Book review | The Book Lover's Guide to Venice

Since its foundation Venice has enticed writers first to visit it and then to write about it.

Now the city and its literary visitors have been brought together in this appealing and beautifully illustrated guidebook.

The Book Lover's Guide  to Venice features the words and personal stories of novelists and poets who found enchantment among the city's marble palazzos and its mysterious shadowy side-canals.

Read how Byron gave the Bridge of Sighs its nickname, George Eliot 'honeymooned' there twice ― once with somebody else's husband ― and Ernest Hemingway met possibly his final female muse during his Venetian sojourn.

The guide takes a practical approach to finding your way about by dividing up this car-free city into North of the Grand Canal (for San Marco and Castello), South of the Grand Canal (for Dorsoduro and Santa Croce) and outlying islands including Murano, famed for its beautiful glassmaking, and the quieter Torcello, loved by Daphne du Maurier and rich in Byzantine architecture.

Should you get pleasantly tired while exploring, you can refresh yourself at one of the coffee-shops or bars listed as being historic haunts of  past writers and patrons and patronesses of the arts.

What I found especially appealing is the way the book includes not just the familiar literary canon but also more contemporary voices.

The twenty-first century has produced its share of best-selling Venetian-themed novels such as Miss Garnet's Angel (Sally Vickers), The Glassmaker (Tracy Chevalier), The Honeymoon (Dinitia Smith) and The Floating Book (Michelle Lovric).

I can't be the only one who finds reading novels set in your destination a great way to enhance the anticipation and enjoyment of your holiday and a way to make it extend that bit longer once I'm back home.

The Book Lover's Guide to Venice is a charming introduction to appreciating what has entranced so many famous writers throughout the ages and a guide to finding it for yourself.

Title: The Book Lover's Guide to Venice

Author: Rachael Martin

Imprint: Pen & Sword Books | White Owl

Series: City Guides

Published: 5 June 2026

Illustrations: 120 colour illustrations

ISBN: 9781036111953