Venice Is a Fish: A Sensual Guide
(Libby/OverDrive eBook, Kindle)

Prolific Venetian writer Scarpa pledges not "to name a single hotel, restaurant, bar or shop" in this delicate yet supple book, a chain of linked and sensuously translated essays about the one of the world's most unusual and historical cities. He focuses each chapter of his tour through different parts of the body. He begins with the feet before moving up to the legs and heart. The translation renders even the most basic descriptions wonderfully tactile. Only eventually does Scarpa move on to the more obvious sights, sounds, tastes and smells. The main text is just over a hundred pages, but a 40-page coda takes it into the lit-crit realm by way of a "micro-anthology of Venetian texts" that includes samplings from the author's other works. Scarpa is better known in Italy than America, but that could change with this brief book, which captures Venice as only words and language on the tongue of a native can. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Scarpa, who has published essays, novels, and poetry, offers a native's view of Venice, pieced together from Venetian history, his own personal life, and the kind of anecdotes that don't often make it into traditional travel guides. (The title refers to the shape of Venice when seen on a map.) Scarpa exhorts the traveler to leave guidebooks behind and see, smell, taste, and hear his Venice, an often dark place where the canals stink, church bells and heels echo through narrow streets, and the city's deadly beauty (radium pulchritudinis) is kept in check by scaffolding and unsympathetic modern buildings. Later chapters of his book include two that are variations on earlier chapters, presumably to fill out what otherwise is an intriguing but slim volume. Also included is a short essay on Venice by Guy de Maupassant. Although called a guide in the subtitle, this is not a travel guide, per se, but a meditation on a place. Cafe Life Venice is the third in the "Cafe Life" series authored by Wolff and Paperno (Rome and Florence are their previous volumes). It's an attractive little book, full of color photographs of 17 cafes, bakeries, wine bars, and gelato shops and equally colorful and entertaining stories of their owners and of Venice. Readers will feel ready to greet the owners as if they were old friends after having read about them in such familiar detail. Travelers on a budget should check another guide for prices, since this includes none, as well as for more choices. While travelers to Venice will find much to appreciate in both of these books, they should regard them as supplements to comprehensive travel guides. Both are recommended for public libraries with large travel collections.--Linda M. Kaufmann, Massachusetts Coll. of Liberal Arts Lib., North Adams (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Definitely not your father's travel guide: A native Venetian offers some playful aper‡us about La Serenissima. Venice is a fish: "How did this marvelous beast make its way up the Adriatic?" Venice is a tortoise: "its stone shell is made of grey trachite borders...which pave the streets." Venice is whatever novelist, poet and playwright Scarpa feels like making of it in his English-language debut, an entertaining, highly idiosyncratic look at la dolce vita veneta. Organizing his random agglomeration of musings by parts of the body, he suggests in the chapter on feet that tourists simply let theirs wander. "Why fight the labyrinth?" he asks. "Let the streets decide your journey for you...Lose your bearings. Just drift." Let your legs absorb the never-flat surfaces of the city's calli (streets), open your heart to the "permanent state of romantic excitement" that leads Venetians to make love outdoors on every street corner. (There are some hilarious anecdotes in this chapter, including one about a guy who offers a jovial "Hi!" to a passing acquaintance without disturbing the activities of his girlfriend, kneeling in front of him.) Hands (rubbing centuries-old plaster), face (hidden behind the famous carnival masks), ears, mouth, nose, eyes--each gives the author an excuse to strut his stuff. Scarpa provides insider information about the best local dishes (wholemeal spaghetti, fried sardines and calves liver, each sauted in oodles of onions); about the meaning of street names, which generally commemorate "foul deeds and popular customs"; about why the city is plagued by flooding (deep channels dug in the lagoon to accommodate oil tankers). It's all exceedingly readable and agreeable--and nothing more. Venice's remarkable 1,400-year history as a crossroads between East and West is nowhere in evidence, and the city's character is rendered in such broad strokes that it approaches caricature. Plenty of atmosphere and attitude, but not much else; this would have been better as a snappy magazine article. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Scarpa, who has published essays, novels, and poetry, offers a native's view of Venice, pieced together from Venetian history, his own personal life, and the kind of anecdotes that don't often make it into traditional travel guides. (The title refers to the shape of Venice when seen on a map.) Scarpa exhorts the traveler to leave guidebooks behind and see, smell, taste, and hear his Venice, an often dark place where the canals stink, church bells and heels echo through narrow streets, and the city's deadly beauty (radium pulchritudinis ) is kept in check by scaffolding and unsympathetic modern buildings. Later chapters of his book include two that are variations on earlier chapters, presumably to fill out what otherwise is an intriguing but slim volume. Also included is a short essay on Venice by Guy de Maupassant. Although called a guide in the subtitle, this is not a travel guide, per se, but a meditation on a place.

Caf Life Venice is the third in the "Caf Life" series authored by Wolff and Paperno (Rome and Florence are their previous volumes). It's an attractive little book, full of color photographs of 17 cafs, bakeries, wine bars, and gelato shops and equally colorful and entertaining stories of their owners and of Venice. Readers will feel ready to greet the owners as if they were old friends after having read about them in such familiar detail. Travelers on a budget should check another guide for prices, since this includes none, as well as for more choices. While travelers to Venice will find much to appreciate in both of these books, they should regard them as supplements to comprehensive travel guides. Both are recommended for public libraries with large travel collections.—Linda M. Kaufmann, Massachusetts Coll. of Liberal Arts Lib., North Adams

Prolific Venetian writer Scarpa pledges not "to name a single hotel, restaurant, bar or shop" in this delicate yet supple book, a chain of linked and sensuously translated essays about the one of the world's most unusual and historical cities. He focuses each chapter of his tour through different parts of the body. He begins with the feet before moving up to the legs and heart. The translation renders even the most basic descriptions wonderfully tactile. Only eventually does Scarpa move on to the more obvious sights, sounds, tastes and smells. The main text is just over a hundred pages, but a 40-page coda takes it into the lit-crit realm by way of a "micro-anthology of Venetian texts" that includes samplings from the author's other works. Scarpa is better known in Italy than America, but that could change with this brief book, which captures Venice as only words and language on the tongue of a native can. (Aug.)