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WANDERING THROUGH LIFE

by Donna Leon ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 19, 2023

Delightfully approachable but disappointingly unrevealing.

This brief, chatty memoir by the author of the bestselling Guido Brunetti mysteries earns its title.

Leon’s approach to autobiography is pretty much the opposite of what readers may expect from the author of a successful series of whodunits. “I am feckless and unthinking by nature and have never planned more than the first step in anything I’ve done,” she announces early on, and then proceeds to illustrate this proposition by one charming non sequitur after another. After brief chapters on her family, she turns to more or less disconnected anecdotes and discussions—e.g., the tomato-selling scam she ran as a young woman; a detailed description of $audiopoly, a “Bored Game” she developed with two friends to break the tedium of work they’d taken in Saudi Arabia; and recurring salutes to the music of Handel (“He’s given me endless pleasure, and I shall continue to give him what he deserves: endless love”). The structure that emerges from these memories, which clearly bring Leon joy, is not so much episodic as essayistic. The author repeatedly avoids or understates obvious turning points like her decision not to pursue an academic career (though the reason she gives in passing is highly amusing), her professional activities, and her decision to move to Italy and then to leave 25 years later. Apart from her story about the fascination with honeybees that inspired one of Brunetti’s most memorable cases, fans will search these pages in vain for any hint of her writing process. Her tone throughout, lacking both the delicacy and the gravitas of her detective stories, is so cheerfully self-deprecating that it seems especially odd that she takes time out twice to assure the readers she invites into her world—but rarely into her mind—that she’s never used drugs.

Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2023

ISBN: 9780802161581

Page Count: 208

Publisher: Atlantic Monthly

Review Posted Online: June 15, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2023

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | GENERAL NONFICTION

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by Donna Leon

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New York Times Bestseller

by Stephanie Johnson & Brandon Stanton illustrated by Henry Sene Yee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 12, 2022

A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.

A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.

Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.

Pub Date: July 12, 2022

ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2

Page Count: 192

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | ENTERTAINMENT, SPORTS & CELEBRITY | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

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by Brandon Stanton

by Brandon Stanton photographed by Brandon Stanton

by Brandon Stanton ; photographed by Brandon Stanton

LOVE, PAMELA

by Pamela Anderson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 31, 2023

A juicy story with some truly crazy moments, yet Anderson's good heart shines through.

The iconic model tells the story of her eventful life.

According to the acknowledgments, this memoir started as "a fifty-page poem and then grew into hundreds of pages of…more poetry." Readers will be glad that Anderson eventually turned to writing prose, since the well-told anecdotes and memorable character sketches are what make it a page-turner. The poetry (more accurately described as italicized notes-to-self with line breaks) remains strewn liberally through the pages, often summarizing the takeaway or the emotional impact of the events described: "I was / and still am / an exceptionally / easy target. / And, / I'm proud of that ." This way of expressing herself is part of who she is, formed partly by her passion for Anaïs Nin and other writers; she is a serious maven of literature and the arts. The narrative gets off to a good start with Anderson’s nostalgic memories of her childhood in coastal Vancouver, raised by very young, very wild, and not very competent parents. Here and throughout the book, the author displays a remarkable lack of anger. She has faced abuse and mistreatment of many kinds over the decades, but she touches on the most appalling passages lightly—though not so lightly you don't feel the torment of the media attention on the events leading up to her divorce from Tommy Lee. Her trip to the pages of Playboy , which involved an escape from a violent fiance and sneaking across the border, is one of many jaw-dropping stories. In one interesting passage, Julian Assange's mother counsels Anderson to desexualize her image in order to be taken more seriously as an activist. She decided that “it was too late to turn back now”—that sexy is an inalienable part of who she is. Throughout her account of this kooky, messed-up, enviable, and often thrilling life, her humility (her sons "are true miracles, considering the gene pool") never fails her.

Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2023

ISBN: 9780063226562

Page Count: 256

Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2022

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023

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Wandering Through Life: A Memoir

The internationally bestselling author of the Guido Brunetti mysteries tells herown adventurous life story as she enters her eighties

In a series of vignettes full of affection, irony, and good humor, Donna Leon narrates a remarkable life she feels has rather more happened to her than been planned.

