"Add No Vulgar Hotel to the list of books you must read before you come to Venice." —Donna Leon This is the definitive book for managing an incurable passion for a decaying, waterlogged village. Whether you already have a raging case of Venetophilia or are among the fifteen million people who yearly put themselves in danger of contracting it, here is where you get your fix of Venetian wit, history, practicality, and enchantment.

A penetrating work of reportage on Venice. "Searching observations and astonishing comprehension of the Venetian taste and character" (New York Herald Tribune).

In the tradition of Jane Jacobs’ The Death and Life of Great American Cities comes an urgent plea from internationally renowned art historian Salvatore Settis to preserve Venice’s future. What is Venice worth? To whom does this urban treasure belong? Venetians are increasingly abandoning their hometown — there’s now only one resident for every 140 visitors — and Venice’s fragile fate has become emblematic of the future of historic cities everywhere as it capitulates to tourists and those who profit from them. In If Venice Dies, a fiery blend of history and cultural analysis, internationally renowned art historian Savatore Settis argues that “hit-and-run” visitors are turning landmark urban settings into shopping malls and theme parks. He warns that Western civilization’s prime achievements face impending ruin from mass tourism and global cultural homogenization. This is a passionate plea to secure Venice’s future, written with consummate authority, wide-ranging erudition, and élan.

In this elegant book Richard Bosworth explores Venice—not the glorious Venice of the Venetian Republic, but from the fall of the Republic in 1797 and the Risorgimento up through the present day. Bosworth looks at the glamour and squalor of the belle époque and the dark underbelly of modernization, the two world wars, and the far-reaching oppressions of the fascist regime, through to the “Disneylandification” of Venice and the tourist boom, the worldwide attention of the biennale and film festival, and current threats of subsidence and flooding posed by global warming. He draws out major themes—the increasingly anachronistic but deeply embedded Catholic Church, the two faces of modernization, consumerism versus culture. Bosworth interrogates not just Venice’s history but its meanings, and how the city’s past has been co-opted to suit present and sometimes ulterior aims. Venice, he shows, is a city where its histories as well as its waters ripple on the surface.

An indispensable manual to navigating life from birth to death without making a false move. Your neighbor denounces cellular telephones as instruments of the devil. Your niece swears that no one expects thank-you letters anymore. Your father-in-law insists that married women have to take their husbands' names. Your guests plead that asking them to commit themselves to attending your party ruins the spontaneity. Who is right? Miss Manners, of course. With all those amateurs issuing unauthorized etiquette pronouncements, aren't you glad that there is a gold standard to consult about what has really changed and what has not? The freshly updated version of the classic bestseller includes the latest letters, essays, and illustrations, along with the laugh-out-loud wisdom of Miss Manners as she meets the new millennium of American misbehavior head-on. This wickedly witty guide rules on the challenges brought about by our ever-evolving society, once again proving that etiquette, far from being an optional extra, is the essential currency of a civilized world.

Adventure is just a book away as bestselling author Nancy Pearl returns with recommended reading for more than 120 destinations — both worldly and imagined — around the globe. From Las Vegas to the Land of Oz, Naples to Nigeria, Philadelphia to Provence, Nancy Pearl guides readers to the very best fiction and nonfiction to read about each destination. Even within one country, she traverses decades to suggest titles that effortlessly capture the different eras that make up a region’s unique history. This enthusiastic literary globetrotting guide includes stops in Korea, Sweden, Afghanistan, Albania, Parma, Patagonia, Texas, and Timbuktu. Book Lust To Go connects the best fiction and nonfiction to particular destinations, whether your bags are packed or your armchair is calling. From fiction to memoir, poetry to history, Nancy Pearl’s Book Lust to Go takes the reader on a globetrotting adventure — no passport required.

Successfully navigate the rich world of travel narratives and identify fiction and nonfiction read-alikes with this detailed and expertly constructed guide. Just as savvy travelers make use of guidebooks to help navigate the hundreds of countries around the globe, smart librarians need a guidebook that makes sense of the world of travel narratives. Going Places: A Reader's Guide to Travel Narratives meets that demand, helping librarians assist patrons in finding the nonfiction books that most interest them. It will also serve to help users better understand the genre and their own reading interests. The book examines the subgenres of the travel narrative genre in its seven chapters, categorizing and describing approximately 600 titles according to genres and broad reading interests, and identifying hundreds of other fiction and nonfiction titles as read-alikes and related reads by shared key topics. The author has also identified award-winning titles and spotlighted further resources on travel lit, making this work an ideal guide for readers' advisors as well a book general readers will enjoy browsing.