Sometimes, even on the most normal of days and circumstances, events can draw one into a magical and fantastic adventure. Chris and Vicki bought a one hundred eighty year old house on the coast of Maine. It is a charming place and had been built by an old sea captain. The last improvement was to open up a bricked-over fireplace in the dining room. In a humorous moment Vicki leaned close to the closed over fireplace and whispered, "Is there a room back there?" Both laughed at the absurdity of the thought. A day later, Chris, wielding a sledgehammer, opens the closed over fireplace to find a room that cannot possibly exist. From here, Chris, Vicki, Joanne, Vicki's sister and their two dogs are swept into an adventure to redeem a man, who has been displaced in time by an unfortunate act of callousness. The end result is a life changing experience . The Fireplace is a story of adventure, compassion, courage, love and redemption that spans more than ten centuries. The characters and the situations will surprise, amuse and amaze. This is a story that must be read to be appreciated.

Cecco Angiolieri, the enfant terrible of Italian literature, loved women, gambling, food and wine. It is said that he found comfort for his bad luck at the dice and with Becchina, his unreciprocating lover, only by pouring venomous scorn upon his miserly parents. Cecco’s outbursts of rage against his fate and his earthly view of the world – poles apart from the Stil Novo of Cavalcanti and Dante, the target of some of his fiercest sonnets – are perfectly encapsulated in his poetry, which is presented here with the facing Italian text in the witty verse translation of C.H. Scott and Anthony Mortimer.