Venice, Jan Morris
Venice, Jan Morris
2 Rating(s)
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Venice

Author: Jan Morris

Narrator: Sebastian Comberti

Unabridged: 13 hr 1 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Naxos

Published: 04/26/2010

Categories: Nonfiction, Travel, Europe, Italy


Synopsis

Venice stands, as she loves to tell you, on the frontiers of the east and west, half-way between the setting and the rising sun. Goethe calls her ‘the market-place of the Morning and the Evening lands’. Certainly no city on earth gives a more immediate impression of symmetry and unity, or seems more patently born to greatness. So Jan Morris remarks, with graceful literary distinction, on the qualities that have made Venice a unique place among the world’s great destinations. She has known it intimately for over six decades. She knows its history, its carvings, its idiosyncrasies, its weather and all the Doges of the past. She returns even now, never tiring of this ‘dappled city, tremulous and flickering’. She first wrote Venice in praise of it fifty years ago and has revised the book three times. To open this premiere audiobook recording, Jan Morris reads a personal introduction which perfectly distils a lifetime’s fascination with La Serenissima.

About Jan Morris

Born in 1926, Jan Morris lived and wrote as James Morris until 1972. She resides with her partner, Elizabeth Morris, in northwest Wales, between the mountains and the sea. Her many books include In My Mind's Eye, Coronation Everest, and the Pax Britannica Trilogy.


Reviews

Goodreads review by mark on July 27, 2019

What a tangled web they weave, as they practice to deceive. Venice is and was a snare for fools, a smiling whore clad all in jewels. Gilded masks and tourist traps, palaces in slow collapse. Pretty lies told in bloom of youth; old age has turned those lies to truth. We all transform - there is no no......more

Goodreads review by Michael on December 08, 2016

It may be strange for me to categorise this book as a biography, but Jan Morris treats the city here as a character in a melancholic story of her history, her streets, her canals and her people. It is a fantastic read and should be in your luggage should you ever visit this one of the world's most i......more

Goodreads review by Carol on October 24, 2012

The husband and I visited both Trieste and Venice earlier this year (before then setting off for two weeks of fine walking in Slovenia). I read J. Morris' Trieste and The Meaning of Nowhere while in Trieste and lapped up its languid, rich portrayal of that faded Habsburg port. We then fell in love w......more

Goodreads review by Tim on August 02, 2021

A quirky but richly detailed portrait of Venice in all its history and visual splendour by an English woman who has lived there. I can't say I agreed with all her opinions - that all the palaces on the Grand Canal are ugly for example, a rather preposterous bit of snobbery - but I did admire her det......more

Goodreads review by Will on August 01, 2014

In many ways this book is like the city itself. It has to be five stars, but with some caveats. First the good news. Jan Morris has written a magnificent depiction of a fabulous city. She clearly knows the city extremely well and loves it like a mother loves a child. This oozes from every page. It is......more