reality is not what it seems

Carlo Rovelli picked a great title when he chose Reality is Not What it Seems for this follow up to his Seven Brief Lessons on Physics,* which started out a pamphlet and became an international best seller. Rovelli talks a little bit about this in the introduction; how this book came to be; how people had been asking him to explain the theories of quantum gravity in layman's terms, which he was reluctant to try and do. He did try when pressed, and the result was a small book, but because of its popularity, he was pressed further to expand on that work and the result, he explains, is this book.

I will go ahead and tell you now, that I was quoting phrases, and reading passages out loud to anyone who would listen. my apologies to my family When I finished, I gave the book to my wife and recommended that she read it.

In the first few chapters, Rovelli traces the history of where we are in physics, and our understanding of how the universe works. How scientists and philosophers built upon the work of their predecessors to unlock the secrets of the universe as we know it. Because I am interested in this kind of thing, I had a pretty good idea about where we are and how we got there, but the story that Rovelli tells both provided missing links in the trail of information, extended what I understood and how different theories relate to one another, and in a way that was both succinct, and mesmerizing. Two chapters in and I was hooked.

Rovelli then goes on to describe quantum physics, and what we know about it, building upon what we've learned in the past, until he gets to the point where the theories aren't proven yet, and its still conjecture and competing theses. He points out that there are two main branches of theories, the one he is working on and believes in, and the other, which is string theory. You got me about which is correct, or more correct, but he makes a passionate argument.

Read this Book--I enjoyed it thoroughly--but maybe only if you are interested in this kind of stuff. Its good, but I'm not sure how much general appeal it will have for the less geekily inclined.

* You can download a copy of Seven Brief Lessons on Physics by clicking here.

 

 

vineyard in tuscany

Ferenc Maté has been writing for years; this book is from 2007 but the time period it recalls is closer to the 1990s I think, after Maté and his wife moved from New York to Tuscany, and bought a small house near the vineyards with their young son. After staying in that small house, becoming friends with their neighbors--who operated their own small vineyard--Maté became enamored with the idea of owning his own vineyard. A Vineyard in Tuscany: A Wine Lover's Dream is his love letter to Tuscany's wine making culture and history, and is his story about how his dreams came true.

Organized in a mostly chronological order, this book follows the Maté family's journey from wine lovers to wine makers. The text appears to be based on Maté's diary entries from the period when the story takes place. The notes aren't complete enough to form an entire story arc, but enough to help you follow along. Its a curated glimpse into the origins of the Maté Winery, which is by all accounts, a very successful, small, family run winery.

Many chapters of the book are stand alone stories and anecdotes related to their search for and eventual purchase of a collapsing ancient villa, its restoration, the clearing and preparing of the fields, the planting of vines, to their first run of wines. They had a lot of expert help in all of these endeavors, and it seems to have cost a pretty penny. Maté acknowledges the help he received through stories and in explicit thanks in the back matter. The back matter also includes a number of recipes of the simple foods Maté raves about in the book. My guess is that you'll really need to have local ingredients to make them taste the way he describes them, but it can't hurt to try! one of these recipes is cooked on burning grape vines. yeah, hold my wine whilst I grab some of my vineyard trimin's

If I had to guess, this book appears to have been roughly outlined by Maté and then given to his editor along with the copies of his journal entries for polishing. I may be wrong, but if that's the case, then perhaps the editor deserves more credit. I have no evidence of that however, and it could just be that this book was meant to read like it does; a relaxed, slightly disorganized, free associative remembrance of a wonderful time in the author's younger life with his family.

A fun book to read before a trip to Italy, for sure.

twenty years after

Twenty Years After is a follow up or sequel to The Three Musketeers, by Alexandre Dumas, so its part of the D'Artagnan Romances, so called. The finale is titled The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later. From what I understand, this is a big book, and includes three parts (or at least is broken into volumes that way.) 

