Twelve-year-old Skyler is in for a summer of adventure in Venice, Italy, as she pursues a dream opportunity in this hilarious MIX novel that’s a companion to The BFF Bucket List. Skyler is about to go on the biggest adventure of her life. Her mother has been relocated to Venice, Italy, and there is the possibility it could be a permanent move. While there, Skyler will be blogging and writing about the city as part of an informal internship that could lead to bigger things for her if all goes well. One of her fellow interns, Logan is cool, cute, and Australian. But the other intern, Zara, isn’t quite as nice, and seems determined to sabotage all of Skyler’s suggestions. And with a big assignment coming up, Skyler is stumped as to what to write about. Skyler wishes she has someone to talk to, but the first person who comes to mind isn’t even on the same continent: her BFF, Ella. Skyler knows that Ella would probably have to solution to a lot of her problems, especially the writer’s block, but they didn’t leave on the best of terms after a bucket list went a little awry. Thanks to technology, Skyler and Ella slowly begin to talk like old times. But when one of Skyler’s blog posts gets replaced with one she never intended anyone to see, she isn’t sure if she can ever belong anywhere. With the help of some Italian magic and her oldest friend, can Skyler learn to love her new city?

Famous series of paintings reproduced in contemporary engravings by Visentini. Wonderful view of 18th-century Venice; thorough text by J. Links. 50 illustrations.

Not so long ago, it was relatively easy to wake up overlooking Victoria Harbour in Hong Kong and go to sleep in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge; to travel from Venice to Istanbul in time for dinner. The international network of the art world, in particular, made it easy to slip through time and borders--with the right invitation and the right passport. You may never have been to Basel, Switzerland for the art fairs, but you might certainly feel as though you have, experiencing it exclusively through the spate of other people's images. Vik Muniz's series Postcards from Nowhere grapples with how, through photographs, we have come to "see" and understand distant yet iconic sites we may never actually view with our own eyes. "The images we hold in our heads are an assemblage," notes Muniz. "They are an amalgam of every image of those locations that we have ever seen." More critically, the series serves as an homage not just to the quasi-obsolete artifact of the picture postcard, but to a way of life that has now been put in sharp relief. Muniz's images--created out of collaged pieces of vintage postcards from the artist's personal collection--materialize the experience and longing of travel, triangulating between the traveler, a distant location, and the recipient who, increasingly, remains at home. Volume I presents thirty-two single postcards displaying each of the images in the series. Volume II presents a series of thirty-six postcards that, when assembled, can be viewed as a single, large-scale work of 30 x 40 inches. The process of assembling the larger, single image is akin to the original act of collage--or like that of assembling a mosaic crafted from disparate pieces that have traveled from afar, but when brought together, conjure something that is larger, more complete than any individual element could be on its own.

"Drifter" by Emily Mandel was selected for inclusion in The Best American Mystery Stories 2013, edited by Otto Penzler and Lisa Scottoline Original stories by: Peter James, Emily St. John Mandel, Barbara Baraldi, Mike Hodges, Mary Hoffman, Maria Tronca, Matteo Righetto, Tony Cartano, Francesco Ferracin, Isabella Santacroce, Michelle Lovric, Francesca Mazzucato, Maxim Jakubowski, and Michael Gregorio. "Forget the magnificence of Venice's art, architecture, and music, and delve into this tour of the City of Water's murky depths...visions of a Venice not seen in tourist brochures." --Publishers Weekly "Editor Jakubowski does an excellent job of selecting a variety of stories that represent all strata of Venetian life, from tourists visiting for Carnevale to criminals running illegal operations in the bay...A must-read for lovers of Venice...the presence of a new and intriguing voices, many of them Italian, will pique the interest of international-mystery readers." --Booklist "Sex, food and real estate inspire 14 hot-blooded new takes on crime in the magical city of Venice...Rather than crimes of passion, this collection focuses on the passion of crime, painting its noir in robust tones rather than gritty gray." --Kirkus Reviews "Venice Noir, edited by Maxim Jakubowski, aims to shred through our preconceptions of this remarkable city. The 14 writers featured in this anthology of short stories take our travel brochure images of Venice and scatter them like confetti." --NY Journal of Books Maxim Jakubowski is a British editor and writer. Following a long career in book publishing, during which he was responsible for several major crime imprints, he opened London's mystery bookshop Murder One. He reviews crime fiction for the Guardian, runs London's Crime Scene Festival, and is an advisor to Italy's annual Courmayeur Noir in Festival. His latest crime novel is Confessions of a Romantic Pornographer, and he edits the annual Best British Mysteries series.

