Venice Revealed

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View books by Paolo Barbaro.

Worth persevering with ! - Rated
I started reading this just after a trip to Venice. I found the first chapter or so a struggle, my feeling is the translation from the Italian is a little odd and a number of times I had to re read sentences to work out what was being said.
However, I persisted and once i got used to the style I found the book evoked so many memories of the feel of Venice. It is not about the tourist sights, it tells you about the heart and soul of the city and as such I would recommend it to anyone who wants to dig below the gondolas and the glassware and get a little closer to what Venice is really about.

Poetic and beautiful - Rated
This is a fabulous book, written by a man who knows and understands Venice, its beauty, its faults, its fragile future. It gives depth to a stranger's understanding of a beautiful and intriguing place. it is superbly written and a must for anyone who has fallen in love with the city.

Strangely wonderful - Rated
This is a strangely wonderful book that offers a genuinely unique perspective on a subject that has almost disappeared under the weight of mediocre comment. It is passionate and intelligent. Poetic and accessible. The underlying narrative is fateful and sad but not just the usual, smug, fragile-city-dying stuff. It is a simple tale of man's conflicting capacity to create and neglect things of indescribable beauty. It's been a long time since someone has written something this worthwhile about Venice.