Books

The Name of the Rose

Umberto Eco puts Holmes and Watson into Monks’ robes and sets them up against a whodunit in a Medieval monastery. 

I got sick of mining “best books of <some criterion>” lists, because they all have some agenda to push. So I decided to look at the list of best selling books of all time and this stood out to me. The market can’t be that wrong, can it?

NO, IT CANNOT. THE MARKET IS NEVER WRONG. 

At least it wasn’t in this case. This was a delight. The plot is fun, the characters are human and balanced,  and the setting is a hoot. I don’t normally read mysteries, so this felt especially exotic to me. 

If you liked The DaVinci Code, you will probably like this. But even if you disliked The DaVinci Code, you might like this, because it’s a much better book.

Venice 

Thomas F Madden deftly conveys the peculiar history of Venice. 

Turns out it’s a lot more Byzantine than I expected, in all senses of that word. 

It was effectively independent for much of its history, and its affiliations with the descendants of the Western Roman Empire and the descendants Eastern Roman Empire shifted often. It served as an interface for the two, and at times rose to the level of a peer. 

I also discovered, reading this book, that they beat the west to the punch on an early version of republican government. 

Exhaustively researched, well told, and brimming with novel information. 

Four stars in a highly competitive class, strongly recommended.

If you're interested in the topic I also recommend A History of Venice
Book by John Julius Norwich. It's an exhaustive history, and it covers the most decades and the most topics (expansion, governance, economy)
But then again I don't know how much info is overlapping between the two and if it's worth reading both.