Andrea Di Robilant

This delightful journey begins with di Robilant's serendipitous discovery of a travel narrative published in Venice in 1558 by the Renaissance statesman Nicolo Zen that recreated the travels of two of Zen's ancestors who explored the North Atlantic in the 1380s and 1390s. di Robilant set out to discover why later, in the 19th century, the Zens' account came under attack as one of the greatest frauds in geographical history.

"The acclaimed author of A Venetian Affair now gives us the remarkable story of Hemingway's love affair with both the city of Venice and the muse he found there--a vivacious 18-year-old who inspired the man thirty years her senior to complete his great final work. In the fall of 1948 Hemingway and his fourth wife traveled for the first time to Venice, which Hemingway called "absolutely god-damned wonderful." He was a year shy of his fiftieth birthday...

"This selection of more than 700 mostly black-and-white photographs by Camilla McGrath is from a collection of 60,000 in 100 white leather bound albums covering the years 1948-1999. Camilla, one of four children of Count and Countess Pecci-Blunt, grew up with a mother who was passionate about the arts: she painted, had a small theater, an art gallery, La Cometa, in Rome, and one in New York, and collected celebrated artists, writers, dancers and choreographers...