Here are 100 books that A Month in Siena fans have personally recommended if you like
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For three decades I have been the first violinist of the Takács Quartet, performing concerts worldwide and based at the University of Colorado in Boulder. I love the ways in which books, like music, offer new and surprising elements at different stages of life, providing companionship alongside joys and sorrows.
In these five stories music is the catalyst that shapes the narrators’ encounters with regret, failure, and loss. Through seemingly straightforward but complex dialogue, surprising plot twists, and individual revelations, Ishiguro mixes whimsy and melancholy with moments of connection and revelation—a cocktail that is oddly comforting.
*Kazuo Ishiguro's new novel Klara and the Sun is now available*
In Nocturnes, Kazuo Ishiguro explores ideas of love, music and the passing of time. From the piazzas of Italy to the 'hush-hush floor' of an exclusive Hollywood Hotel, the characters we encounter range from young dreamers to cafe musicians to faded stars, all of them at some moment of reckoning.
Gentle, intimate and witty, this quintet is marked by a haunting theme - the struggle to keep alive a sense of life's romance, even as one gets older, relationships founder and youthful hopes recede.
I love it when a writer breaks the rules of a genre like fiction, nonfiction, or poetry to tell a story that can’t be contained in a typical way. Here are five books that think outside the box to narrate a tale that wants to be told in its own fashion.
In this book, W.G. Sebald tells the stories of four Germans who, like the author, left their native land to live abroad. Sebald mixes family memories with stream-of-consciousness musings on history and culture. He inserts unexpected elements into the text, including a found diary written by his Great-Uncle Adelwarth, a gay man who was out of the closet way before it was safe.
Sebald sprinkles into the narrative black and white period photos that have a sort of deadpan, documentary humor that perfectly matches the tone of his prose.
The four long narratives in The Emigrants appear at first to be the straightforward biographies of four Germans in exile. Sebald reconstructs the lives of a painter, a doctor, an elementary-school teacher, and Great Uncle Ambrose. Following (literally) in their footsteps, the narrator retraces routes of exile which lead from Lithuania to London, from Munich to Manchester, from the South German provinces to Switzerland, France, New York, Constantinople, and Jerusalem. Along with memories, documents, and diaries of the Holocaust, he collects photographs-the enigmatic snapshots which stud The Emigrants and bring to mind family photo albums. Sebald combines precise documentary with…
For three decades I have been the first violinist of the Takács Quartet, performing concerts worldwide and based at the University of Colorado in Boulder. I love the ways in which books, like music, offer new and surprising elements at different stages of life, providing companionship alongside joys and sorrows.
Suspicious of biography, Malcolm dissects various myths about Chekhov’s death in this engaging book that mixes travel writing with acute readings of Chekhov’s stories and plays. As Malcolm visits some of the places crucial to Chekhov’s life and work (the scenes in Ukraine are of course poignant), she moves seamlessly between her own everyday experiences and the predicaments of Chekhov’s characters. In amongst the despair, disappointment, and absurdity she discovers beauty, humor, and occasional visions of hope.
To illuminate the mysterious greatness of Anton Chekhov’s writings, Janet Malcolm takes on three roles: literary critic, biographer, and journalist. Her close readings of the stories and plays are interwoven with episodes from Chekhov’s life and framed by an account of Malcolm’s journey to St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Yalta. She writes of Chekhov’s childhood, his relationships, his travels, his early success, and his self-imposed “exile”—always with an eye to connecting them to themes and characters in his work. Lovers of Chekhov as well as those new to his work will be transfixed by Reading Chekhov.
I am a Wiltshire-based writer with a passion for historical and literary fiction and a fascination for the role of “memory” in the autumn of our lives. My own novel was inspired by conversations with my late grandfather in his final years. But as a journalist for more than 20 years, I had many rich opportunities to talk to the elderly members of our communities–most memorably, taking a pair of D-Day veterans back to the beaches of Normandy. In many ways, memories are the only things we can take with us throughout our lives, carrying both the burden of regrets and the consolation of those we have loved.
The novel tells the story of a group of friends who have taken it upon themselves to carry out the “last orders” of their drinking partner, Jack Dodds, to deliver his ashes to the grey seas of Margate. As they drive to the coast, their errand becomes a poignant journey into their collective pasts.
Swift described it as an homage to William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, and it follows a similar narrative structure, with chapters titled with the names of the seven key characters, with a shifting narrative perspective to follow the story from each of their eyes.
As a reader, you naturally find your favourite narrative viewpoint. For me, it was Ray, “Lucky Ray,” the obsessive gambler, which for me was the real centre of the novel.
