Donna Leon

[Book Review] Trace Elements by Donna Leon

My favorite way to decompress is straightforward — turn off the phone, get off the Internet, and instead of reading some heavy and complex book, pick up a good old fashioned detective novel. It is even better if it is set in a faraway place — such as Italy or Japan. And this past weekend, I sat down and read the latest from one of my favorite writers.

Donna Leon’s Trace Elements is a book set in Venice, and it is the 29th book with Commissario Guido Brunetti as its main protagonist. It is a book about investigating a murder — of a human being but in a broader context about the slow killing of the planet that we inhabit. The book is really about the crimes we commit against the earth and its generosity. We all have seen the visual impact of humans taking a break — the planet

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Musings
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Venice At Night

It is not uncommon to come across photographs of the magical Italian city of Venice pop-up on my Instagram feed. It is an architectural gem. Canals and bridges criss-cross the city, that is made even more magical by the interplay of light and shadows. I quite enjoy the work of Italian-Austrian photographer, Ando Fuchs. There is a group of talented photographers who use long-exposure techniques to bring the city of Venice to life.

But for me, Venice has been more than a place for making photographs. I don’t know when, or how, I fell in love with the city. I suspect, it had something to do with mystery writer Donna Leon’s beautifully written books. She talked about the city with such emotion, and in such vivid details, that at times I felt, I lived in the city of 60,000 residents. I have read her twenty-off books many times, and perhaps

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On Photography
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