+ The Diane Rehm Show offers an interview with Author Jane Smiley promoting her new novel, Ten Days in the Hills. Here's the DR blurb: "Author Jane Smiley presents her latest novel which takes place in 2003, in Hollywood, at the beginning of the Iraq War. She says it was inspired by her reading of 'The Decameron,' by Giovanni Boccaccio."
Smiley believes we live in a pivotal time where we have some idea about where we have been but not a clear focus for the future just as it was in long ago Florence which is the historical scene for Boccaccio's book.
love,
john