Somehow I knew, as soon as I started reading this book that I had read it before on my VRS. It is interesting, just a short read, I managed to finish it by reading at work while sorting photographs. Inspired by the number of well known people who moved to live in Florence for a variety of reasons, Leavitt twists and turns around some rather interesting and unknown history of this beautiful city. He does not mention many more famous people, such as Elizabeth Barrett Browning, yet the curves in the story invite the more unusual and perhaps newsworthy events.
Having finished this book I again pushed the 'book' button and decided to read:
This book was made into a TV series, in the 1970's I think, and was fascinating. I also have her next book, The Mottled Lizard which I am sure will be just as interesting. Elspeth recalls that her father won the land while gambling and so the whole family was uprooted and taken to Kenya. I left her in a small village resting overnight after beginning the trek from Nairobi to their farm sitting on a buffalo cart. Books are often better than their TV series and I suspect this one will follow that pattern.
Last night I also finished Follow my Heart by Frances Lawson. While it does describe the difficulties she faced when deciding, in middle age, to move to France from New Zealand, I found her naivete rather difficult to understand. Surely she had researched the 'systems' of achieving things in France before she left, after all this is the day of 'Google', and was aware of the many difficulties she would have sorting through government regulations. I found myself having little sympathy for her given that more planning should have gone into her move and her constant drive to find a sexual partner despite admitting early in the book that she found it physically difficult. I think I finished the book believeing she was the maker of her own destiny and wishing she would stop complaining and try to discover how other people had coped with such a move. Admitting she had not thought about the lack of a pension as she aged seemed a statement which showed her overall ignorance.
This is my next adventure into a kindle memoir. The story of a piano, coveted then different, forms the basis for this investigative memoir into how a piano is born and the sound developed. A lovely weekend read.
I am off to lunch today with a lovely friend who is travelling overseas on Monday for 2 months to accompany her husband as he lectures all around the world. I will miss her but know that she is such a genuine person that our friendship will not suffer. It does alert me to the obvious that I need to occupy myself with what I enjoy and fill these growing days with joy and the business of getting well again.
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