According to Wikipedia, the three parts of Ten Years Later are independently called:

• Part One: The Vicomte of Bragelonne (Chapters 1–93)
• Part Two: Louise de la Vallière (Chapters 94–180)
• Part Three: The Man in the Iron Mask (Chapters 181–269)

But more about that tome when I read it, back to Twenty Years After. The story is complex, as are all the Dumas stories I've read. He relies upon his readers a great deal, and given that this, like many of his novels, was written in series, he needed to help his readers keep the story straight, so he occasionally speaks directly to the reader, reminding us where we are in the story as we move along. This, along with the language, gives the story an old-timey feel, as you'd expect with a classic from this period.

Twenty Years doesn't move along as well as The Three Musketeers, the plot is good, solid, it just isn't as fun as The Musketeers. Dumas seems to struggle at some points to resolve issues he's written himself into, and while he does it, it doesn't feel as seamless as with Musketeers or Monte Cristo. In many way, it seems as though Dumas answered the call of his readers and gave them more Musketeers. Some, but not all, of the characters are the same. Where they are the same, they bring with them their old feelings, as one would expect, but occasionally, the intervening years has softened some of those feeling. It is those insights which make Dumas stand apart. Just writing in serial alone must be complex and require much forethought; its seems to me that the thought put into these stories is what elevates them.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I knew that The Man in the Iron Mask was a sequel to The Three Musketeers but I wasn't aware of this book until I bought that book, brought it to Italy, and discovered in the front matter that I was missing something. In a word: no wonder. This book was good, it just wasn't as good as it could have been, and I can see why it is generally overlooked. le yawn

I'll probably take a break from Dumas in the short term. This book took me three weeks (or more?) to read, and I could use a break. I also don't know where I put my copy of the next one, I think its in a box somewhere.

origin

Dan Brown is at it again. I read Origin mainly because I was in Italy, out of books, and the shop in Sulmona that sold books in English is no longer.

Side note: The Great Recession, or World Economic Downturn, or whatever you want to call it, has not lifted in Italy as much as it has here. Where it started. thank you greedy, coke snorting, trust-fund, ivy-league, frat boys who blew up the world to make a few bucks on all of our backs*

I've read a couple of Brown's books, and like most people, I read The Da Vinci Code first, which was pretty good and then I went back and read Angels and Demons, which was better. I think I've said this before, Brown's character Robert Langdon is a pretty good character; he has the skill set as a professor of symbols or whatever to help solve the mysteries he stumbles upon, but the story arc in each of his stories is just too similar. Langdon doesn't begin a mystery solving venture until he stops of at the adventure store and picks up two things: a mysterious and shady quasi religious organization bent on murdering him before he solves this mystery (complete with some crazy, holy water guzzling psychopath with C-clamps on his junk) and a foxy lady to run around with and mansplain his brilliance to, for our benefit.

If you're a Dan Brown fan, I think you'll enjoy this. If not, then I'd say you could probably skip this one and never know the difference.



* Please note, I have no idea if the people who tranched up a bunch of bad loans, sold them as AAA and then broke the banks, Wall Street, and then the world, actually snorted cocaine, were funded by trusts, went to Ivy League schools, or were in fraternities. I'm pretty confident about the greedy part. And I actually feel pretty good about the rest of it too.

prague golem

The Prague Golem: Jewish Stories of the Ghetto is a small collection of stories about the Jewish Ghetto in Prague, edited by Harald Salfellner, and illustrated by Hugo Steiner. *

My oldest brought this back for me after traveling there for five days while we were in Italy. Both of my kids went and they loved it. The architecture, the food, the people, and the parks. They had a great time. I’ve heard that Prague is one of the few larger European cities that escaped significant damage during the wars. Based on their photos it seems legit.

This group of short stories tell the history of the Jewish community in Prague which goes back centuries. The story of the community is told though the history of its people, their sometimes rocky relationship with the sovereign, and tales of a few nearly superheroic figures. These stories especially we fun to read. They read like folk tales of Paul Bunyan or John Henry with a little Greek myth thrown in.

The writing is simple and accessible, like some committee had the idea to put these stories together and they hired someone’s nephew to bang them out. OR, this book was originally written in some other language and translated; Czech or something. Yeah, that sounds better, let me check... well, based on the Vitalis (publisher) website, this book is available in many languages and most indicate that it was translated from German, however the English version doesn't include a translator in the credits. Maybe Harald Salfellner is multi-lingual. sounds like he has more than one tongue. nope, not even going to look it up

The golem itself appears in a couple of the stories, and it apparently pretty well known as a taker of care when it comes to business. Seemed a little creepy to me, and maybe not a very wholesome solution to the rabbi's problems, but there you go.