Following a childhood in the company of her New Jersey family, with frequent visits to her grandfather’s farm and its beloved animals, and summers spent selling homegrown tomatoes by the roadside, Leon got her first taste of the classical music and opera that would enrich her life. She also developed a yen for adventure. In 1976, she made the spontaneous decision to teach English in Iran, before finding herself swept up in the early days of the 1979 Revolution. After teaching stints in China and Saudi Arabia, she finally landed in Venice. Leon vividly animates her decades-long love affair with Italy, from her first magical dinner when serving as a chaperone to a friend, to the hunt for the perfect cappuccino, to the warfare tactics of grandmothers doing their grocery shopping at the Rialto Market. 

Some things remain constant throughout the decades: her adoration of opera, especially Handel’s vocal music, and her advocacy for the environment, embodied in her passion for bees—which informs the surprising crux of the Brunetti mystery  Earthly Remains . Even as mass tourism takes its toll on the patience of residents, Leon’s passion for Venice remains unchanged: its outrageous beauty and magic still captivate her.

Having recently celebrated her eightieth birthday, Leon poignantly confronts the dual challenges and pleasures of aging. Complete with a brief letter dissuading those hoping to meet Guido Brunetti at the Questura, and always suffused with music, food, and her sharp sense of humor,  Wandering through Life  offers Donna Leon at her most personal. 

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• Published: 19 September 2023
• ISBN: 9781529153422
• Imprint: Hutchinson Heinemann
• Format: Trade Paperback
• RRP: $35.00
• Non-fiction prose

Wandering Through Life

The internationally bestselling author tells her own adventurous life story as she enters her ninth decade

From a childhood in the company of her New Jersey family, with frequent visits to her grandfather's farm and its beloved animals and summers spent selling homegrown tomatoes by the roadside, Donna Leon has long been open to adventure. In 1976, she made the spontaneous decision to teach English in Iran, before finding herself swept up in the early days of the 1979 Revolution. After teaching stints in China and Saudi Arabia, she finally landed in Venice. Leon vividly animates her decades-long love affair with Italy, from her first magical dinner when serving as a "chaperone" to a friend, to the hunt for the perfect cappuccino, to the warfare tactics of grandmothers doing their grocery shopping at the Rialto Market. Some things remain constant throughout the decades: her adoration of opera, especially Handel's vocal music, her advocacy for the environment and her eager imagination for crime as she watches unsuspecting travellers on trains.

Having recently celebrated her eightieth birthday, Leon now confronts the dual challenges and pleasures of aging. Complete with a brief letter dissuading those hoping to meet Guido Brunetti at the Questura, and always suffused with music, food, and her fierce sense of humour, Wandering Through Life offers Donna Leon at her most personal.

About the author

Donna Leon was named by The Times as one of the 50 Greatest Crime Writers. She is an award-winning crime novelist, celebrated for the bestselling Brunetti series. Donna has lived in Venice for thirty years and previously lived in Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, Iran and China, where she worked as a teacher. Donna’s books have been translated into 35 languages and have been published around the world.

Her previous novels featuring Commissario Brunetti have all been highly acclaimed; including Friends in High Places , which won the CWA Macallan Silver Dagger for Fiction, Fatal Remedies, Doctored Evidence, A Sea of Troubles and Beastly Things .

Also by Donna Leon

Praise for Wandering Through Life

A delightful companion in life and on the page Mark Sanderson, The Times

As the author reaches her 9th decade [this makes] for a fascinating insight into her life and world, albeit with discretion and leaving tantalising hints at what lies beyond. One for the fans (and friends). Maxim Jakubowski, Crime Time

Warm, witty and engaging The Wall Street Journal

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Wandering Through Life

Published September 21, 2023

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The internationally bestselling author of the Guido Brunetti mysteries tells her own adventurous life story as she enters her eighties

In a series of vignettes full of affection, irony, and good humor, Donna Leon narrates a remarkable life she feels has rather more happened to her than been planned.