The classic edition of one of the 20th Century's finest novels
Four men once close to Jack Dodds, a London butcher, meet to carry out his peculiar last wish: to have his ashes scattered into the sea at Margate. For reasons best known to herself, Jack's widow, Amy, declines to join them . . . On the surface a simple tale of an increasingly bizarre day's outing, this Booker-prize winning, internationally acclaimed novel is a resonant and classic exploration of the complexity and courage of ordinary lives. Intensely local but overwhelmingly universal, faithful to…
I’m a historian and writer who strives to combine the history of science and medicine, the study of visual culture, and cultural history in my work. Although I hated being dragged round art galleries and museums as a child, something must have stuck, laying the foundations for my interest in using images and artefacts to understand both the past and the present. Since the early 1990s I’ve been writing about portraits, how they work, and why they are important—I remain gripped by the compelling ways they speak to identity. It was a privilege to serve as a trustee of the National Portrait Gallery in London between 2001 and 2009.
This book is simply brilliant. I first read it in the 1980s and return to it often for inspiration and to remind myself of its piercing lucidity. Beautifully written, clear, thoughtful, and direct, it expresses a way of looking at art and visual culture that can be applied to other times and places. Baxandall explores the social relationships and practices out of which works of art emerge, connecting the way paintings look with the society in which they were made. He robustly criticises simplistic approaches to the art of the past and shows how we can think differently and understand more. I have deep admiration for Michael Baxandall, whose writings encourage readers to reflect on their own visual skills and habits, how and where they have acquired them.
This book is both an introduction to fifteenth-century Italian painting, and a primer in how to read social history out of the style of pictures. It examines the commercial practice of the early Renaissance picture, trade in contracts, letters, and accounts; and it explains how the visual skills and habits evolved in the daily life of any society enter into its painters' style. Renaissance painting is related for instance to experience of such activities as preaching, dancing, and gauging barrels.
This second edition contains an appendix, the original Latin and Italian texts referred to throughout the book, giving the student…
Growing up in what was becoming Silicon Valley, I escaped to San Francisco on weekends and, through it, fell in love with what other great cities have to offer. However, as an environmental writer and TV producer there in the 1980s, I became aware of how cities exploit the territories on which they rely. A winter sojourn in the most lovely, fragile, and ingenious of all towns—Venice—in 1985 focused my too-diffuse thought on what might otherwise seem a contradiction.The lagoon cityis, as John Ruskin said, the finest book humanity has ever written; I owe it my life and the book it inspired.
I first read this book while living in Venice in the winter of 1985. Morris writes of a sea voyage along the ancient trade route and to the maritime colonies of her beloved lagoon city and, in the process, reveals much about the aggression and rapacity required by its merchant rulers to build one of humanity’s most beautiful and audacious creations.
Her book, along with Mumford’s, was formative for my understanding of the dependence of imperial cities upon an expansive hinterland and the role of warfare in its acquisition. In Venice’s case, its ship-building Arsenale made possible the splendid palaces that line the Grand Canal and the immense pile of loot that is the Basilica San Marco.
For six centuries the Republic of Venice was a maritime empire, its sovereign power extending throughout much of the eastern Mediterranean - an empire of coasts, islands and isolated fortresses by which, as Wordsworth wrote, the mercantile Venetians 'held the gorgeous east in fee'.
Jan Morris reconstructs the whole of this glittering dominion in the form of a sea-voyage, travelling along the historic Venetian trade routes from Venice itself to Greece, Crete and Cyprus. It is a traveller's book, geographically arranged but wandering at will from the past to the present, evoking not only contemporary landscapes and sensations but also…
I am on a self-discovery journey, and each day, I discover more of why I am here on earth. The books I mentioned all have themes related to the human condition. I write to express what I understand. I love writing about characters and their journeys. I love all animals, and dogs are a great comfort. I’d like to see animal abuse come to an end in my lifetime. I write about people who have fallen from great heights and how saving animals and others in need saves them. We need to love more.
Self-discovery after being brokenhearted from a love relationship is what I refer to as the dark night of the soul. We’ve all been there. There is no way out except to go in, which is what the main character did in Eat Pray Love. Eventually, she finds herself and gains self-love.
Miss Pink, my main character, does something similar. Her journey was going from living in a high rise with a great job to losing it all, including a cheating husband and eventually becoming homeless. What does she do? She starts to give to others who are far worse off, like animals about to be euthanized legally. How uncivilized, how cruel, and Miss Pink, the great warrior, comes up with solutions to save almost all of them. Save the four-legged and two-legged, and you save yourself.
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'Eat, Pray, Love has been passed from woman to woman like the secret of life' - Sunday Times
'A defining work of memoir' - Sunday Telegraph
'Engaging, intelligent, and highly entertaining' - Time
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It's 3 a.m. and Elizabeth Gilbert is sobbing on the bathroom floor. She's in her thirties, she has a husband, a house, they're trying for a baby - and she doesn't want any of it.
