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Summary: A little bit of Rome each day....
Review: This book is one of the best I've read and is very informative about life inside Vatican City. Interspersed are excellent descriptions of various sites, including the Necropolis (City of the Dead). I am quite well-informed on Rome and I could not put this book down. It is No. 1 in my library of books on the subject of Rome!
Rating:
Summary: An excellent publication!
Review: This book is one of the best I've read and is very informative about life inside Vatican City. Interspersed are excellent descriptions of various sites, including the Necropolis (City of the Dead). I am quite well-informed on Rome and I could not put this book down. It is No. 1 in my library of books on the subject of Rome!
Rating:
Summary: Adventures in the Vatican
Review: This is not meant to be a guide book but the story of the author as he finds out all he can about Vatican City. Mr. Hutchinson gives us an interesting look behind the scens of the Vatican, places where I never have been and probably never will be. I must disagree with him, however, when he says the Italians are grumpy, sour tempered people who don't like speaking anything but Italian. I have found things to the contrary. In fact, I wonder how the Romans put up with so many awful tourists and remain unaffected. As to the pizza sold by vendors on the streets, I found their wares to be not too bad, not cardboard anyway. However, I tend not to be less fussy about what is on my pizza, and after a big dinner the night before it was welcome to have something lite and quick. I am more than willing to let pass the error about Mary Stuart etc. How it got by a reader I don't know. So, I can give the book high marks because it is entertaining, informative and written with a sense of humor.
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Summary: Fun and Factual
Review: Upon the advise of a good tour guide, I purchased this book after visiting and utterly enjoying the Eternal City. Please note that this is certainly not the ultimate guide to the Vatican or to understanding Catholicism. It is merely a collection of the amusing anecdotes of a journalist, who like other journalists has the opportunity to live in another part of the world and then comment about his impressions of adapting or accepting another culture.
In this instance, Hutchinson moves to Rome with the sole purpose of writing a "what I did on my summer vacation" book on the Vatican. He and his wife and three children, all practising Catholics already feel that affinity to Rome, the Pope and the Vatican that all Catholics innately experience. Here, Hutchinson explores with pure delight his connection with an institution that has lasted through 2000 years of tumultuous change and yet like the rock it was built upon, invariably stays the same.
Hutchinson's Roman adventures are sprinkled liberally with his slightly irreverant humor and yes, as other reviewers have commented, he does repeat himself. But instead of looking cynically upon these faux pas, think of Hutchinson as the prodigal son (or any other excited tourist with a film projector filled with slides) returning from the unknown and merely so thrilled by what he has seen and experienced, can barely contain himself. Enjoy his exuberance, visit Rome and share in it.
Although most entertaining for me were Hutchinson's stories about St. Peter's bones, the Borgia popes, and the holy relics, I found the entire book one refreshing breeze of a read that brought back for me the sound of the Vespas in a city that juxtaposes the old with the new in a very stylish and sophisticated way. Recommended reading for AFTER that trip to Rome---to relish all those "Roman" sensations all over again.
Rating: 
Summary: somewhat entertaining but poorly written
Review: Well, I just got back from a trip to Rome and read this book on the plane. Yes, at times it was funny --- as the other reviewers have noted. Yes, I learned some things about the Vatican I didn't know before. But the book is also disjointed, repetitive, poorly edited, and written in a style that was wordy, manipulative of the reader, and with barely veiled sexism in his repeated references to the physical appearance of the women he sees or meets. I had the impression the author was just trying to fill enough pages to make it book length. It was not a pager turner.
Rating:
Summary: Great for Students and (Slightly Irreverent) Pilgrims
Review: When in Rome offers a whimsical view of the Vatican and how it operates. I read it while traveling in Rome and it made my time at the Vatican even more rewarding. It's not a must, but if you want some light reading and are tired of fact heavy travel books, When in Rome is well worth its price.
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