I’m going to Sicily for a week to see championship fencing. In my carry-on bag are the following titles:
- Peter Robb: Midnight in Sicily
- Leonard Sciascia: The Day of the Owl
- Giuseppe Di Lampedusa: The Leopard
The Robb title is nonfiction, about the history of the Mafia on the island, literature and art as well. I read a similar book of his on Brazil (A Death in Brazil), which was riveting. Sciascia is a heralded crime novelist, also dealing with the Mafia. For light reading, I’m packing Lampedusa’s classic, The Leopard, about Sicilian life and aristocracy during the Risorgimento, the unification of Italy during the mid-nineteenth century.
Rumors of Delirium 