A #1 New York Times Bestseller!
"Funny, insightful, illuminating . . ." —The Boston Globe
Twelve years ago, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil exploded into a monumental success, residing a record-breaking four years on the New York Times bestseller list (longer than any work of fiction or nonfiction had before) and turning John Berendt into a household name. The City of Falling...

De Blasi, a chef and food writer from St. Louis, begins a whirlwind romance with a man in Venice.

Istanbul, 1840: the new sultan, Abdülmecid, has heard a rumor that Bellini's vanished masterpiece, a portrait of Mehmet the Conqueror, may have resurfaced in Venice. Yashim, our eunuch detective, is promptly asked to investigate but, aware that the sultan's advisers are against any extravagant repurchase of the painting, decides to deploy his disempowered Polish ambassador friend, Palewski, to visit Venice in his stead. Palewski arrives in disguise...

A young society woman's love for a common journalist presents her with an impossible decision: leave him or marry and face a life of poverty. Events take an unexpected twist when she befriends a lonely young heiress whose own tragic secret offers an irresistible but dangerous solution.

Visit Venice's most treasured places, its legendary palazzi, and, stopping at an underground casino, bump into Casanova himself.

"Caterina Capreta was an innocent girl of fourteen when she caught the attention of the world's most infamous chronicler of seduction: Giacomo Casanova. Intoxicated by a fierce love, she wed Casanova in secret. But his shocking betrayal inspired her to commit an act that would mark her forever ... Now twenty years later on the island of Murano, the woman in possession of Caterina's most devastating secret has appeared with a request she cannot refuse:...

In the autumn of 1598, Abraham, a melancholy young Jewish gem merchant, seeks his fortune far from the imprisoning ghetto walls of Venice. Traveling halfway across the world, he lands in the lush and exotic Burmese kingdom of Pegu-an alien place, yet one where the jewel trader is not shunned for his faith. There is a price for his newfound freedom, however. Local custom demands that Abraham perform a duty he finds troubling and barbaric . . . and...

Originally serialized in the New Yorker, this dazzling story is based on actual letters the author's father found in the attic of the old family palazzo. The letters describe a searing and illicit affair between the author's ancestor Andrea Memmo, a great Venetian statesman, and a beautiful half-English girl named Giustiniana Wynne.

Commissioned in 1750, the Palazzo Venier was planned as a testimony to the power and wealth of a great Venetian family, but the fortunes of the Venier family waned and the project was abandoned with only one storey complete. Empty, unfinished, and in a gradual state of decay, the building was considered an eyesore. Yet in the early 20th century the Unfinished Palazzo's quality of fairytale abandonment, and its potential for transformation, were to...