sunday salon

What a glorious day yesterday. It was the kind Keats was referring to in his poem 'Autumn'.This has always been my favouite season espeecially if the summer has been hot because heat makes me ill.I'm still catching up with books I wanted to blog about so I haven't read all in one week although I deliberately had a quieter week this week. I have observed that getting too tired activates depression.
'The Glass Blower of Murano' Marina Fiorato is an interesting book. It goes from modern times to the Renaissance in Venice. I really enjoy books with time switches.Apart from it being an exciting plot one learns so much about venice and especially the making of Murano glass.the glass blower in 14c is male but the modern glass blower is female and a direct descendant. I was silly that I didn't write down the protagonist's names as it was a library book. I was relying on memory. booboo!!However the early glass blower was so gifted that:
The testament to his genius was in every palazzo in Venice,every church, every grand eating house. It was in every shining chalice he made, every mirror smooth as the lagoon in summer...
Normally so much repetition of every would be irksome but its use here creates the impression of how prolific and sought after the glass blower was.
Two lovely evocative mysteries are by Anne Zeroudi.I read these in reverse order her second book 'The taint of Midas' first and then her first 'The Messenger of Athens'. the messenger in both books is an unlikely hero who is referred to as 'the fat man'. his name is Hermes Diaktoros. In the first book he arrives to sort out Lust and in the second greed. The first book begins with a death which was tidied up as suicide but when Hermes arrives that is in doubt. there is a corrupt police chief Zepherides who 'phones Athens to find out about this man who claims to be an investigator from Athens. there is no sign of him in the Athenian police force and Hermes says that he comes from a much higher power. i'll leave you to read the books and decide what this means.The Greek islands are also characters in these books and Zeroudi's descriptions make one long to be there too.
it was an islandwith no beauty of its own,but arou
nd its shores where the sea ran the gamut of all blues-torquoise and lapis lazuli,sapphire, ultramarine and cobalt-the water and sunlight changed it.Grey rockson the beach shone silver;there was gold in the dull soil on the mountain slopes.Fool's gold. tricks of the light.
I have seen the Med'. look like this but not the English Channel that is shades of green and grey.Now I must look at my mail. I have left it because Friday was a nightmare, taking ages to reveal each letter or to delete. I assume it was my ISP provider and not my computer. Sometimes I wish I knew lots more about computing.so hope the day is going well and I'll be back.