A bitter divorce and a turbulent love affair later, she emerges battered and bewildered and realises it is time to pursue her own…
I’ve been a traveler and a dreamer ever since I was a little girl. I used to write to the tourism bureaus of different countries and tape pictures of faraway places onto the walls of my bedroom. It’s no surprise I ended up living in Europe, my home base for excursions all over the world. My historical fiction always features places that mean a lot to me, whether it’s Germany (where I live now), or Sicily – where my mother’s family came from. Digging into my Sicilian heritage and the culture and life of the island for my third novel was like discovering a new home.
Sicily is part of my family’s heritage, and back when they emigrated to America, they left a lot of their language and culture behind or didn’t pass it down to the next generation.
Seeking Sicily fills in some of those blanks in my family’s cultural history. It does what I haven’t been able to do, roam around the island meeting many different people and asking about everything from food to religious rituals to life amid the ruins of old palaces and ancient monuments.
It’s a really intimate book that still gives a great overview of Sicilian life.
Sicily has a timeless allure, and much of what one sees there today has changed little over the centuries. With Sicily's literary greats as a guide, Keahey discerns what lies behind the soul of its inhabitants, touching on history, archaeology, food, art, and politics. He looks to contemporary Sicilians who have never shaken off the influences of their forbearers, who believed in the ancient gods & goddesses; and who have always come under the thumb of outsiders. Most importantly, he will explore the Mediterranean's largest and most mysterious island through the eyes of a visitor - making this book a…
Decades ago, I fell madly, gladly, and giddily in love with Italian. This passion inspired La Bella Lingua: My Love Affair with the World’s Most Enchanting Language, which became a New York Times best-seller and won an Italian knighthood for my contributions to promoting Italy’s language. Intrigued by the world’s most famous portrait, I wrote Mona Lisa: A Life Discovered, an Amazon Best Book of the Year, translated into seven languages. My most recent journeys through Italian culture are La Passione: How Italy Seduced the World and ‘A’ Is for Amore, an e-book written during the pandemic and available free on my website.
This was the first Anthony Doerr book I read—the literary equivalent of eating dessert first. I’ve since savored his novels, but this irresistible feast of delicious morsels of Italian life lingers in my mind. Doerr doesn’t show you Rome. He invites you to live in it with him—during his sleepless nights, in the company of his twin babies, as a beloved Pope lies dying and the seasons bring new enchantments.
I can’t say whether I love this book more for the writing or for its tender portrait of Rome. Read it for the double pleasures of exquisitely crafted vignettes and a virtual visit to a city that eternally surprises and seduces visitors.
From the author of the acclaimed Pulitzer Prize-winning #1 New York Times bestseller All the Light We Cannot See and Cloud Cuckoo Land, a "dazzling" (Azar Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran) memoir about art and adventures in Rome.
Anthony Doerr has received many awards—from the New York Public Library, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the American Library Association. Then came the Rome Prize, one of the most prestigious awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and with it a stipend and a writing studio in Rome for a year. Doerr learned of the award…
Jules Brown wrote travel guides for Rough Guides for over thirty years – if there’s a railway timetable somewhere he hasn’t studied, he’d like to know about it. He took his first InterRail trip around Europe when he was seventeen and, as a travel writer, he’s been on trains around the world, from Norway to New Zealand. Jules is the author of two travel memoirs, Don’t Eat the Puffin and Never Pack an Ice-Axe, which – after a lifetime of travel –are still the best bits of advice he has for anyone heading off on a journey.
An English novelist, a long-time resident of (and writer about) Italy, Parks is well placed to offer his hugely entertaining take on rail travel in Europe’s most gloriously maddening country. It’s neither fully a history book nor travelogue, though Parks writes divertingly and inspiringly about both history and travel. Instead, it’s partly an attempt to appreciate Italy through its railways – as he says early on, “if someone wanted to understand Italy, they might start by understanding how the train ticketing system works.” For anyone who has ever wrestled with the intransigence of an Italian rail conductor, stood forlornly waiting for an inexplicably delayed train, been crammed into a corridor with furiously smoking army conscripts, or been fed oranges by a garrulous Sicilian family, this book is a joy of recognition, despair, and delight.
Tim Parks's books on Italy have been hailed as "so vivid, so packed with delectable details, [they] serve as a more than decent substitute for the real thing" (Los Angeles Times Book Review). Now, in his first Italian travelogue in a decade, he delivers a charming and funny portrait of Italian ways by riding its trains from Verona to Milan, Rome to Palermo, and right down to the heel of Italy.
Parks begins as any traveler might: "A train is a train is a train, isn't it?" But soon he turns his novelist's eye to the details, and as he…
