The second page in my new Watercolour Sketchbook — the first boasts my hand-drawn (and hence, more suggestive than accurate đ of Sicily. . . We’re planning a family meet-up week there next spring, and I hope to fill my sketchbook with landscapes and paintings of meals and sketches of architecutre. For now, though, I’m reading in preparation. These essays by Carlo Levi were written mid-20th-century, and they offer a wonderfully descriptive and trenchantly observant context. (As always, if you’d like help reading my writing, leave me a note in the comments below.
Next post, I’ll return to more recent reading — I can’t believe I’m almost caught up with that. For now, I’m off to read ferociously the two books that have to go back to the library next week. And then I have to think about what to read on a long flight. . . Decisions, decisions. . .
Your suggestions always very welcome. Books set in Sicily, especially. . .
This is lovely. Thank you so much for your incredibly kind words on my blog. I woke up on this cold December morning feeling buoyed. Very grateful xoxo Miss W
Andrea Camilleri wrote a series set in his native Sicily, the Inspector Montalbano books which many of which have been adapted for Italian television. The books have been translated into many languages including english and the TV series (filmed in Sicily with many locals as extras) is also available with english subtitles and is very entertaining.
Another excellent resource is a blog, The Dangerously Truthful Diary of a Sicilian Housewife. The writer is an English woman married to a Sicilian and although she now lives in England she still updates the blog from time to time.
Sicily:A Short History, from the Ancient Greeks to Cosa Nostra, by John Julius Norwich is comprehensive although I found the writer a bit smug at times.
I loved visiting Sicily and it's on my short list of places I want revisit.
Lilibet
I really enjoyed those Montalbano books. They are fun. I also watched Montalbano and Young Montalbano on Hoopla through our library.