Following a childhood in the company of her New Jersey family, with frequent visits to her grandfather's farm and its beloved animals, and summers spent selling homegrown tomatoes by the roadside, Leon got her first taste of the classical music and opera that would enrich her life. She also developed a yen for adventure. In 1976, she made the spontaneous decision to teach English in Iran, before finding herself swept up in the early days of the 1979 Revolution. After teaching stints in China and Saudi Arabia, she finally landed in Venice. Leon vividly animates her decades-long love affair with Italy, from her first magical dinner when serving as a chaperone to a friend, to the hunt for the perfect cappuccino, to the warfare tactics of grandmothers doing their grocery shopping at the Rialto Market.

Some things remain constant throughout the decades: her adoration of opera, especially Handel's vocal music, and her advocacy for the environment, embodied in her passion for bees—which informs the surprising crux of the Brunetti mystery Earthly Remains . Even as mass tourism takes its toll on the patience of residents, Leon's passion for Venice remains unchanged: its outrageous beauty and magic still captivate her.

Having recently celebrated her eightieth birthday, Leon poignantly confronts the dual challenges and pleasures of aging. Complete with a brief letter dissuading those hoping to meet Guido Brunetti at the Questura, and always suffused with music, food, and her sharp sense of humor, Wandering through Life offers Donna Leon at her most personal.

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Word of Mouth

Submitting a book for review, write the editor, you are here:, wandering through life: a memoir.

Donna Leon is the bestselling author of the Commissario Guido Brunetti novels, one of the world’s most beloved and enduring crime series, set in the wondrous city of Venice, Italy.

Now Leon has penned a memoir, WANDERING THROUGH LIFE, that is put together in a very original way. It is told chronologically but is unpacked in the form of mini-vignettes. Fans of her work finally will get a glimpse behind her persona to see what makes her tick and the journey that drew her to crime fiction. Now in her 80s, Leon felt the need to look backwards, and it is a pleasant trip down memory lane.

"WANDERING THROUGH LIFE is an eye-opening read that truly fills in the blanks of Leon's life while maintaining enough of a distance so that readers still will have plenty to learn about her."

One theme that clearly jumps off the page is her love of reading and literature, as the book is filled with plenty of literary references. She begins the discussion about her family with a quote from ANNA KARENINA: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Leon refers to the relatives on the outskirts of her immediate family as being similar to the obscure characters who have been known to inhabit the work of Charles Dickens, such as the infamous Uriah Heep. Her childhood was a happy one, and she remembers learning the joy of reading at an early age. Her personal favorites included THE THREE BILLY GOATS GRUFF and LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD.

Leon’s love of Italy and all things Italian can be traced to the opera "Tosca," which she caught in New York whenever she could. She also remembers the time spent north of New York City on a family farm much like the one where her mother was raised. Leon enjoyed the bucolic life but also recalls going to the library with her mother, who enjoyed reading books by such authors as Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray, Ross Macdonald and Ruth Rendell. It’s easy to see where she got her influences for her own work.

As a young woman, Leon taught English abroad in places like the Middle East and China. She delighted in experiencing foreign cultures, which gave her the desire to travel regularly and explore the world around her. It was when she accompanied her friend on a trip to Naples, Italy, that she felt truly at home and did not want to leave. This led to further exploration of the country and falling in love with the very same Venice where she eventually relocated and set her iconic series.

While in Venice, Leon became enamored of the gondola as a form of transportation. It’s no coincidence that Guido Brunetti often finds himself on a gondola when traveling from the Questura to various crime scenes. Leon wrote an amusing letter that is still posted at the local Questura to travelers hoping to meet her fictional detective. I would give anything to be able to experience this!

WANDERING THROUGH LIFE is an eye-opening read that truly fills in the blanks of Leon's life while maintaining enough of a distance so that readers still will have plenty to learn about her. Most of all, it makes me eagerly await her next Brunetti novel, which cannot come fast enough.

Reviewed by Ray Palen on September 29, 2023

Wandering Through Life: A Memoir by Donna Leon

• Publication Date: September 19, 2023
• Genres: Memoir , Nonfiction
• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
• ISBN-10: 0802161588
• ISBN-13: 9780802161581

Donna Leon dislikes violent books. She takes a different tack in her own.

