There are not that many books out there by contemporary male authors that inspire the same feeling of nostalgia and peace I get when I finish a book by Jess Walter. He's two for two now - first with The Financial Lives of the Poets and now with Beautiful Ruins.

Beautiful Ruins may be a lovely title name for this book, but even more so it describes the absolute gorgeous nature of the story held inside the gorgeous cover. It has all the right ingredients: dying starlette, Italy, tortured Italian young man, humorous side characters with their own touch of agony, movies, musicians, mistakes - some made right and some not, war, grief, love, death, life... the list goes on.

The story skips between four different perspectives. The perspective of Pasquale, a young/old Italian man who dreamed of building a tennis court where a tennis court does not belong and of promoting a hotel with only an "adequate view"; Claire, a young woman who is searching for something to fulfill her dreams and whose connection to Michael Deane is one that will push her in that direction; Alvin, with his stories of war and his nobility and humor; and finally Dee Moray and Pat - each with tortured stories of their own, each on a quest to find peace and happiness.

I did not have to worry about trying to find the energy to pick this book up once I started to read it - I had to try to find the willpower to put it down in order to do the mundane things of life - you know, eat, sleep, drink. I devoured each story as it was fed to me - pictures of the cliffs of Italy filled my mind, images of Richard Burton and Liz Taylor. I heard the psst hey of each sprinkler hit and cried when Pasquale does something that made me believe in humanity again.

This book is a masterpiece - and I've been on a reading streak these past few weeks of really good books. This is one of them. Jess Walter is an author to keep an eye on - he's only getting better.