* you can find this book on Amazon, and a bunch of other places, with the author listed as "U Zelezne Lavky" which is the name of a street in Prague as far as I can tell. 

the break

Pierto Grossi is an Italian writer and while this story could have been set anywhere, it feels Italian. That characters feel Italian. The culture does as well. 

Dino is not a talkative man. Not really an expressive man either but he is a thoughtful man. The Break, at its heart, is a story of change and how we deal with it. Some consider change a loss, regardless of what the change is. Even if many consider these changes progress. And that is a sentiment I found personally when I visited Italy, especially in the small towns, like the town Dino lives in with his wife Sofia, and works in as a stone paving mason. 

The writing takes its cues from, or at least reflects the character of, Dino and others like him. It's sparse, even terse. Grossi writes the minimum required to get his point across, and leaves some of the thinking to us. There are few places in the book where the translator, Howard Curtis, may have missed the mark, and based on my poor understanding of Italian I think it may be as simple as a misunderstanding of the way a particular word of phrase is used in Italian. I know that some words and concepts are difficult to translate but some of the terms and phrases--just a few--struck me as odd.

Grossi's last book won some awards so I'll have to keep my out for it. This is not an action packed, story driven book. It's an study of a man and how he deals with life and what it throws at him. It was a quick read though. If that's the kind of thing you're into, I'd recommend this one.

I read this a few weeks ago. I'm still catching up from my vacation in August!

masked city

The Masked City is book 2 in the Invisible Library Series by Genevieve Cogman, so yes, contrary to what I said last week, I did run right out and get the next two installments in this series, knowing that the next two won't be out for a while.

I think Cogman has come up with a great heroine for young people, even if her character descriptions are a little light. I'm pretty sure Irene is medium height, medium build, with medium brown hair (medium length.) Her sidekick Kai, is a little more visible, with dark hair, piercing eyes, and really handsome and dapper. That's about all you get. Its funny, this is not something I typically notice, so it must be that everyone describes their characters in enough detail that I don't notice, and move on. I tend to think in pictures and I just don't have enough to go on. Genevieve Cogman, I'm looking at you

The majority of this story takes place in an otherworldly Venice, inhabited by some really shady folks, and a group called the Ten something or other, who are extra shady. So shady, that they hardly show up in the story at all. A lot of the folks in this Venice wear masks. The world itself is sort of masked from the rest of reality, and the bad guys behind the bad deeds which ultimately brought Irene to this place, are unknowns, and therefore metaphorically masked. So its a triple entendre.*

This story is fun and light, and overall a good follow up to the first one. It is episodic, so you don't need to read them in order if you'd rather not, but like anything else, they are chronologically organized, so it may make it easier on you to read them as they were released. Its fun to see Irene & Co. unmaskify the place, kick a little ass, and generally take care of business.

I was quickly on to the next installment, my thoughts about which, will follow shortly.


* Once there, they needed to find someplace that ended up being hidden. Its Masks within Masks, within Masks, a la Inception.

night villa

I found this one at the library book sale, on the back cover I read, "The eruption of Italy's Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79..." and that was it. Between the title and those first words in the description, I was sold. Of course, its doesn't take much when you're talking about spending a dollar or so and supporting the library. Its funny, I don't take too many new library books out, I think its because the newer books have two week lending periods, and I don't usually read that fast.

Carol Goodman writes a good story. This one has a little bit of everything. It is not--as I suspected from the little I read on the back cover--historical fiction, although it does have an historical fiction aspect to it. Its a modern day story, but involves archaeological study of the era leading up to Vesuvius, and in particular, the late occupants of Villa della Notte, or the Night Villa.