The author of the Guido Brunetti series talks about her new novel, the memoir ‘Wandering Through Life’ and her choices — in life and art

Donna Leon never planned to write crime fiction. And yet this year she published her 32nd mystery novel featuring Venetian police detective Guido Brunetti. The series is an international bestseller that’s sold millions of copies and been translated into three dozen languages. Her newest book, “ Wandering Through Life ,” is something new — a memoir. Here she confesses, among other things, that she sees her whole life as a series of unplanned events, including her career as a novelist.

Born and raised in New Jersey, Leon, 81, taught English in Iran, China and Saudi Arabia before settling in Venice several decades ago. While there, the longtime detective-fiction reader decided to write her own and created the thoughtful, compassionate Brunetti, who battles the corruption that has seeped into Venetian life. Leon’s books are considered models of the well-written, literate mystery where character plays as much of a role as plot.

Donna Leon’s ‘The Jewels of Paradise’

Leon moved to Switzerland several years ago to escape the tourist crowds in Venice, but she continues to regularly visit friends in that city, which she steadfastly considers the most beautiful in the world. Leon, a passionate opera lover, also works with a noted Italian orchestra, Il Pomo d’Oro. During a recent video interview, she talked about growing up in the United States, the adventures she had as an overseas English teacher and her plans for continuing the Brunetti books. ( This interview has been edited for length and clarity. )

Q: When did your love of mystery books begin?

A: I’ve never had a television, I still don’t. When I got home from being a teaching assistant at the University of Massachusetts, I did the closest thing to watching TV: I read murder mysteries. They’re relaxing, they don’t make demands on you. I must have read hundreds of them when I was there. More importantly, when I went to Italy, I discovered a series — published by Mondadori in Italian — of American crime stories. They had yellow covers — “un giallo” is one yellow, which is a yellow-covered book, a crime book. I was learning Italian by reading “giallo.” Many, many people have done this.

Q: Why did you decide to try writing crime fiction?

A: I had this conversation with a conductor, in the dressing room at La Fenice [the Venetian Opera House]. We talked about how someone could kill a conductor, and I thought: “That would be a good idea for a book. Could I write a murder mystery?” So I tried — and I succeeded.

Q: Your mysteries stand out because they are so thoughtful and literate. Did you set out to write a different kind of mystery?

A: I don’t like violence, and I don’t like violence in books. So I knew from the beginning that there would not be a lot of violence. And not a lot of sex because people who read murder mysteries don’t want a lot of sex in their books. I was wise enough when I started the first book to create Brunetti as an intelligent man in whose company I would happily spend time. I wanted him to be someone who would be simpatico to me. So he had to be a reader, he had to be a family person, he probably would have kids — he’d be a decent person.

Q: He is all that, and as I’ve read your books, he’s grown and changed, and become even more of an in-depth character as he continues to wrestle with the ethical dimensions of his police job.

A: Readers like to hear somebody trying to figure out what the right thing to do is. That’s what novels are for. It seems to me that crime novels — the good ones — do deal with that question of right and wrong, good and bad. The trashy books — the shoot ’em bang, bang — they never have to consider anything. It’s just action, action, action.

Foul play abounds in these page-turners

Q: Do you have a sense of where you’ll go next in the Brunetti books?

A: I think they will follow me into more ecological concerns. Climate change is the push button, it’s the detonator, it’s madness.

Q: In the introduction of your latest book, the memoir “Wandering Through Life,” you write that you are “feckless and unthinking by nature and have never planned more than the first step in anything I’ve done.” You also say that you lack ambition. Have those qualities hindered you?

A: Oh, no, they’ve worked to my advantage. I think that our generation was corrupted by ambition. Luckily, for some reason, my parents overlooked that one. I was never faced with this brainwashing that you must be a success. They said, “Go out and have a decent life and get a decent education and do something you like with your life.”

Q: It sounds like you had a happy childhood. Your mother was a larger-than-life figure who seems to have played an especially key role in your life. Can you talk more about her?

A: My mother was very, very smart. She didn’t go to university, but she was a reader. I was following her model when I first started to read, going to the library to get library books and reading all the time. And then I became an addict, as she was. And she didn’t read junk. She read Dickens; so did my father. They were readers. The idea of sitting in a chair in the living room and reading all evening seemed a perfectly sane thing to do. It was a lot of fun.

