17.1.2021
But back to
business. David Hewson, an author we like, has a new novel set
in Venice out sort-of soon called The Garden of Angels.
I say sort-of soon because it is published in the UK in
hardback and on audio on January 29, 2021, with the e-book out
in the UK and US on the 1st of March, and the US hardback out
on April 6th. This odd and confusing mishmash of publication
dates is blamed by the author on his website on the current
Covid situation. But how does that explain the ebook coming
out a month after the hardback? The blurb tells us that the
book concerns 15-year-old Jewish boy whose grandfather
presents him with a musty manuscript which tells the tale of
what really happened to said grandfather in Nazi-occupied
Venice. Sounds hopeful.
15.1.2021
If I say that this
week has been important and auspicious you might suspect me of
exaggerating, but... On Monday we took delivery of two new
cats from
Cats Protection, left on our
doorstep in their carriers as the need for social distancing
has adjusted the whole homing process. They are called Minnie
and Lily and I have created
a new page detailing their
settling in. It's maybe a bit too detailed, but it has sweet
photos. Not so many of Lily yet, as she has been slow to
emerge much from her preferred spot behind the sofa, although
today did see much progress and more sightings. And this week has seen me and
Jane both get the Covid jab - her on Wednesday and me
this morning. The process was swift and easy for both of us,
and it's hard not to see the future looking brighter. Holidays
ho!
6.1.2021
The festive season
and the turning of the year has seen a scrappy series of
measures in the UK which has finally resulted in Lockdown 3,
which doesn't currently look like being lifted until some time
in February at the earliest. The basic stay-at-home message is
mostly being softened with the promise of the vaccines. I am
not top of the list for the jab, but I am also not at the
bottom. Meanwhile online art-history courses continue, some
new site pages are planned, and hopes that travel will be
possible in the spring spring eternal.
24.11.2020
As looking forward
in hope becomes a global phenomenon next spring is looking
like the prime time. It's when the restrictions in the UK
might end and the time by which we'll all have had the
vaccine, it is said, assuming we're not anti-vaccination nuts.
Closer to the concerns of this site, the new Brunetti, called
Transient Desires is out on the 8th of April, and
Philip Gwynne Jones' new Nathan and Federica novel The
Venetian Legacy is published on April Fool's Day 2021.
14.11.2020
We’re a week into
Lockdown 2 in the UK, and as museums and cathedrals are closed
until early December my life currently consists of food
shopping, online art-history courses and working on the
websites. The Churches of Florence colour scheme is no longer
green, but a tasteful terracotta and The Churches of Venice is
benefiting from some good stuff found on Oxfam’s online
bookshop.
New novels set in Venice and Florence are sparse, but Philippa
Gregory, who I’ve never read, has a new one called Dark
Tides out in a couple of weeks set in restoration London,
Venice and early America. Otherwise it's romantic novels and
reprints of Shakespeare. For Florence the hot non-fiction news
is that Ross King, author of Brunelleschi’s Dome and
Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling and a giver of two
lectures amongst the aforementioned online courses, has a book
out on April 1st 2021, called The Bookseller of Florence:
Vespasiano da Bisticci and the Manuscripts that Illuminated
the Renaissance, featuring the printing-press nuns of
San
Jacopo di Ripoli in Florence.
And by a weird coincidence the same day sees the publication
of The Florentines: From Dante to Galileo by Paul
Strathern. Also spooky is the fact that on March 4th 2021, two
days before my birthday, a debut novel is published set in
Venice and Florence with a heroine whose surname is also my
mum’s maiden name. It’s by Laura Vaughan and is called The
Favour.
Also Trump's days are numbered and the vaccine news is
looking hopeful.
Into the future!
old news
here
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January 2021
Lily and Minnie
New cats
October 2020
Lucretia Grindle
The Faces of Angels Florence
Valerie Martin
I Give It To You Florence
Us
Venice TV
September 2020
Christobel Kent
The Viper
Florence
August 2020
Norwich
Trips
July 2020
Chris Beckett
Two Tribes
London
David Hewson Shooter in the Shadows
Venice
Dorian Gerhold
London Bridge and its Houses
London
David Mitchell
Utopia Avenue
London
Charles Dickens Dombey and Son
London
May 2020
David Whittaker Mindful of Venice
Reflections and Meanderings
April 2020
Christopher Bollen
A Beautiful Crime
Venice
Philip Gwynne Jones
Venetian Gothic
Venice
March 2020
Van Eyck in Ghent
and Bruges
Trips
Donna Leon
Trace Elements
Venice
December 2019
Jon Clinch
Marley
London
Hallie Rubenhold The Five:
The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper
London
The Books That Made Me
Self indulgence
Some 2019 Tintoretto books
Venice
November 2019
Hisham Matar
A Month in Siena
Siena
Venice
Trips
Susanna Clarke
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell
Venice
October 2019
Ferrara and Bologna
Trips |