The City of Falling Angels

The entire time I was reading “City,” I wanted to go live in Venice (and I still do now that I'm done). In the first few pages, a man describes Venetians as prone to exaggeration, so clearly I was born in the wrong country. “City” was non-fiction, but most of it read like a novel. It chronicled the author's time living in Venice in the aftermath of a fire that destroyed the Fenice opera house and the subsequent attempts to rebuild it “as it was, where it was.” It also delved into the politics of restoration in Venice, and all the drama that went on behind the scenes as organizations came forward to try to rebuild the Fenice and various other palazzos. The nature of Venice as a whole compared to elsewhere in the world awed me. I really hope to see it someday.