Imagine a romance that blooms without the aid of texting/ voice mail / Face Time or WhatsApp, but simply through letter writing, resulting in a marriage lasting a lifetime.

In Letters from Italy: A Transatlantic Love Story (BlackRoseWriting.com) this simple pleasure recurs throughout the book, leading to one of the most compelling thoughts: to life before technology. In an age when even emails have become almost as extinct as the fountain pen, and texting has replaced most forms of communication, the book’s opening sentence, “I truly hope that you will permit me to write to you,” captures our curiosity in the tech-driven year of 2022.