Book #47 The City Of Falling Angels by Jon Berendt
I picked up this book with low expectations, thinking that I was only reading it so I might be able to be more in the know once Christmas season starts. However, it turned out to be delightfully interesting.
Berendt kind of skips and hops between different subjects all set in Venice: the burning and rebuilding of the opera house, the swindling of Ezra Pound’s mistress by the creating of the Ezra Pound foundation, the schism of the Save Venice society, and so forth. It was enough variation that it kept it interesting rather than seeing abrupt. Also, I learned fantastic little tidbits like the fact that rats can’t throw up. And that they also have an anisthetic of sorts in their saliva so you don’t feel a rat bite as much as you think you would, because that’s what kind of completely random conversations you have when you attend at a Venice masquerade ball. Not to negate Venice’s grandeur, but it’s akin to something I’d hear at a cookout at my Uncle Chip’s house.
