American Mary Taylor Simeti arrived in Sicily after college to work as a volunteer on Danilo Dolci's remarkable social welfare programme, but went on to marry and make her life here. On Persephone's Island chronicles a year in the life of the island: its seasons and its sacred festivals, its almonds and oranges, its demanding family life, its casual assassinations and village feasts, its weather and its people. Written by a fascinated outsider, she also has the intimacy of an insider: wife to a Sicilian, mother to two Sicilian teenagers, gardener, cook and carer for a suspicious mother-in-law.

'Simeti has done a rare thing: she has written a happy book about Sicily and yet there is an undercurrent of sadness, one tr ue to the realit y of the island' - Washington Post