What a lovely little tome to get lost in. I just loved reading about Florence and Athill's trip there. A definite treat to read.

A Florence Diary by Diana Athill, British literary editor, novelist and memoirist is a serendipitous publication in many ways. Athill will turn 100 years old in December of this year, worked with the BBC during WWII, and worked with many noted writers of the 20th century at a London-based publishing company for 50 years. This makes a new work by this author unexpected to say the least. The publication is also serendipitous in that it whisks the reader back in time to a bygone era of travel. The book is a fast read consisting of an introduction on the topic of "Holidays " by the author, and then a printing of a diary kept by the author in 1947 of a two week trip she took to Florence, Italy, via the Golden Arrow train, with her cousin, Pen. Both portions of the book are full of lovely and precise writing. The diary paints images of travel that seem much less stressful than that of our era and is accompanied by several black and white photographs. Athill writes, "What I was after was not a shared experience but the excitement of discovery. I was hungry for the thrill of being elsewhere." An "elsewhere" where she could " . . . wake up on a train that had stopped in the middle of the night, push a blind aside, and see a lantern carried along an unknown platform by a man talking to another in an unknown language--those voices, the tiny glimpse of foreign ordinariness giving you such a tingle of excitement." An "elsewhere" where she could meet a handsome Italian count who dashes up a side street when the train makes a stop in Milan for the sole purpose of sending her flowers at her next destination. I also loved her descriptions of the art and architecture that she saw, and the helpfulness of the Italian people. Thank you House of Anansi Press and NetGalley for the ARC and the enjoyable journey to Italy.