Peregrinations. Through Italy continued
In a beautiful essay about what makes a good reader, author and teacher Vladimir Nabokov compares writing a book to climbing a mountain.
“…[the] mountain must be conquered. Up a trackless slope climbs the master artist, and at the top, on a windy ridge, whom do you think he meets? The panting and happy reader, and there they spontaneously embrace and are linked forever if the book lasts forever.”
"We would go on a journey. Not far. Not all the way to the tigers." Thomas Mann's Death in Venice
Women Saints Itinerary. Mystical experiences of women that lived in the distant past through Umbria. https://www.umbriatourism.it/en/-/women-saints-itinerary
Explore more on Umbria (the green heart of Italy and the only province of Italy that doesn't touch the sea) Umbrian Tourism https://www.umbriatourism.it/homepage
We love Umbria, having stayed there a few times - once for a month in an Agriturismo near Montefalco. Stayed near Bettona and really enjoyed Bevanga - especially the end of a cycling day coffee (and the sweet treats!) in the streets of Bevanga. Not to mention the daily grocery shopping for dinner - that fresh 'homemade' pasta, salted meat products, etc.
Did I mention wine?
And, of course, Umbria is home to Assisi!
History Authors of Note - in no particular order of preference
- Prit Buttar. Primarily WWI on the Eastern Front
- Margaret McMillan. Paris 1919. War: How Conflict Shaped Us. The War That Ended the Peace
- Barbara Tuchman. Apparently, a self-taught historian with a wide range of topics covered in her books. Amazing!
- Tom Holland. Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic. Persian Fire.
- Edward Gibbon
The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: Complete and Unabridged. Only about 11,000 pages in the Kindle app! - Anne Applebaum
- Robert D. Kaplan
- Adam Hochschild
- Antony Beevor
Current Reading:
- The Scholar by Dervla McTiernan
- The Winter Soldier by Daniel Mason
- The Cold Cold Ground by Adrian NcKinty
- Mediterranean Winter by Robert D. Kaplan
- No Strangers Here by Carlene O'Connor
- Fire From Heaven: A Novel of Alexander The Great by Mary Renault. The first part of a trilogy on Alexander the Great. The rest of the trilogy is The Persian Boy and Funeral Games.
- Spies: The Epic Intelligence War Between East and West by Calder Walton
- Travels in Siberia by Ian Frazier
We will be doing a short detour in a future newsletter to accommodate some really good books by Robert D Kaplan: Adriatic, The Loom of Time, and Mediterranean Winter.
From Mediterranean Winter by Robert D. Kaplan "The atmosphere of Macbeth's castle and Agamemmon's palace is the same," writes Edith Hamilton. "It is always night there; a heavy murk is in the air; death drifts through the doorways."
From Adriatic, again by Robert D. Kaplan:
- As such a consummate expert on Italy as Sir David Gilmour writes, until the end of the eighteenth century, "Italy remained [only] a literary idea, an abstract concept, an imaginary homeland or simply a sentimental urge."
- Travel, as opposed to tourism, is only made possible by literature. A landscape must be anchored in books during this time in history when globalization has obliterated much of what is distinctive.
Ravenna: Capital of Empire, Crucible of Europe by Judith Herrin
Venice Observed by Mary McCarthy (The Stones of Florence). Mary McCarthy was a very prolific author usually involving Italy.
A very quick detour to Spain and a fairly famous and significant Spanish author...
The Cemetery of Forgotten Books - Carlos Ruiz Zafon (in reading order)
- The Shadow of the Wind
- The Angel's Game
- Prisoner of Heaven
- The Labyrinth of Spirits