The Night Villa is a fictional place, but this villa in Herculaneum, and this story in general, is based on the true story of Petronia Iusta, a slave who sued for her freedom from Calatoria Themis. Scrolls were indeed found in a trunk in an excavated building in Herculaneum which describe the Roman court case involving this young woman. She was born to a woman called Petronia Vitalis, who was once the slave of this Roman couple, but who eventually bought her freedom from them. After her daughter, Petronia Iusta, was born, Iusta continued to live with the couple as a servant, and her mother paid for her upkeep. After the deaths of both Iusta's mother, and Calatoria's husband, Petronius Stephanus, Calatoria claimed that Iusta was born while her mother was still a slave, and therefore was still her slave, whereas Iusta claimed she was born after her mother was freed, and was therefore free herself. facinating

It seems clear that Carol Goodman read this story,* and decided that it was ripe for some historical fictionalizing. Good decision. I liked this story, and as I read, I was very taken by the story that slowly emerged from the depths of time, and the twist about Iusta's case was great. Little did I know at the time that it was based on a true story.

There are a series of sub-plots and backstories that also charge this story with a sense of mystery, not least of which is an ancient cult based on the teachings of Pythagoras. whaa?

Yeah, read this book.



* Here's a link to a PDF of a research paper about the Petronia Iusta case written by Ernest Metzger of the University of Aberdeen, The Case of Petronia Iusta. Originally published as E. Metzger, 'The Case of Petronia Iusta', Revue Internationale des Droit de l'Antiquité (3rd series) 47 (2000), 151-165.

fifth gospel

I didn't read Ian Caldwell's last book, The Rule of Four, but it apparently did very well. I tried to look it up in my library, but they only have one copy, and it was out. Presumably because that reader wanted to do what I wanted to do after finding his new book on the shelf; read the first one. But I checked with the librarian and there was no information about this book being a follow up or sequel to The Rule of Four.

Caldwell's latest book is called The Fifth Gospel, and it has apparently taken him something like 10 years to write. I think his previous publisher may have even given up on him, but this effort seems like it may have been worth the wait. I enjoyed it.

Caldwell takes a close look at the relationship between the Catholic Church and the Greek Orthodox Church, from a very interesting perspective; through the eyes of an Eastern Catholic priest, a religion that bridges the gap between the two faiths, which split about 1000 years ago. Our Eastern (or Greek Catholic) protagonist is the son of a Eastern Catholic father--this faith allows their priests to marry--and is a priest himself. His brother, also a priest, broke from the family tradition and has become a Roman Catholic Priest.

The kicker is; they grew up and continue live in Vatican City, during the last years of John Paul II tenure as Pope.

At its core, this is a story of intrigue within Vatican City, and a mystery revolving around the split and current efforts to reunify the churches, ancient relics, and what it means to be Greek Orthodox vs. Roman Catholic, and how some of the higher ups in each of these traditions may still sting from the split a thousand years ago.

Its about family, brothers, marriage, love, church politics, friendship, faith, loyalty and betrayal, lost and redemption. And you know... murder.

This story swirls with activity, cloak and dagger, mystery about the churches and their histories, and is sprinkled with the fun and interest of what a day in the life of an inhabitant of one of the smallest countries in the world may be like. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Read this book.

serpent of venice

Christopher Moore is a hoot. Funny, irreverent, smart, and dedicated to producing a great, wild story. I get the feeling that underneath his comic interior, he worries about the details of his books. The plotting, the characters, the continuity, all of it. He may even be a little neurotic at heart. He's the Woody Allen of Shakespearean, historic comedy novels. yeah, I said it

The Serpent of Venice: A Novel, by Christopher Moore returns us to the adventures of Pocket, the harlequin clad protagonist from Fool. I get the feeling when reading, that Pocket most nearly speaks as Moore wishes that he--or any of us--could; with absolute impunity to power.

The Serpent, as it sounds, is a riff on Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, with some other Shakespearean characters and plots thrown in to keep it interesting, along with some Edgar Allan Poe. Why, you might ask, does this story include not only multiple Shakespeare plays, but a dash of Poe, from a completely different era, as well? Why not?

Moore's willingness to look beyond the boundaries of a single inspiration, and combine these multiple sources with a storyline of his own devising is what, I think, sets him apart from other writers in the genre. Tom Robbins is the only other I can think of that I enjoy as much. Robbins doesn't seem to suffer like Moore does, but he has his own problems.

