Ahhh, Florence

Probably the most exciting thing about this book -- Death in Autumn by Magdalen Nabb -- is that it's the book I saw in the airport at Rome, didn't buy, and then couldn't find again. So how did I find it, you ask? I picked it up at the Open Books/Reader book swap. Pure serendipity. I see from that old post that I thought the book I was looking for had an Italian author, which is what tripped me up trying to find it again; Nabb is (or was) British.

And this story has a further happy ending, because I enjoyed this book. It's not very long and it's a good, focused mystery story that manages to also have plenty of good characters and local color. I liked that the main detective, the Marshal, and his senior, the Captain (am I going to go figure out their names? no I am not) were working together on the case. In fact, on the whole, this was a very competent group of police with little internal tension, which is rare. Usually, even if you have a clever police detective in a novel s/he is working against corruption or laziness or bureaucracy or stupidity in their own force, so I thought this was a nice change of pace.


I don't have much else to say about this, I suppose, except that I am looking forward to returning to this series.

Adventures in "giallo" literature

I believe in getting to the airport early for an international flight, but for various reasons I was outrageously early for my flight out of Fiumicino, meaning that I got to investigate all the shops at my leisure (and my wallet's peril). This included a Feltrinelli's outlet -- the Waterstones or Barnes & Noble of Italy -- which had a single, but generous, table of books in Inglese. This is an interesting thing, the forty or so titles in English that make up the selection in an airport bookstore; what would you choose and/or expect? In this case, there were the usual sorts of things, I guess, the supernatural romances, the pinky-purple chick lit, the conspiracy thrillers, the award short-list titles; but also, and I thought this was a nice touch, a selection of novels with Italian connections, whether written by Italians or simply set in Italy. And among these was a detective novel translated from Italian which sounded pretty interesting, but I virtuously chose not to spend my money in such a fashion (and promptly went and spent four times as much-- look, I don't have to explain myself to you). Having arrived home, I tried asking google what that book was so I could look for it at the library, and google suggested the Inspector Montalbano series by Andrea Camilleri. Now, I think the Big G is wrong, I don't think Camilleri is the author I saw at the airport--

"Wish you had Glass now, eh?" - no, really no

--but Camilleri was readily available at the library and so I took out The Shape of Water, the first of this apparently much-loved series.

A man is found dead of a heart attack in his car, parked in an area notorious for prostitution. But of course, the dead man was a political heavyweight, this is Sicily, and it's a crime novel, so it's not so simple as all that.

"Wonderful, eh?"
"I'm sorry, I don't understand."
"It's wonderful, that is, that someone in this fine province of ours should decide to die a natural death and thereby set a good example. Don't you think? Another two or three deaths like Luparello's and we'll start catching up with the rest of Italy."

I found it interesting that the tagline on my edition is a novel of food, wine, and homicide in small-town Sicily, which makes it sound sort of travelogue-esque; plenty of murder mysteries trade on readers'/viewers' interest in the setting, serving up atmosphere along with a puzzle.* In fact, The Shape of Water is a fairly sordid little story of sex, politics, scandal, and death, and while food features from time to time, I wouldn't say it's particularly prominent. The tagline may be drawing on the series as a whole rather than this particular installment.

I didn't call the book "gritty" there because the writing seemed a little too spare for that particular adjective. The quotes on the back compare Camilleri to Hammett and Chandler, so I have a vague notion that this is a matter of style. It wasn't my favorite; in a couple of places it felt flat rather than taut or hard-bitten or whatever. Nevertheless, there were parts that stood out, including passages that were genuinely funny, which as we all know is not easy to do.

At the end of the book I discovered endnotes which explained some of the political references and undercurrents and gave rough dollar values for the lire quoted in the text -- these notes were minimal and genuinely useful, or would have been if there were any indication in the text that they existed! Seriously, no asterisks or anything. Hopefully that was corrected in later editions; pity the translator who went to the trouble of compiling them if not.

