At last, I have read a book in a sensible time. I achieved this in two ways: I was travelling on business last week and that leads to plenty of "dead time" [on aircraft etc.]; I have developed a habit of setting aside a little "reading time" each day. The latter is an obvious thing to do, but somehow it had eluded me before.
I thoroughly enjoyed the book. It is well written with enough pace to keep me turning pages right to the end. It is two, parallel, linked stories. Essentially it is about Leonora, who, after her divorce, goes to Venice to try to make her career in glass blowing and look into her family history. The parallel story is a few hundred years ago and is about her ancestor, Corradino, and that mirrors Leonora's voyage of discovery. I have no idea to what extent, if any, the story is based upon historical facts. I need to check up on that. The book would make an interesting movie.
Apart from being set in a fascinating city - Venice - the book brings together two interests of mine. I am learning Italian, so the frequent language references were interesting. Much I could understand or figure out from context, but I still made lots of notes and "dog ears" - so easy to do with a e-book. I have been on a couple of glass blowing classes, so that side of the story interested me. In fact, I just got a copy of the book for a friend who attended one of the classes with me, as I think she will enjoy it. I was intrigued by references to Corradino using his bare hands to work the glass and, thus, smoothing the skin on this fingers, so he left no fingerprints.
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