Read this book.

the heist

My wife is an endless source of joy. Not least of her wonders is her ability to crank through a novel in record time, so I almost always have stream of recently read books around to choose from, and she loves the spy novel. Because of this, I've read a bunch of Daniel Silva's books about Gabriel Allon, the hardened but thoughtful agent of Israel's secret service.

I haven't read everything in the Gabriel Allon series, but I have read a few of them. Silva doesn't shrink from using his novels as a soapbox to poke his finger in the eye of what he sees as the bad things in this world, and if anything, he seems to be poking a little harder as he gets older. Not only does the Syrian regime get some pretty heavy poking, but he's also thrown some others in there for good measure including Russia's burgeoning tsar. I get the feeling he'll get some more attention in an upcoming story (poke)

Silva takes us on a familiar romp. The story arc he favors has Allon reaching operational climax at about the mid-point of the book, so you know thing won't go as planned. The never do. Allon is first one to tell us that. What works so well is that well laid plans should work; seem like they will work, but then something unexpected happens and then its time to regroup and replan.

It was a fun one.

metamorphoses

I'm pretty sure I picked up this copy of Ovid's Metamorphoses when I was in Italy. I'm not sure about that but it has a funny price sticker on it and I have spent a fair number of my vacations in and around Ovid's hometown, Sulmona, in the Aquila region, in the eastern Alpines mountains west of Rome.

Publius Ovidius Naso, as he was known in Latin, or Ovidio to the Italians, was born in March, 43 BCE and died in exile in the year 17 or 18, so he was writing at around the same time as Virgil and Horace.

Metamorphoses is a series of related stories of the gods and goddesses, heroes and heroines, naiads and monsters, who all go through a dramatic physical change or alteration. The theme is a popular one in the Greek and Roman myths, but I had no idea there were so many examples; which begs the question, how many of these stories did Ovid make up himself? there are something like 250 separate stories in this epic poem, and each one includes a metamorphosis! So Ovid's a busy guy. And he was pretty sure that this poem was going to make him famous. He even states near the end that people will be saying his name in thousands of years. point; Ovid

Its pretty well known that authors from this era 'borrowed' from one another and from whereever else they liked. Many of the tales Ovid tells in his Metamorphoses are indeed told by Virgil. But what he is known for is his sense of humor, but after reading this translation by A.D. Melville, I've concluded that either the jokes must be pretty subtle, Ovid must just be humorous compared to his contemporaries (which I haven't read), or Melville didn't do a great job translating the humor. imagine, a classics scholar without a good sense of humor. weird

There is a 20-odd page introduction by E.J. Kenney, and 8 pages of translator's notes in the front matter, along with the table of contents and a Historical Sketch of Ovid. Kenney also prepared the notes to the text. These are highlighted in the text of the poem with asterisks. Find as asterisk go to the 100 pages of notes at the back and hunt for your note by book and line number! There are 15 books, and the lines aren't numbered, just a note at the top of each page noting what numbers it contains. I'm sure if you're a scholar, having a system that doesn't intrude on the flow of the poem is nice, but if you need to read the notes, they're a little hard to manage. Talk about stopping up the flow. The only way to read like this is to read a whole story, and then go read the applicable notes and try to recall where they were. I think footnotes would be fine.

After a quick look around, I think I may look up David R. Slavitt's The Metamorphoses of Ovid which is touted as freely translated by this American poet. According to Eric McMillan, Slavitt's version is supposed to be "Thoroughly enjoyable." saying that "Slavitt manages to capture the sweep of the stories while getting in all the little jokes and aides." Looks like I should have done a little research first. McMillan calls Melville's translation "quite dull." doh!

inferno

What’s a guy like me supposed to say about a guy like Dante Alighieri. Not much, but what I can say is that I didn’t read what Dante wrote. What I did read was small portions of the best guess on what Dante wrote, because his original manuscripts are gone, as is any agreed upon, concise copy of his original work. And of that work--the Italian version, edited by Giorgio Petrocchi in 1966-67 used by the Hollander's for their translation--I only read portions of it for two reasons: my Italian is poor, and Dante’s Italian is even more difficult for me to comprehend.