Q: For years, you taught English overseas. You had thought of going into academia and had written a rough draft of your doctoral dissertation about Jane Austen, but that draft was lost when you evacuated from Iran at the start of the 1979 revolution.

A: It was in my suitcase. Six months after I left the country, when my suitcase showed up, my dissertation was gone. I said to myself, “Do I want to go back to graduate school?” I realized, “No.” I had tasted a different kind of life. It was far more fun.

Q: You had discovered Italy and developed a passion for the people and their culture.

A: I was a junkie for Italy. My family is not Italian; they are Irish, German and Spanish. But when I went for the first time, I went with a classmate of mine, who wanted to go and study painting. I said, “Yeah, okay, why not?” So I quit my job. And we went to Rome together, she to study painting. I don’t know why I went. I guess to get away from writing advertising copy in New York. I was shattered by how wonderful Italy was and how wonderful Italians were. I was like Saint Paul on the way to Damascus. And that remains; I still think it’s a fabulous place.

Q: You’re 81, and in the last essay in your book you write about aging, about being called an “anziana” (old woman) in a Venetian shop and being stunned, and then trying to figure why you were so stunned.

A: I think the fact that we get older and weaker with age, we know it but we don’t know it. … But to have someone — an absolutely neutral observer — say what no one else has the courage to say: “You’re an old lady.” We deny it. But I think it’s better to accept it and do what you can to keep it at bay. … You’re likely to be healthier longer.

Karen MacPherson, former children’s and youth services coordinator at Takoma Park Maryland Library, is a lifelong mysteries aficionado.

Wandering Through Life

By Donna Leon

Atlantic Monthly. 208 pp. $26

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Wandering Through Life

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During intermission at the famed La Fenice opera house in Venice, Italy, a notoriously difficult and widely disliked German conductor is poisoned—and suspects abound. Guido Brunetti, a native Venetian, sets out to unravel the mystery behind the high-profile murder. To do so, he calls on his knowledge of Venice, its culture, and its dirty politics. Along the way, he finds the crime may have roots going back decades—and that revenge, corruption, and even Italian cuisine may play a role.

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Hercule Poirot in Venice...!!!

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Henry at Work invites listeners to rethink how we work today by exploring an aspect of Henry David Thoreau that has often been overlooked: Thoreau the worker. John Kaag and Jonathan van Belle overturn the popular misconception of Thoreau as a navel-gazing recluse who was scornful of work and other mundanities. In fact, Thoreau worked hard—surveying land, running his family's pencil-making business, writing, lecturing, and building his cabin at Walden Pond—and thought intensely about work in its many dimensions.

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Interesting Observations of Work Based on Thoreau

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My Name Is Barbra

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Barbra Streisand is by any account a living legend, a woman who in a career spanning six decades has excelled in every area of entertainment. She is among the handful of EGOT winners (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony) and has one of the greatest and most recognizable voices in the history of popular music. She has been nominated for a Grammy 46 times, and with Yentl she became the first woman to write, produce, direct, and star in a major motion picture.

BARBRA IS LIKE BUTTAH!

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• 3 out of 5 stars

A family first made, then destroyed by wealth.

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By: Anderson Cooper , and others

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Ever since a childhood visit to Washington, DC, Cassidy Hutchinson aspired to serve her country in government. Raised in a working-class family with a military background, she was the first in her immediate family to graduate from college. Despite having no ties to Washington, Hutchinson landed a vital position at the center of the Trump White House.

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In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows.

Multiple Stories Obfuscate Narrative

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Donna Leon’s wildly popular novels starring Venetian Commissario Guido Brunetti have often been praised for their insight into culture, politics, family life, and the history of Venice, one of the world’s most treasured cities and her home for over thirty years. My Venice and Other Essays collects over fifty of Leon’s funny, charming, and passionate essays on subjects that range from battles over garbage in the canals to troubles with rehabbing Venetian real estate.

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In North Devon, where two rivers converge and run into the sea, Detective Matthew Venn stands outside the church as his estranged father’s funeral takes place. On the day Matthew left the strict evangelical community he grew up in, he lost his family, too. Now, as he turns and walks away again, he receives a call from one of his team. A body has been found on the beach nearby: a man with a tattoo of an albatross on his neck, stabbed to death. The case calls Matthew back to the people and places of his past, as deadly secrets hidden at their hearts are revealed.

