It’s funny how the reading of certain books can time with life events in this way. Although a hostage situation and a quarantine are vastly different, there were some similarities that popped up, especially while in the initial quarantine atmosphere. It was also very interesting to read this book during the first week of quarantine for Covid-19.

I started listening to opera after college and can’t get enough of it. I worked a few blocks from this embassy during grad school and so this book intrigued me on that level and on the opera side. All inferences are that it is Peru, as the story is extremely similar to a real-life hostage situation at the Japanese Embassy in the San Isidro neighborhood of Lima, Peru. The story takes place in a South American country. Ann Patchett does such a masterful job that you barely realize that you yourself as the reader are becoming emotionally attached to both terrorist and hostage.Īdd in the delightful references to opera and arias throughout the book, and you have a Murakamiesque combination of enticing characters and lovely music (I listened to most of the referenced pieces while reading).

It is the personification (or the novelization) of the Stockholm syndrome, where hostages and captors begin to form emotional connections.

Saving Earth Britannica Presents Earth’s To-Do List for the 21st Century.Bel Canto was an absolute joy to read.

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