15.9.2016
Keep it to yourself but I've
managed to download an
unofficially subtitled version of the German Brunetti TV
series episode from 2015 - 21. Beastly Things. The subtitles look a bit
machine-translated, with a tendency to nonsense, but it looks
pretty watchable. I'll do so and report back.
5-13.9.2016
Siena
& Pisa
15-20.8.2016
Hamburg
14.8.2016
I've not hitherto
read anything by Martin Cruz Smith but I have heard of him,
and novels set in Venice (and Florence) by authors you've
heard of come but once a year, on average. The Girl from
Venice is published on the 18th of October. Another
familiar name is Brandreth as Gyles Brandreth was an annoying
'celebrity' with a misspelled name way back before reality TV
and such phenomena supplied us steaming piles of them. (He
wrote a novel set in Venice too, which I've never been able to
bring myself to read.) So the fact that The Spy of Venice:
A William Shakespeare novel is by one Benet Brandreth pits
memories of Gyles and his annoying jumpers against the fact
that it's well reviewed. Benet's own website tactfully doesn't
mention that Giles is his dad, for so I find to be the case,
on the Daily Telegraph website, of course. I intend to read
and review both, but admit that such promises from me have
rung a bit hollow lately.
4-9.8.2016
Durham
30.7.2016
Way back in 2010 I started
The
Venice Questions, a page where authors were interviewed
about their (usually new) books and answered questions about
what Venice meant to them. It was meant to ingratiate myself
and my site with publishers but became a bit too much faff for
the fun. I mention this because Hallie Rubenhold, the last
subject grilled, has a new book out, called French Lessons.
It's the sequel to
Mistress of my Fate and moves Henrietta Lightfoot's
fraught life to Brussels, briefly, and Paris. I'm enjoying it
at the moment and you can expect a review soon. I'll be
dusting off my
Related
Works page to accommodate it, as it comes between her
London and Venice-based adventures. The author's Lady
Worsley's Whim was filmed by the BBC in 2015 as The
Scandalous Lady W and stared Natalie Dormer, of Game of
Thrones fame. This raised Hallie's profile even more than
appearing on this site, and may explain why the new book's
cover comes with recommendations by telly history types like
Simon Sebag Montifiore and Lucy Worsley rather than mine.
25.6.2016
It's always good to hear from
authors, and
Stephanie Storey has
been in touch this week regarding my difficulty (as I reported
back in February) with getting a review read of her novel
about
Leonardo
and Michelangelo called
Oil and Marble. I
had since acquired a copy, as it happens, through a sequence
of events, emails and dubious downloads I'd decided not to
torture you with the telling of. Anyway, expect a review in
the not too distant.
more news here
cross
my 
