By MARGIE THOMSON
The third in Bloomsbury's The Writer and the City series, this is as good as Edmund White's The Flaneur: A Stroll through the Paradoxes of Paris, and much better than Peter Carey's 30 Days in Sydney: A Wildly Distorted Account.
Leavitt, an American, writes about his adopted home with the warmth of a lover, and the wryness of someone who is not fooled by history.
His take on Florence - "the city where death seems at once less fearsome and more glamorous than in other places" - is a delight.
He and his ever-present partner Mark Mitchell bring to life the tourist-crowded pizzerias of the 21st century and the events of 50, 100 and several hundred years ago.
Perfectly packaged, these are lovely little books, and I can't think of a nicer thing to buy for yourself or a friend.
Bloomsbury
$35
<i>David Leavitt:</i> Florence: A delicate case
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