What I can tell you is, I did enjoy the translation of Inferno by Robert and Jean Hollander, which was complete with copious end notes after each canto. yeah, I read them The end notes give the whole experience a kind of scholarly endeavor feeling, and after I was about have way through, I felt that I should have probably just read through the poem first so I could maintain the story arc with less interruption, then I thought I would go back and re-read the poem by itself when I finished, but gave up on that after spending weeks on this book seemed like enough.

Inferno is the first of the three parts in Dante's Comedia, normally called The Divine Comedy, in English. I don’t have any immediate plans to read the Hollander’s translation of the next two books, Purgatorio and Paradiso, but maybe someday. Because this was a scholarly translation, the Hollander’s didn’t try to rhyme the poem as Dante did. This was one of the main reasons I read any of the Italian, which was printed conveniently on the verso, so I could get a little taste of that. The pronunciation of Dante’s Italian also complicated that little project; his version of Italian is difficult for me to read straight through so the cadence was a little choppy.
Robert and Jean Hollander are the husband and wife team who did the translation. They've worked on a number of Dante translations. Robert is a professor at Princeton and has been working on Dante since I was born, he also has a major hand in Princeton's Dante Project. Jean Hollander is a poet and a professor of writing who has also taught at Princeton as well as Brooklyn College and Columbia.

This book took me weeks to read, as I said. I took a break in the middle of this one to read another book, and since then I've read the third in that series without getting around to writing about this one. I'm glad I read it, but what a slog.

stones of florence

I borrowed this book from my office lending library. It looks like the type of thing someone might have read before a trip to Italy, to get a sense of Florence so they would be better informed about where to go, what to do, and to better understand Florence's people. It may also have been assigned reading in a design studio or art history course. However it ended up in our lending library, I will say that Mary McCarthy does seem to have done the research and has certainly traveled to Florence many times in the preparation of this book.

The Stones of Florence is a travel book, and art history book, and a history of Florence rolled into one, but it reads more like a travel journal. McCarthy gives us a sense of what its is like to be there (in the 50s, when this was written) * and weaves in the history behind what she sees, and then ties that history to the city that remains; was built and shaped by it, right down to its people. McCarthy describes the people of Florence as different from other Italians because of their unique history. McCarthy focuses on the Renaissance period as the most formative and walks us through the various political and religious upheavals in the city (or dukedom, before the unification of Italy) and the rush of famous artists who descended on the city, and the architecture which still exudes that uniquely  Florentine attitude.

McCarthy is--surprisingly, I guess--not a big Michelangelo fan (she refers to him as monomaniacal at one point), much preferring Donatello, saying;

"Michelangelo was the last truly public sculptor, and his works, so full of travail and labor, of knotted muscles and strained, suffering forms, are like a public death agony, prolonged and terrible to watch, of the art or craft of stonecutting."

This lady's not fooling around, or pulling any punches. This was fun to read, not least because of the time perspective; I found it really interesting to look at the Renaissance and 'modern' Firenze through the lens of 1956 pop America.


[A closing note: I was on vacation for the last two weeks in July, and I read a bunch of books. Some of these reviews and thoughts may be out of order, and may be slightly vague in my memory now.]


* I read the 1963 paperback version of this books which does NOT include the illustrations of the original 1956 book. I just discovered this (doh!) If you're going to read this, it seems like it would be better with the illustrations.

leonardo, yeah, that one

Leonardo and the Last Supper is my third or fourth Ross King book, I'm not really sure. One of them: Brunelleschi's Dome, you'll see down along the right hand column under 'great.' Leonardo won't be on the 'great' list. was that too abrupt?

Its been a while since I've read one of Ross King's books, pretty much everything I read now ends up on this blog and there aren't any of his books listed on 'the books' tab, so its a few years anyway. I also read one about Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel ceiling, which was also very good. This latest installment wasn't up to those standards however, and I'm not sure why, but I have some guesses. In order for my guesses to be proven out, I'd have to go back and do a little comparative analysis, but that's not going to happen; this isn't science I'm doing over here.

