 Our first story of summer and romance is by Italian author Massimo Bontempelli. This story, brought to us by the writer Giumpo Lahiri, appeared in the Penguin Book of Italian Short Stories, which was edited by Lahiri herself. Bontempelli was a war correspondent who, at the age of 40, went a bit avant-garde and created a series of micro-novels he titled La Vita Intensa, or The Intense Life.