I've never known any trouble that an hour's reading didn't assuage.
— Montesquieu
I’ve fallen in love all over again.
Specifically, with reading crime novels set in Italy. Haven’t loved reading this much since I was ten or eleven and spent endless hours in my tree house reading adventure comic books, or solving mysteries on our front porch swing with Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys.
It started just before our trip to Venice a couple of years ago when I discovered Commisario Guido Brunetti of the Venice police, the urbane protagonist in a series of crime novels by Donna Leon. Along with intriguing characters and twists of plot, Leon’s Brunetti provides an intimate unraveling of the mysteries of the city and its inhabitants.
After reading everything Leon wrote, I found Adrea Camilleri, who provides, although with different voice, the same type of plot and location pleasures, only in Sicily with Salvatore Montalbano, the crusty but wise police inspector in the fictional city of Vigata.
Then came the brooding detective Aurelio Zen, protagonist of Michael Dibdin’s crime novels, whom, although he was born in Venice, traveled to Rome, Milan, Naples, Perugia, Tuscany, Sicily, Sardinia — and points in between — to solve crimes while making acute social and psychological observations about people and places.
Another thing the novels have in common is their protagonist’s love of good food, especially the noon meal — from the antipasti, to the seafood, to the pasta, to the vino, to the espresso — most times eaten over a period of one to two hours.
What it boils down to is that I’ve become an Italian crime novel junkie. When I see that I’ve only got one unread book on hand, I get jumpy and order several more from Amazon for my ‘stash.’ I’m hooked.
I especially love the quaint streets, captivating rooms, and fascinating faces in all the novels, illustrated, of course, not in photographs but words. Oh the wonder of words!
Not that it doesn’t work the other way around. Another work I’ve been perusing almost daily the past couple of months is a pictorial history of Pittsburg which was published in the “Images of America” series by Arcadia Publishing.
The book, co-authored by Janette Mauk and Randy Roberts, contains over 200 images of Pittsburg, some of them never before published. Roberts is curator of Special Collections at Axe Library, Pittsburg State University, and Mauk also works in Special Collections.
Beginning with the earliest known photograph of Pittsburg, taken in 1887, the book chronicles the growth and development of our city with vintage photographs of mines, businesses, homes, fraternal groups, churches, schools and more, the most recent photo being of the new Miners’ Memorial taken last July.
Although still pictures, to me they convey sound and movement — the mix of languages in conversations and catcalls in the comings and goings of the miners, the rumbling of horse drawn carts, the whirring of street cars, the tinny engines of Model-As at the turn of the century.
In photos of the mid 1960s, I see myself driving our ’55 Chevy in to the Pla-Mor to play pool, eat chili, and observe the characters carrying on. Or drag Broadway, goofing with my friends, on warm summer nights.
Gut connecting images of the late 1950s carry me back to all-is-well, joyful times riding the bus from Frontenac to swim at the big pool in Lincoln Park, attend movies at the Midland, shop at Montgomery Wards, and sip a limeade with grandma at Crowell’s.
Not to mention jaywalk across Broadway, after watching an afternoon double feature at the Fox, to use the phone to call for a ride at Fogarty News — the place I met Superman, Robinson Crusoe, and Gulliver in the D.C. Comics and Treasure Island Classics I carried home to lovingly read high in our catalpa tree on long, lazy summer afternoons.
J.T. Knoll is a writer, speaker and prevention and wellness coordinator at Pittsburg State University. He also operates Knoll Training, Consulting & Counseling Services in Pittsburg. He can be reached at 231-0499 or jtknoll@swbell.net
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