A charming narrative of a glorious summer of golfing, eating, and learning how to slow down and enjoy life. The best-selling author of Breakfast with Buddha, Golfing with God, Revere Beach Boulevard and others, combines two of his greatest passions-travel and golf-in this humorous and poignant look at Mediterranean life. Roland Merullo was feeling a little burnt out by the frantic pace of life in the United States and decided to rent an Italian villa near the shore of Lake Como in a small town called Mezzegra. He arrived in Italy with his wife and two young daughters determined to relax, slow...

Herman "Hank" Fins-Winston was a pro golfer destined for greatness. Now he lives in a condominium on the thirteenth fairway of one of heaven's glorious courses - a fact he finds surprising and amusing, since for one reason or another, a fair percentage of golfers never make it to paradise. Hank is having the time of his afterlife until he's summoned one idyllic morning to play a round with the Almighty. It seems that God is having some trouble with His game. As they play the heavenly courses, both in paradise and back on earth, Hank comes to realize that what began as a golf lesson has become...

When his sister tricks him into taking her guru on a trip to their childhood home, Otto Ringling, a confirmed skeptic, is not amused. Six days on the road with an enigmatic holy man who answers every question with a riddle is not what he'd planned. But in an effort to westernize his passenger--and amuse himself--he decides to show the monk some "American fun" along the way. From a chocolate factory in Hershey to a bowling alley in South Bend, from a Cubs game at Wrigley field to his family farm near Bismarck, Otto is given the remarkable opportunity to see his world--and more important, his...

Merullo shares his spiritual, intellectual, and emotional discoveries, writing about his relationship with his father, his working class upbringing and upper class education, the early years of his marriage, and the gift of children. 204 pp.

"Merullo skillfully explores the lives of ordinary people caught in a dramatic transference of power . . . it is smoothly written and multifaceted, solidly depicting the isolation and poverty of a city far removed from Moscow and insightfully exploring the psyches of individuals caught in the conflicts between their ideals and their careers."--"Publishers Weekly"

From chapters entitled "Writer's Block" to "Finding a Mentor" to "Impatience and Rejection," Merullo covers these topics with the insight, empathy, and encouragement of an author who has been there, in this no-nonsense handbook and guide for aspiring and established writers alike. His works have been praised by "The Boston Globe" and "Kirkus Reviews."

A family rallies around an errant son, even as a long-hidden secret that has touched all their lives comes to the surface. "The Boston Globe" selected "Revere Beach Boulevard" as one of its Top 100 Essential New England Books and author Richard Russo called it ," . . a great novel --ambitious, heartfelt, and oh-so skilled." 322 pp.

Leaving Losapas begins on a tiny atoll in the equatorial Pacific. Leo Markin, a young US Marine and Vietnam combat veteran who survived the war, found himself so changed by the experience that he simply could not find a way to return to his home, family, and his fiancee in a working class city of his birth outside of Boston. The islanders in Losapas are kind to him-he had been living there for years-and he had found a woman he came to love. Various events conspire to convince him to return to America, but on his return home he feels lost. He has troubling encounters with his aging father,...

Merullo looks carefully at those connections and at the reasons why people find themselves irresistibly attracted to golf. Drawing on the triumphs and travails of playing partners, friends, and family members, and mixing in anecdotes from his own adventures, he explores the notion of a true goal of golf, a hidden attraction that has more to do with deep peace and satisfaction than with the dream of playing on the PGA tour.

On the surface, LUNCH WITH BUDDHA is a story about family. Otto Ringling and his sister Cecelia could not be more different. He's just turned 50, an editor of food books at a prestigious New York publishing house, a man with a nice home in the suburbs, children he adores, and a sense of himself as being a mainstream, upper-middle-class American. Cecelia is the last thing from mainstream. For two decades she's made a living reading palms and performing past-life regressions. She believes firmly in our ability to communicate with those who have passed on. It will turn out, though, that they...