When best friends Skylar and Ella begin to drift apart, they try to fix their friendship by creating the ultimate BFF Summer Bucket List in this funny and heartfelt M!X novel. Ella and Skyler have been best friends since kindergarten—so close that people smoosh their names together like they’re the same person: EllaandSkyler. SkylerandElla. But Ella notices the little ways she and Skyler have been slowly drifting apart. And she's determined to fix things with a fun project she's sure will bring them closer together—The BFF Bucket List. Skyler is totally on board. The girls must complete each task on the list together: things like facing their fears, hosting a fancy dinner party, and the biggest of them all—speaking actual words to their respective crushes before the end of summer. But as new friends, epic opportunities, and super-cute boys enter the picture, the challenges on the list aren’t the only ones they face. And with each girl hiding a big secret that could threaten their entire friendship, will the list—and their BFF status—go bust?

Seductive Venice takes readers on seven walking tours of Venice to over 90 locations Giacomo Casanova visited--churches, bridges, statues, alleys, and canals, all with helpful maps. Discover where this famous lover gambled, drank, cajoled, loved, spied, and seduced. Historical sidebars and Casanova's own words punctuate this entertaining romp through the life of Venice's most famous lover.

In Postcards from Europe, Rick Steves takes you on a private tour through the heart of Europe - introducing you to his local friends and sharing his favorite travel moments - from the Netherlands through Germany, Italy, and Switzerland, with a grand Parisian finale. Whether you're dreaming in an armchair, have packed, or are unpacking, Postcards from Europe will inspire a love of travel, of Europe, and of Europeans.

- An homage to the most sensual city on earth, illustrated with vintage photographs, prints, and ephemera - Available in English for the first time This love letter in photographs to the unique beauty and mystery of Venice is an evocative compilation of vintage photographs, prints, and ephemera. It is a tactile ode to the sensuality of the city, filled to the brim with all manner of Venetian memorabilia: 19th century photographs, engravings, hand-colored magic lantern slides, vintage postcards, old luggage labels, keys from long-lost luxury hotels, golden ducats from the 18th century, Carnival ball invitations. With gilt-edged pages and antique Venetian lettering, it is not a travel or walking guide, but an atmospheric pilgrimage that pays homage to this ever-fascinating city. Serge Simonat's engaging commentary on Venetian history and culture introduces each subject with affection and insight. "Every day, a nervous traveler visiting the City of Doges for the first time asks the best way to get to their hotel. 'The shortest or the most beautiful?', I once heard the concierge at Hotel Des Bains ask. The tourist who opted for the most beautiful route is still wandering around the city. This is a unique photobook in which to wander and lose oneself." - Serge Simonart

Praised by Albrecht Dürer as being “the best in painting,” Giovanni Bellini (ca. 1430– 1516) is unquestionably the supreme Venetian painter of the quattrocento and one of the greatest Italian artists of all time. His landscapes assume a prominence unseen in Western art since classical antiquity. Drawing from a selection of masterpieces that span Bellini's long and successful career, this exhibition catalogue focuses on the main function of landscape in his oeuvre: to enhance the meditational nature of paintings intended for the private devotion of intellectually sophisticated, elite patrons. The subtle doctrinal content of Bellini’s work—the isolated crucifix in a landscape, the “sacred conversation,” the image of Saint Jerome in the wilderness—is always infused with his instinct for natural representation, resulting in extremely personal interpretations of religious subjects immersed in landscapes where the real and the symbolic are inextricably intertwined. This volume includes a biography of the artist, essays by leading authorities in the field explicating the themes of the J. Paul Getty Museum’s exhibition, and detailed discussions and glorious reproductions of the twelve works in the show, including their history and provenance, function, iconography, chronology, and style.

In the new book, Serenissima: Venice in Winter, Frank Van Riper and Judith Goodman provide a stunning combination of fine art and journalistic photography twinned with lyrical text to capture the visual magic that occurs when "the most serene republic" reclaims itself as a living, breathing city and once more becomes a place "of water-filled streets..velvet shadows and footsteps echoing off paving stones in the post-midnight silence..." Six years in the making and shot entirely in black and white, Serenissima: Venice in Winter combines brilliant architectural imagery with documentary photography in the tradition of Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Frank and the great Italian photojournalist Gianni Berengo Gardin. Frank Van Riper's text shows the same literary mastery that won him a Nieman Fellowship to Harvard and reflects the dreamlike quality of the photographs, while also acknowledging the mystery and magic that Venice is famous for. AUTHOR: Frank Van Riper and Judith Goodman are a husband-and-wife team whose speciality is location portraiture and documentary photography. Goodman's photographs have appeared in Washington's Corcoran Gallery of Art and in the Baltimore Museum. Van Riper's photographs are in the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery, National Museum of American Art, and Portland Museum of Art in Portland, Maine. He now writes 'Frank Van Riper on Photography,' a column that appears exclusively and worldwide on Washingtonpost.com, making him the most widely read photography writer in the United States. SELLING POINTS: Over 90 photographs of this historic and romantic city as it is rarely captured, during the winter's mist and rain Of interest to any collector of fine art photography, travelers, and lovers of Italy 92 b/w photos