Here's my guesses for what I think is missing from this book, when compared to the other two I mentioned. First, historical data. King seemed to be short on it, as is everyone else, and he did an admirable job in putting together this story from what seems like not very much. He had to rely quite a bit on other biographers, and then suggested that maybe those other biographers were wrong, or at least weren't above conjecture. Second, there isn't much to the story; da Vinci took a number of years to paint the Last Supper, but that seems to be because he was always busy doing something else. There isn't a whole lot of information about how the panting/mural was done, who worked on it, or what happened day-to-day. For that matter, there isn't much information available about what da Vinci was doing during this time either. So that brings me to my third point, the book is more filler than substance. Because so little is know about what the master was actually doing and how he did it, this book is more about what was going on in Italy at the time, centering mainly on his sponsor in Milano, Ludovico Maria Sforza, or as he was known, Ludovico il Moro (Ludwig the Moor.)

The Sforza story is a very interesting story, and I have a sneaking suspicion that Leonardo's name in the title was more about selling books than a true reflection of what this story is about. "Il Moro and Leonardo's Last Supper" might have been a better title given what I read. I'm not saying you shouldn't read this book, especially if you are a fan of Leonardo da Vinci, just don't expect that King uncovered some amazing treasure trove of lost information about him.

Last complaint: there are a handful of color plates in the center of the book, but no image of da Vinci's Last Supper. No where in the book, in fact, is there an image of the entire work.

home to italy

Home to Italy is novel by Peter Pezzelli and seems to be targeted to the Italian population here in North America; those first and second generation folks who still dream of home. I'm not a second generation Italian, but I do have dreams of Italy. Just not the same ones as Peppi, the protagonist in this story.

Peppi is a first generation Italian who have lived in the US for most of his life, but still remembers his childhood in his family's mill in Abruzzo. In fact he comes from a small village near Sulmona, which is where my wife's family is from. The small village is called Villa San Giuseppe but I don't remember it, and I can't find it on a map so I think we can assume that Pezzelli created this town for the story. It makes sense because Peppi does go to Italy to his little town and they are running a confetti factory. I would have heard of a confetti factory.

Pezzelli hits on all of the points that make Italy a wonderful place: the food, the weather, the people, the food, the gardens, the love of life, the tight family bonds, the history, and the food. Pezzelli takes Peppi on a full circle trip through his life, and all of life's ups and downs, joys and sorrows are visited along the way. This is a feel-good, romantic look at life in Italy and what it is to go home again, presuming one ever can.

Its fun, sweet, poignant, and heartwarming. It was the perfect book to finish out 2013 with, and I just squeaked it in on the 31st. Peter Pezzelli has a hand full of other books listed in backmatter of this one. It looks like the Italian tradition, here in the Americas, is the general theme.

Happy New Year everyone! And thanks to Joe & Fran for the book loan!

travel marker series iii

This is a trade bookmark, designed to be the wrapping for a fun kid's bracelet called the b.FUNNY. These rubbery bracelets come in a variety of colors and designs, with hearts being the main design element. Wear one, or wear ten, depending on how you feel. The bracelets are one-piece, with a knob on one end that pops into a hole at the other end to hold them in place. When a bracelet is picked out, its slipped through the 'smile' cutout in the bookmarker, and the knob is popped thru the 'nose' from the back. The bracelet then hangs down the front of the bookmarker card as a presentation when sold.

This bookmark was given to me by the owner of the store in Sulmona, Italy who happens to be engaged to my wife's cousin. Silvia's store is FULL of all kinds of fun stuff for kids and adults, and if the store has a theme, it would have to be: adorable. Silvia's store is listed on the bracelet manufacturer's website as an authorized dealer.

IL CAPRICCIO DI SILVIA CONCETTA GOLEMME 

CORSO OVIDIO, 56 - AQ, SULMONA, ITALY

At Il Capriccio di Silvia (Silvia's Whims?) you can buy a Superman lunch box, a Hello Kitty bikini, a Mini Mouse school bag, a tea set with puppies, pocketbooks, purses, T-shirts, posters... she has everything, and if its not in the store she has it on her website.

The reverse of the card says: "Your Birikino Bookmarker!! Bring it with You!!" So I did.

