false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1176332326m/613896.jpg 12786 32 Just as John Berendt's first book, <i>Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil</i>, was settling into its remarkable four-year run on <i>The New York Times</i> bestseller list, he discovered a new city whose local mysteries and traditions were more than a match for Savannah, whose hothouse eccentricities he had celebrated in the first book. The new city was Venice, and he spent much of the last decade wandering through its canals and palazzos, seeking to understand a place that any native will tell you is easy to visit but hard to know. Venice, a city steeped in a thousand years of history, art and architecture, teeters in precarious balance between endurance and decay. Its architectural treasures crumble—foundations shift, marble ornaments fall—even as efforts to preserve them are underway. The City of Falling Angels opens on the evening of January 29, 1996, when a dramatic fire destroys the historic Fenice opera house. The loss of the Fenice, where five of Verdi's operas premiered, is a catastrophe for Venetians. Arriving in Venice three days after the fire, Berendt becomes a kind of detective—inquiring into the nature of life in this remarkable museum-city—while gradually revealing the truth about the fire. In the course of his investigations, Berendt introduces us to a rich cast of characters: a prominent Venetian poet whose shocking "suicide" prompts his skeptical friends to pursue a murder suspect on their own; the first family of American expatriates that loses possession of the family palace after four generations of ownership; an organization of high-society, partygoing Americans who raise money to preserve the art and architecture of Venice, while quarreling in public among themselves, questioning one another's motives and drawing startled Venetians into the fray; a contemporary Venetian surrealist painter and outrageous provocateur; the master glassblower of Venice; and numerous others-stool pigeons, scapegoats, hustlers, sleepwalkers, believers in Martians, the Plant Man, the Rat Man, and Henry James. 737109 book 2005 The City of Falling Angels total:2696|5:333|4:915|3:989|2:367|1:92| 2696 9118 3969 615 2 6 false false Sun Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sun Jul 22 06:22:13 -0700 2007 Wed Jul 25 04:54:19 -0700 2007 Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, this book takes the reader to Venice shortly after the well-renowned Fenice Theatre burned down. Berendt offers a multiple of theories surrounding the fire, from Mafia participation to a neglectful renovation crew.

...more...]]> 5 4 false false Thu Apr 12 07:16:10 -0700 2007 Tue Nov 13 22:37:56 -0800 2007 more...]]> 4 2 false false Fri Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Tue Mar 11 21:54:58 -0700 2008 Tue Mar 11 21:56:51 -0700 2008 Berendt, John – Standalone
The Penguin Press, 2005, US Hardcover – ISBN: 1594200580

First Sentence: “Everyone in Venice is acting,” Count Girolamo Marcello told me.

In January 1996, La Fenic...more...]]> 4 2 false false Mon Mar 16 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat May 31 07:01:35 -0700 2008 Wed Mar 18 14:04:38 -0700 2009 more...]]> 2 2 false false Fri Sep 12 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Sep 10 15:01:29 -0700 2008 Fri Sep 12 01:42:55 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 2 false false Sun Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sun Jul 15 07:25:13 -0700 2007 Sun Jul 15 07:25:31 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 3 false false Wed Jul 15 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Nov 03 07:46:57 -0800 2008 Fri Jul 17 13:31:02 -0700 2009 The City of Falling Angels.. He provides much history of not only the art and buildings of Venice, but also of many Venetian families. He manages to do this all in such a casual way that one forgets it's non-fiction. I'm only sorry, I di...more...]]> 4 2 false false Sun Jul 15 21:58:58 -0700 2007 Sun Jul 15 23:20:42 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 1 false false Mon Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Wed Dec 31 20:21:46 -0800 2008 Thu Jan 08 21:23:44 -0800 2009 more...]]> 3 1 false false Tue Jul 29 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Jul 10 21:05:23 -0700 2008 Tue Jul 29 10:57:07 -0700 2008 more...]]> 2 1 false false Sun Jan 25 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Wed Jan 28 08:20:09 -0800 2009 Wed Jan 28 08:22:36 -0800 2009 Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil</> moves to Venice to get to know the city without tourists. He meets an odd assortment of characters, from the artisan who opened the first mask shop in Venice to the prosecutor investigating the fire that destroyed the city's great opera ...more...]]> 2 1 false false Wed Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Tue Aug 07 08:58:57 -0700 2007 Sat Aug 25 13:32:06 -0700 2007 more...]]> 1 1 false false Wed Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Sat Jan 26 20:18:27 -0800 2008 Sat Jan 26 20:52:26 -0800 2008
The book reminded me of a never-ending Dominick Dunne piece for "Vanity Fair" with i...more...]]> 2 0 false false Tue Apr 15 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat Nov 29 00:45:30 -0800 2008 Sat Nov 29 00:46:06 -0800 2008
Though Berendt tries to give *Falling Angels* a convincing through-line (and you’d think it would have one – the built-in whodunit of t...more...]]> 3 0 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sun Oct 04 21:25:26 -0700 2009 Sun Oct 04 21:35:01 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 1 false false Wed Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Tue Aug 21 12:10:02 -0700 2007 Sat Aug 25 16:23:23 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 1 false false Sat Jul 18 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Jan 03 21:14:48 -0800 2008 Sat Jul 18 17:26:09 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 1 false false Sun Oct 05 06:19:55 -0700 2008 Sun Oct 05 06:26:03 -0700 2008 more...]]> 2 0 false false Sat Jun 27 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 23 17:19:25 -0700 2009 Sun Jun 28 07:17:49 -0700 2009 Unfortunately " The City...more...]]> 2 0 false false Sat Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sun Feb 08 09:34:37 -0800 2009 Sun Feb 08 09:35:11 -0800 2009 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=613896