Venice for Lovers, Louis Begley
Venice for Lovers, Louis Begley
List: $14.99 | Sale: $10.50
Club: $7.49

Venice for Lovers

Author: Louis Begley, Anka Muhlstein

Narrator: Malcolm Hillgartner

Unabridged: 3 hr 22 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download (DRM Protected)

Published: 11/01/2008


Synopsis

Every year for the thirty they have been married, Louis Begley and Anka Muhlstein have escaped to Venice to write. In Venice for Lovers, Begley and Muhlstein fashion their own personal homages to Venice, one with a novella, the other with a personal essay. In her contribution to the book, Muhlstein charmingly describes how she and her husband dine at the same restaurant every night for years on end, and how becoming friends with restaurateurs has been an unsurpassed means of getting to know the city and its inhabitants, far from the tourists in San Marco Square. They meet Venetians like Ernesto, who tells them of the great flood that nearly destroyed the beautiful city; and Nerone, an authoritarian chef who serves the freshest seafood and throws yesterday’s catch to the cats. And they spend blissful hours at Da Fiore, named by the International Herald Tribune as one of the ten best restaurants in the world but which, unfazed, retains its rustic simplicity. In his short novella, Begley writes a story of falling in love with—and in—Venice. His twenty-year-old protagonist, enamored with an older, far worldlier woman, is lured by her to the City of Water, only to be unceremoniously dumped after a brief rendezvous. But he discovers a lasting love for Venice itself—not an uncommon romance, as Begley’s brilliant essay on the city’s place within world literature demonstrates. By turns humorous, nostalgic, and spellbinding, Venice for Lovers is a memorable collaboration by two fine stylists—a very private view of a place that will forever inspire dreams of love and passion.

About Louis Begley

Born in Poland in 1933, Louis Begley is the author of many novels, including Wartime Lies, About Schmidt and Shipwreck. His wife of thirty years, biographer Anka Muhlstein is the author of La Salle: Explorer of the North American Frontier and, most recently, A Taste for Freedom: The Life of Astolphe de Custine. They live in New York.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Carolyn

This book is a collaboration between a husband and wife, both authors, who have been visiting Venice for decades and love it. So far so good. They split it up and gave us three sections: memoirs of Venetian restaurateurs they befriended; an erotic fictional short story; and an essay exploring how th......more

Goodreads review by Ron

From the back cover: "Every year for all thirty they have been married, Louis Begley and Anka Muhlstein have escaped to Venice to write." This collabration by the lawyer/novelist Begley and his wife, a noted historian, combines a novella by him and a personal narrative by her. An absolutely wonderfu......more

Goodreads review by Patrick

This was a book written by the author and his wife. It was two non-fiction piece surrounding a novella. The first nonfiction piece written by Begley's wife details eating in Venice and avoiding crowds. The second nonfiction piece about Venice's effect on the writings of James, Proust and Mann reads......more