Celia Rivenbark is an award-winning newspaper columnist and freelance journalist whose work has been compared to a cross between Erma Bombeck and Hunter S. Thompson. But don't let that scare you--she is as sweet as those little pink packets of fake sugar.

“Strange walked away and became one of the many black figures on the piazza, all with black faces and no expressions, hurrying across the face of moon-colored Venice. The moon itself was set among great architectural clouds so that there appeard to be aother moon0lit city in the sky, whose grandeur rivaled Benice and whose great palaces and streets were crumbling and falling into ruins, as if some spirit in a whimsical mood had set it there to mock the other’s slow decline.”

From Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke

We know that many of you are excited about the upcoming visit by John Berendt, whose book, The City of Fallen Angels, is a lovely tribute/expose of contemporary Venice. So we thought you might be interested in a kind of Venetian reading list—only the finest for the armchair traveler!