Power of Love Book

Fine. I have to admit that the cover picture of Mama Mia's daughter, the beautiful Amanda Seyfried was the one who caught my eyes while walking around the bookstore. All my friends - girls, gays -and their men, who saw that ABBA movie liked Amanda especially in the opening wharf scene with her singing "I have a dream/a song to sing/to help me cope with anything" in dark starry night with moon and starlights reflecting and bouncing on the small waves.

Reading the blurb, saying that this book has something to do with Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, made me want to buy it. Also, the book looks cool: glossy with all those colorful pictures of the country I almost had the chance to visit twice, Italy. Twice I was invited. Twice I missed it because of not enough time to process my visa. I even attended Basic Italian class in 2006. Now I have to content myself looking at the pictures of Italy. Oh maybe someday, who knows?

Anyway, the book's cover says "The story of the letter-writing phenomenon that inspired the idea behind the motion picture Letter to Juliet". So this book was neither novelized from movie nor the movie was made from this book. This is actually a non-fiction book telling the actual story behind all those people who over decades have been responding to letters coming from everywhere around the globe. Letters, mostly love-related, addressed to the Shakespeare heroine, Juliet.

First was just businessman Solimani who took fancy in responding to letters left in Juliet's tomb in Verona. He was the custodian of Juliet's (make-believe) tomb. When he became overaged, a retired professor, Beltramini took over. When he died, female secretaries were hired. As of this writing, there are 6 of them and they sign their responses, Juliet or Giulietta (if they write in Juliet's native language).

If you love Romeo and Juliet, read this book. It has the story behind that famous Shakespeare play. It tells about the play's predecessors. Showing that the idea of ill-fated lovers was not actually Shakespeare's original concept. You will also like the sample letters. Most of them are cheesy but sweet, like this: "I asked myself many times, how it is that we fall in love: do we trip, lose our balance and fall, scraping our hearts? Do we crash to the ground, on stones? Or it is like staying on the edge of a precipice for all time? (from) Poland" This book also shows the now tourist-destination places in Verona because of this play: not only Juliet and Romeo's tombs but also their homes, places where famous scenes happened in the play, it even has the recipe for Juliet's cookies (how I wish I know how to bake) and even Juliet's statue whose breasts visiting tourist fondle supposedly for good luck.

*Sigh* Oh maybe someday. Who knows?