In sum, this book didn't totally win me over but then it didn't turn me off either. I have another volume in the series (not the second one, but a later one) and I'm still going to read that one too. I didn't see anything here that would make me particularly love this series the way that readers in other languages apparently do, but neither did I dislike the book. Certainly Sicily makes a unique environment for crime stories, and I thought it was handled really well; I mean, I don't know what would actually be "realistic" but this didn't feel didactic or exoticized. I suppose that's one value of reading a translated book.


* Has anyone else seen Endeavor? The second series just aired on PBS. I never liked Inspector Morse much (although Lewis I like), but Endeavor is pretty gorgeous.

Nothing to declare

I am back!

You probably didn't even know I was gone, but I was: two weeks in Rome. It was grand. (Unintentional Grand Tour pun? No one will believe it.) I had this fine book with me, letting me impress my friends with borrowed knowledge:

It's a bit heavy, being printed with colored pictures on nice paper, and the author sometimes seems to assume that just telling you the name of the architect or artist is enough, but it was a lifesaver enough times to make lugging it around worthwhile. The pages on the Vatican Museums were essential (omigosh the Vatican Museums are ENORMOUS) and unlike most guidebooks I looked at, this one gives plenty of time to all the zillions of churches you're obviously going to want to visit.

Even better, I bought this book with the gift card from when my Something Other Than God post won the drawing at Conversion Diary.

It's a major award!

Even if I had spent my own money though: worth it. I think I will be revisiting the Blue Guide series for future travels.

Now, I must get unpacked, do the laundry, and get reading something so I can post again in a reasonable interval. Hashtag: summer.

This is the last, absolutely the last, paper book I will buy in London

Voila!

Mais oui, I have booked my tickets and hotel for Paris. It's mon premier temps, and although I ne parler pas any French (as you will no doubt have guessed at this point), I look forward to my German and Italian making a strong comeback as soon as I set pied on French soil. I was never a girl who had a fascination with Paris, but I enjoy wine, cheese, coffee and croissants, so I'm confident this will be a success.

Plus I intend to go and see this:

I get a strange number of Google search hits for "bayeux tapestry" so let me reiterate: that is a picture of the Bayeux Tapestry, and I am obsessed with the Bayeux tapestry.

As I say, this is my first time, and I don't have an enormous list of must-sees other than

for good measure

so I have set myself the excitingly low bar of (1) walking around a bit and (2) going to the Louvre.* And this particular guidebook is (or seems like -- not like I've tried it out yet) the perfect book for such a person. It is made up of a series of walking tours that take you through the various neighborhoods, with a particular emphasis on the architecture and architectural history. The walks link up, which is an interesting approach. In theory, I guess, you could take the back half of one and the front half of the next one together, I guess.

The book is pretty stripped down; it's certainly no DK Eyewitness Guide (my parents' guidebooks of choice). The main decoration is in the form of simple pen sketches by the author of some of the buildings. Nearly every two page spread has a sketch so it's not completely plain but the only color comes from the headings and so on being in dark blue ink. On this aesthetic point, my only real objection is to the cover; what works well for the interior is not so great for a cover. The main contents are generally good (again, as far as I can tell), and there's a little glossary of architectural terms with explanations of the major styles, plus a "further afield" section which is always a nice feature. If you want the usual sort of guidebook things like hotels and restaurants you'd have to look elsewhere, but that's no big deal. My only complaint is that the little map of "Paris Districts" just has them labelled by number, while the walking itineraries only give their colloquial names and don't mention the numbers.

And now I will completely contradict my post title and say that I'm open to your suggestions of what I should read in Gay Paree, since, despite my lack of previous attachment to the city, I admit that it does seem sacrilegious to read a Kindle by the Seine. Preferably not history (I took two French history classes for some reason in undergrad, and they dented my GPA), and preferably something light or at least not depressing. I already read The Dud Avocado. I'm thinking maybe I'll just pick up some kind of cheap disposable paperback for the trip, something that, despite all previous experience, I'll be able to just give away or leave behind somewhere without being tempted to fit it in my suitcase.

*Incidentally, it seems cruel that everyone says you can't possibly cover the Louvre in a day and yet they don't sell any sort of multi-day ticket.