Rating: 
Summary: Engrossing Read
Review: I've just completed Florence: A Delicate Case and was engrossed from start to finish. Mr. Leavitt, with his beautiful literary style, has captured the heart and soul of Florence in this wonderful book which will be enjoyed by those who have visited Italy and those who have not. This book is rich and lush historically and I wish it had been written before I visited Florence several years ago-it would have enhanced by stay there. Anyone traveling to Italy should pack this book first! Likewise if you're going to the beach or the mountains. This is a fabulous read!
Rating: 
Summary: ho-hum, florence ...
Review: Possibly the most boring, pointless book I've ever read (and I do read a lot) - - no flow, not interesting, and the book does a dis-service to a fascinating town, despite the un-fascinating "celebrity" stories that Mr. Leavitt goes on and on and on about ...
Rating: 
Summary: This is not, "Turn Right At The Fountain"
Review: There used to be a series of travel books written for Americans making their first trips to Europe - they were called (I think) "Turn Right At The Fountain." This book by David Leavitt is, well, different. Mr. Leavitt tells us about a Florence that you can only experience by living in the city and becoming one with it. He helps get us past the quick bites of the galleries, statues, churches and bridges that most us take during our visits to Florence. Instead, he offers us a feast of detail about the hidden history - recent and past. His is a book about a city whose character and charm is like a lot of interestng people - not what it seems on the surface. I could have done without the section on homosexuals and their lives in Florence. However, he makes a point that the impact of these residents are a part of what makes this city attractive to many in the world. This probably isn't the first book or the only book you should read about Florence, but if you have been there or are going, grab a copy and read it for an eye opening account of one of the world's most beautiful and fascinating cities. Certainly, not light reading but worth the effort.
Rating:
Summary: This is not, "Turn Right At The Fountain"
Review: There used to be a series of travel books written for Americans making their first trips to Europe - they were called (I think) "Turn Right At The Fountain." This book by David Leavitt is, well, different. Mr. Leavitt tells us about a Florence that you can only experience by living in the city and becoming one with it. He helps get us past the quick bites of the galleries, statues, churches and bridges that most us take during our visits to Florence. Instead, he offers us a feast of detail about the hidden history - recent and past. His is a book about a city whose character and charm is like a lot of interestng people - not what it seems on the surface. I could have done without the section on homosexuals and their lives in Florence. However, he makes a point that the impact of these residents are a part of what makes this city attractive to many in the world. This probably isn't the first book or the only book you should read about Florence, but if you have been there or are going, grab a copy and read it for an eye opening account of one of the world's most beautiful and fascinating cities. Certainly, not light reading but worth the effort.
Rating:
Summary: Florence: A Delicate Case
Review: This account of expatriate life in the 'city of the lily' begins by asking why Florence has always proven to be such a popular destination for suicides, then moves into an analysis of what makes the city, in Henry James's words, such a 'delicate case' for locals and visitors alike." "Moving fleetly between present and past, Leavitt's narrative limns the history of the foreign colony from its origins in the middle of the nineteenth century until its demise under Mussolini, and considers the appeal of Florence to figures as diverge as Tchaikovsky, E. M. Forster, Ronald Firbank, Mary McCarthy, Mrs. Keppel (mistress to King Edward VII) and Henry Labouchere, author of the Labouchere Amendment, under the provisions of which Oscar Wilde was convicted. Lesser-known episodes in Florentine history - the moving of Michelangelo's David, and the construction of temporary bridges by battalions of black American soldiers in the wake of the Second World War are contrasted with images of Florence today (its vast pizza parlours and tourist culture) as well as analyses of the city's portrayal in such novels and films as A Room with a View, The Portrait of a Lady and Tea with Mussolini
Rating:
Summary: Not Worth Your Time
Review: This book has lovely production values, but the content is not worth the paper it is printed on. I'd return it to Amazon, but it's not even worth the additional postage. The book is not a memoir, it is not a travel guide, and it is not even a stylish essay. What was the publisher thinking?
Rating:
Summary: BRAVO, MR. LEAVITT!
Review: This little 5x7 book is a big delight to read. It's been twenty years since my last visit to Italy, but David Leavitt's fascinating descriptions and vivid narrative transported me right back and gave me new insight about Florentine history. I'm a huge Leavitt fan and have a bookshelf bulging with his novels, short story collections and other works, but I found this book (like two others about Italy he has co-written with Mark Mitchell) especially unique and so very readable. BRAVO, MR. LEAVITT!
Rating:
Summary: A Delicate Read
Review: This lovely and evocative book had me longing to return to Florence, armed with a new and intimate knowledge of the place gleaned from these pages. It is so much more than a travelogue, yet it provides the kind of abundant detail that makes it essential to bring it along to re-read while sitting on the banks of the Arno. Historical perspective is beautifully woven in with the reality of Florence today, resulting in a rich and multilayered, though balanced, and not always flattering view of the city of the lily. Warning: You'll read it and call your travel agent!
Rating:
Summary: A unique and engaging break from a "travel" book
Review: This new series proves to be a very helpful and interesting one, if a bit subjectibe, and Laevitt's work on Florence is compelling indeed. My main problem with his writing is the same problem I have with the rest of his books I've read--one senses he considers himself and his experiences a bit too highly for anybody's good. But while he's not an "original" or a first-rate cultural observer or "arbiter", his learning is put forth in lucid, intelligent prose--with many nice touches.
Rating: 
Summary: Definitely Not a Page Turner
Review: What a disappointment. David Leavitt has accomplished almost the impossible. He has managed to make what is in my opinion one of the most beautiful cities on earth dull. This book opens with such a great first line: "Florence has always been a popular destination for suicides." After a few interesting pages, however, I found myself in page after page of virtually unreadable prose. Leavitt even manages to make the moving of Michelangelo's famous statute of David not very interesting. I'm not quite sure what went wrong. I had read his previous book ITALIAN PLEASURES written with Mark Mitchell. While I did not find it the greatest travel book ever written, it was certainly a pleasant enough read.I was amused to see that Leavitt describes Franco Zeffirelli's autobiographical film "Tea with Mussolini" as making "for a camp spectacle that recalls some of the graver excess committed by Zeffirelli in his career as an opera director." Would that we had a little more camp excess here. Near the end of the book Leavitt's account of the young people or "mud angels" who came to Florence to help save books and art after the flood of 1966 was interesting. If we only had more such stories. If I didn't already love Florence, this book would not convince me to visit.
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