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Two years ago, a hostile Prime Minister launched the Monochrome inquiry, investigating "historical over-reaching" by the British Secret Service “to investigate historical over-reaching.” Monochrome’s mission was to ferret out any hint of misconduct by any MI5 officer—and allowed Griselda Fleet and Malcolm Kyle, the two civil servants seconded to the project, unfettered access to any and all confidential information in the Service archives in order to do so. But MI5’s formidable First Desk did not become Britain’s top spy by accident, and she has successfully thwarted the inquiry at every turn.

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The first short story collection by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author and master of the form since her number one New York Times best seller Unaccustomed Earth . Rome—metropolis and monument, suspended between past and future, multi-faceted and metaphysical—is the protagonist, not the setting, of these nine stories.

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After the assassination of his wife and son, Gabriel Allon retires from his brutal anti-terrorist career and loses himself in his previous cover job: art restoration. But when Tariq al-Hourani, the Palestinian terrorist responsible for his family’s death, begins a killing spree designed to destroy Middle East peace talks, Gabriel once again slips into the shadowy world of international intrigue. In a global game of hide-and-seek, the motives of Gabriel and Tariq soon become more personal than political.

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To grow up in the 1950s was to enter a world of polarized national alliances, nuclear threat, and destabilized social hierarchies. To be a privileged white girl in conservative, segregated Virginia was to be expected to adopt a willful blindness to the inequities of race and the constraints of gender. For young Drew Gilpin Faust, the acceptance of both female subordination and racial privilege proved intolerable and galvanizing. Urged to become “well adjusted" and to fill the role of a poised young lady that her upbringing imposed, she found resistance was the necessary price of survival.

My Life written by Her.

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A reluctant ex-spy with demons of her own, Elinor finds herself facing down one of the most dangerous organized crime gangs in London, ultimately exposing corruption from Scotland Yard to the highest levels of government. The private, quiet “Miss White" as Elinor is known, lives in a village in rural Kent, England, and to her fellow villagers seems something of an enigma. Well she might, as Elinor occupies a "grace and favor" property, a rare privilege offered to faithful servants of the Crown for services to the nation.

Mystery Maven

• By Mystery Maven on 03-24-23

Hunting the Falcon

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• Narrated by: Stephanie Racine
• Length: 17 hrs and 9 mins
• Overall 5 out of 5 stars 54
• Performance 5 out of 5 stars 52
• Story 5 out of 5 stars 52

Hunting the Falcon is the story of how Henry VIII’s obsessive desire for Anne Boleyn changed him and his country forever. John Guy and Julia Fox, two of the most acclaimed and distinguished historians of this period, have joined forces to present Anne and Henry in startlingly new ways.

Superb book and superb narration!

• By Buffy Martin Tarbox on 11-01-23

By: John Guy , and others

Publisher's summary

The internationally bestselling author of the Guido Brunetti mysteries tells her own adventurous life story as she enters her eighties

In a series of vignettes full of affection, irony, and good humor, Donna Leon narrates a remarkable life she feels has rather more happened to her than been planned.

Following a childhood in the company of her New Jersey family, with frequent visits to her grandfather’s farm and its beloved animals, and summers spent selling homegrown tomatoes by the roadside, Leon got her first taste of the classical music and opera that would enrich her life. She also developed a yen for adventure. In 1976, she made the spontaneous decision to teach English in Iran, before finding herself swept up in the early days of the 1979 Revolution. After teaching stints in China and Saudi Arabia, she finally landed in Venice. Leon vividly animates her decades-long love affair with Italy, from her first magical dinner when serving as a chaperone to a friend, to the hunt for the perfect cappuccino, to the warfare tactics of grandmothers doing their grocery shopping at the Rialto Market.

Some things remain constant throughout the decades: her adoration of opera, especially Handel’s vocal music, her advocacy for the environment, embodied in her passion for bees—which informs the surprising crux of the Brunetti mystery in Earthly Remains. Yetas Leon inspects the cracks in the wall of a friend’s bedroom, caused by vibrations from the seven-story cruise ships making their way down Venice’s canals, she admits regretfully that mass tourism has rendered the city less and less appealing to its longtime chronicler.