Grazie mille Silvia!

venetian judgement

This the last book I read in Italy, and I finished it when I got home. I bought this in the same store in Italy, which seemed to have British imports, but who knows, maybe they're American. The cover on the last one I read didn't seem to match the cover shown on my local (American) book buying sites.*

The Venetian Judgement is also a spy novel which takes places partially in Italy. Venice as you can imagine from the title. This one is written by David Stone, a pen name in the author blurb it actually says 'cover name' for a very mysterious type of guy who has lived in "North America, South America and Southeast Asia". Yeah. Very mysterious. I guess I hope he doesn't get killed for writing this novel?

Anyways, this writer, whatever his or her name is, but lets call him David Stone, DOES seem to know his stuff. The military and intelligence backgrounds (also eluded to in the blurb) seems to show in the writing. The Venetian Judgement centers around a character named Micah Dalton, sometimes know as the Crocodile. Stone has 4 novels out, each featuring Dalton. I think this is the third one so Dalton has some history, which is eluded to in this story. In this story, Dalton is introduced as a CIA 'cleaner' which I take to mean, a guy who comes in after the nasty bits are done by others, to clean up, but it may be that he doesn't just take out the trash, he may have a hand in its production. I guess I need to read more spy novels Stone's grasp of the lingo certainly seems solid, but it did leave me wondering in a few places.

I was again pleased with the Italian connection and delighted to have found a very entertaining read for the end of my vacation and the flight home. I'll also keep my eyes open for any more David Stone novel I happen to see.

* Yeah, the cover on Amazon doesn't match the cover of the book I bought in this case either.

defector

So I ran out of books in Italy, and went to buy one at the store in Sulmona that sells books in English. The selection was limited, and the titles seemed to be from the UK. I ended up going back to buy a second title, which I finished just after I got home. I'll write about that one next. This one is by Daniel Silva, titled The Defector. Its an adventure including a recurring Silva character named Gabriel Allon, an Israeli secret service agent whose cover is an art restorer working for the pope and living in Umbria, Italy--a connection to my vacation that I enjoyed. As I read, I got the feeling that this one follows hard on the heels of another book, which after a quick look turns out to be Moscow Rules. If you're interested in reading the Gabriel Allon books in order, check it out here.

Gabriel Allon isn't fooling around. He takes what he does seriously, and personally. And if actually gets personal, he takes it to the next level. Allon is an interesting character. I can't say that I've never read of a character like him, because he has a lot of the same traits we often see in super spy types. He seems to be put together a little differently. We don't see a lot of super spies that both refuse promotions and have committed personal relationships. We also don't see a lot of super spies with the education and training to be fine art restorers and have the stomach for extreme prejudice 'wet work'.

This story finds Allon taken away from the life it seems like he'd rather be living to help out someone he helped in the past: a defector whose got himself in a bind. As one can imagine, things quickly escalate until until the proverbial pucky hits the fan. The Defector is fast, grim, brutal, tense, well plotted and sometimes tricksy. This is the first Daniel Silva book I recall reading, and based on this I may look around for some of his other stuff.

One more book on the Italian trip to go, then I've got some more bookmarks to share!

amber room

Okay, so lets get busy. I'm way behind because I've been in Italy for 4 weeks. I know, poor baby. I brought the book I was reading, this one and the two on my 'next up' list, and then bought two more while I was there. I just finished those two, so I've got 5 books to write about.

I've read a number of Steve Berry's books, each of them about his recurring character, Cotton Malone. The Amber Room is not a Cotton Malone story, and I'm pretty sure its Berry's first novel. Both of these facts may help to explain the poor character development; I just didn't feel that I knew, understood or could even connect with any of the characters in this story.

As an adventure story centered around an estranged couple, unwillingly thrown into a world of art theft, Nazi secret stashes,* secret organizations, and post-war legacy making by the Germans, Russians, and others, the story was pretty good. It hung together, and kept me reading, but I didn't love it. You can see Berry getting his legs under himself in this story; he does tell a pretty good story. And character development may be a little easier when you have multiple stories to fine tune who your characters really are, à la Cotton Malone. But in the end, this reads like a first book.

Fun, intricate, interesting but a little flat overall.


* You really ought to click on that link. Check this one too.