Favorite Venice Books
As I have explained. I love to read about a place I am going to visit. As a blind person this really adds to the total experience. I think this would be true for anyone.
I am listing some of my favorite Venice books. I will list them in order but the order is really kind of questionable. I am leaving out a lot of books that were really pretty good.
I suggest these books if you are planning a trip to Venice would like to revisit Venice or just want to imagine being there.
First of all I want to mention the series of detective novels written by Donna Leon. I still have some to read. I tried to go through and not read the ones that don’t actually take place in Venice. I loved these books and there are lots of them. I may have learned more about Venice from these books than any of the other books I read and they are fun.
The city of falling angels: A Venice Story by John Berendt
holds a strong second place. If you are going to read just one book, this should be it.
Venetian Dreaming by Paula Weideger is similar to the above book. In fact, they knew a lot of the same people. Reading both these books helped me know the personalities of Venice past.
In the company of the courtesan by Sarah Dunant, is a book I read years ago and searched for to reread. I learned a lot about the art of Venice from this book.
The Aspern Papers Henry James. Yes he can write short books. This is fun because the other books I mentioned talked about where he wrote this.
Merchant of Venice by William Shakspear. Yes, I read some Shakespeare and I liked it.
Venice Observed by Mary Mccarthy is a book that many other books refer to. It is a good basic history of Venice.
Midwife of Venice by Roberta Rich, is a nice novel that gives some useful historic information in a nice easy to swallow format.
Sisterchicks in gondolas by Robin Joans Gunn is light and fluffy but puts you in the Venice mood
I hope you give 1 or more of these books a try and wander aimlessly through the streets of Venice, if only in your mind.