Having recently celebrated her eightieth birthday, Leon poignantly confronts the challenges of aging. Complete with a brief letter dissuading those hoping to meet Guido Brunetti at the Questura, and always suffused with music, food, and her fierce sense of humor, Wandering through Life offers Donna Leon at her most personal.

• Unabridged Audiobook
• Categories: Biographies & Memoirs

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What listeners say about Wandering Through Life

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• Performance 2 out of 5 stars
• Story 3 out of 5 stars

• Robert W. Ross Jr.

Expecting more!

Donna Leon is certainly an interesting character. And, I was expecting more in terms of insight, richness and perhaps personal observations beyond the simple minimal items that are shared in this 'memoir'. I continually had the impression that there was more to tell us. The onion got peeled only so far and not too much. Obviously, that's her choice, and that, for me, was disappointing as I have always enjoyed her writing, especially on my many trips to Venice. I'm thinking she has more to say and sadly we might not get to hear it. In the meantime, I'm sticking with Guido, et al.

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2 people found this helpful

• Performance 4 out of 5 stars

Expecting More

I was hoping for more insight into her mystery writing and how she developed her characters.

• Overall 5 out of 5 stars
• Performance 5 out of 5 stars
• Story 5 out of 5 stars

• Allan Mahnke

I had been unsure whether I wanted to risk disappointment that the creator of the Brunetti series might not succeed at nonfiction. How wrong! This was an absolute delight. And it was beautifully read. I recently listened to 3 terrific books about JS Bach containing a lot of German, Italian and French text, most of which was nearly unintelligible. Not in this book! The Italian bits were all clear and easy to understand.

• louise taylor

Delightful!!

I am an avid fan of the author’s mysteries, I have read them all. This book was like spending an afternoon enjoying her company. The narrator was the best I have ever heard. Loved her authentic Italian.

• Overall 1 out of 5 stars
• Performance 1 out of 5 stars
• Story 2 out of 5 stars

Not worth the read

This book was slow and boring. No enthusiasm from the reader. Tried sticking with it but finally had to delete from my list

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Unravelling life’s origin: five key breakthroughs from the past five years

Associate professor, Dublin City University

PhD Student in Astrobiology, Dublin City University

Disclosure statement

Seán Jordan receives funding from European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 1101114969) and from Science Foundation Ireland (SFI Pathway award 22/PATH-S/10692). He is affiliated with the Origin of Life Early-career Network (OoLEN).

Louise Gillet de Chalonge receives funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 1101114969). She is affiliated with the Origin of Life Early-career Network (OoLEN).

Dublin City University provides funding as a member of The Conversation UK.

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There is still so much we don’t understand about the origin of life on Earth.

The definition of life itself is a source of debate among scientists, but most researchers agree on the fundamental ingredients of a living cell. Water, energy, and a few essential elements are the prerequisites for cells to emerge. However, the exact details of how this happens remain a mystery.

Recent research has focused on trying to recreate in the lab the chemical reactions that constitute life as we know it, in conditions plausible for early Earth (around 4 billion years ago). Experiments have grown in complexity, thanks to technological progress and a better understanding of what early Earth conditions were like.

However, far from bringing scientists together and settling the debate, the rise of experimental work has led to many contradictory theories. Some scientists think that life emerged in deep-sea hydrothermal vents , where the conditions provided the necessary energy. Others argue that hot springs on land would have provided a better setting because they are more likely to hold organic molecules from meteorites. These are just two possibilities which are being investigated.

Here are five of the most remarkable discoveries over the last five years.

Reactions in early cells

What energy source drove the chemical reactions at the origin of life? This is the mystery that a research team in Germany has sought to unravel. The team delved into the feasibility of 402 reactions known to create some of the essential components of life, such as nucleotides (a building block of DNA and RNA). They did this using some of the most common elements that could have been found on the early Earth.

These reactions, present in modern cells, are also believed to be the core metabolism of LUCA, the last universal common ancestor , a single-cell, bacterium-like organism.

