Podcast – a reading of Byron’s “Beppo”
Jun 11, 2022
I've decided to upload the occasional podcast onto the website. And I thought I'd begin (surprise, surprise) with Byron. And (to add further surprise) with Byron's most Venetian poem, "Beppo". It's not too much to say that this is the poem in which he discovered his...
For Memorial Day, a sestina by Anthony Hecht
My recording of Anthony Hecht's moving sestina, "The Book of Yolek" (The Transparent Man, OUP, 1991):
Conversation with Monica Cesarato Monday 17th May
Looking forward to this conversation tomorrow - and to the good wine that will accompany it... https://www.facebook.com/events/370623710972950/?ref=newsfeed
The missing Venetian novel
L’amante senza fissa dimora by Carlo Fruttero and Franco Lucentini. The title of this blog-post is perhaps misleading. The novel is by no means missing, if we look at the international market. It came out in Italian in 1986 and sold extremely well. French and German...
Interview with Monica Cesarato on life in lockdown Venice
A chat with lively interviewer Monica Cesarato about life in Venice under lockdown. Topics touched on include: on-line teaching, 18th-century Venice, Venetian spies, Alvise Marangon, thriller-writing, Venetian dialect, queueing for the shops, Byron, Ravenna,...
Conversation with Monica Cesarato – Travel Food Blogger
This evening, 28 April 2020, I’ll be talking to Monica Cesarato on Instagram Very grateful to Monica Cesarato for this opportunity to talk about Venice, crime-fiction, lockdown, dolphins in the canals – and whatever else comes up… You will need to follow on Instagram...
ASCENSION: special promotion!
During this period of enforced domesticity KOBO ebooks are offering a number of titles for free. This includes my novel ASCENSION, the first in the Alvise Marangon series. You can find it at this link Here's what people had to say about it: Andrea di Robilant:...
Just a few words about dolphins…
View from the Rialto Bridge No, there are no dolphins in the canals of Venice. I believe they have been seen in the past in the lagoon but the photo that is circulating at the moment (at least the one I keep seeing) is from Cagliari, Sardinia. Here’s a link to an...
My walk across desolate Venice
So, as I anticipated in my last post, yesterday I had the opportunity to take a long walk across Venice, since I had to go to the university to act as Chairman of a “commissione di laurea”, sitting in front of a computer and connecting telematically with the students...
A few notes from Venice in the time of Coronavirus
Dr Christian Jessen has suddenly become famous in Italy. On 12th March in a radio interview he played down the dangers of Coronavirus, and gave his measured assessment on the recent measures taken in...
Re-issue of my first novel, DOUBLE TAKE
Here's the preface I've added to the e-book re-issue of my first novel, Double Take: This was my first novel, published in 1985 by Severn House in the UK and by St Martin’s Press in the USA. I have not attempted to update it in any way, hoping that this story of...
A new review of The Four Horsemen
I am extremely grateful for this new review of The Four Horsemen by Anne Schiller, who is Professor of Anthropology at George Mason University, Virginia. As well as saying very nice things about the pure thriller aspects of the novel (and giving a wonderfully...