For each reaction, they calculated the changes in free energy, which determines if a reaction can go forward without other external sources of energy. What is fascinating is that many of these reactions were independent of external influences like adenosine triphosphate , a universal source of energy in living cells.

The synthesis of life’s fundamental building blocks didn’t need an external energy boost: it was self-sustaining.

Volcanic glass

Life relies on molecules to store and convey information. Scientists think that RNA (ribonucleic acid) strands were precursors to DNA in fulfilling this role, since their structure is more simple.

The emergence of RNA on our planet has long confused researchers. However, some progress has been made recently. In 2022, a team of collaborators in the US generated stable RNA strands in the lab. They did it by passing nucleotides through volcanic glass. The strands they made were long enough to store and transfer information.

Volcanic glass was present on the early Earth, thanks to frequent meteorite impacts coupled with a high volcanic activity. The nucleotides used in the study are also believed to have been present at that time in Earth’s history. Volcanic rocks could have facilitated the chemical reactions that assembled nucleotides into RNA chains.

• Hydrothermal vents

Carbon fixation is a process in which CO₂ gains electrons. It is necessary to build the molecules that form the basis of life.

An electron donor is necessary to drive this reaction. On the early Earth, H₂ could have been the electron donor. In 2020, a team of collaborators showed that this reaction could spontaneously occur and be fuelled by environmental conditions similar to deep-sea alkaline hydrothermal vents in the early ocean. They did this using microfluidic technology , devices that manipulate tiny volumes of liquids to perform experiments by simulating alkaline vents.

This pathway is strikingly similar to how many modern bacterial and archaeal cells (single-cell organisms without a nucleas) operate.

The Krebs Cycle

In modern cells, carbon fixation is followed by a cascade of chemical reactions that assemble or break down molecules, in intricate metabolic networks that are driven by enzymes.

But scientists are still debating how metabolic reactions unfolded before the emergence and evolution of those enzymes. In 2019, a team from the University of Strasbourg in France made a breakthrough . They showed that ferrous iron, a type of iron that was abundant in early Earth’s crust and ocean, could drive nine out of 11 steps of the Krebs Cycle . The Krebs Cycle is a biological pathway present in many living cells.

Here, ferrous iron acted as the electron donor for carbon fixation, which drove the cascade of reactions. The reactions produced all five of the universal metabolic precursors – five molecules that are fundamental across various metabolic pathways in all living organisms.

Building blocks of ancient cell membranes

Understanding the formation of life’s building blocks and their intricate reactions is a big step forward in comprehending the emergence of life.

However, whether they unfolded in hot springs on land or in the deep sea, these reactions would not have gone far without a cell membrane. Cell membranes play an active role in the biochemistry of a primitive cell and its connection with the environment.

Modern cell membranes are mostly composed of compounds called phospholipids, which contain a hydrophilic head and two hydrophobic tails. They are structured in bilayers, with the hydrophilic heads pointing outward and the hydrophobic tails pointing inward.

Research has shown that some components of phospholipids, such as the fatty acids that constitute the tails, can self-assemble into those bilayer membranes in a range of environmental conditions . But were these fatty acids present on the early Earth? Recent research from Newcastle University, UK gives an interesting answer. Researchers recreated the spontaneous formation of these molecules by combining H₂-rich fluids, likely present in ancient alkaline hydrothermal vents, with CO₂-rich water resembling the early ocean.

This breakthrough aligns with the hypothesis that stable fatty acid membranes could have originated in alkaline hydrothermal vents, potentially progressing into living cells. The authors speculated that similar chemical reactions might unfold in the subsurface oceans of icy moons, which are thought to have hydrothermal vents similar to terrestrial ones.

Each of these discoveries adds a new piece to the puzzle of the origin of life. Regardless of which ones are proved correct, contrasting theories are fuelling the search for answers. As Charles Darwin wrote :

False facts are highly injurious to the progress of science for they often long endure: but false views, if supported by some evidence, do little harm, for everyone takes a salutary pleasure in proving their falseness; and when this is done, one path towards error is closed and the road to truth is often at the same time opened.

• Chemical reactions
• Origins of Life
• Charles Darwin
• Scientific discovery
• nucleotides

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