No, this is not a site about cities that have been purely imagined, it's a site about how our imagination spices up our ideas of real cities and mixes with our memories to help draw our mental maps. We all have our favourite places and like to read novels and watch films about them. 

I love London, Venice and Florence and so I made this site, with its lists and reviews of all sorts of fiction set in these three cities.

Each city now also has its share of indulgent side pages dealing with, for example, London's cakes, Lost Florence and Venice's cats.

I've also been writing trip reports as a service to travellers who share my obsessions - art, ice cream, cats, and cakes.

The most recent trips to the site's cities were
Venice in 2011  Florence in September 2012
 and Florence in May 2013

There's also now a Trips Menu
 

In case you're curious, this is Me and my other site is...



Click here to send me an e-mail
All suggestions and flattery gratefully received

To search within this site go to Google, put in your search terms as usual, and then type in site:fictionalcities.com


This site now has its own Facebook page...
Friends of Fictional Cities and the Churches of Venice
Click on the link and Like the page for regular news updates.

And if you want to buy any of my books please click HERE
 

click on the word NEWS above for more news (with photos!)

15.6.2013
 OK, I'm also not immune to a little arm twisting, although more would've been even better! I'm going to trip-report from Paris after all.
Paris Trip - June 2013

13.6.2013
I'm off to Paris on Sunday, to check out the Giotto exhibition at the Louvre mostly, but there's an exhibition with lots of Caspar David Friedrich on there too, and an exhibition of works by the Macchiaioli on at the Orangerie.  This latter bunch were a movement of mid-19th Century Tuscan artists, sometimes confusingly dubbed the Italian Impressionists, that I discovered on my recent trip to Florence. The variety of their styles somewhat defeats their easy classification but they did some attractive stuff, and often Florentine views. I'm going to ease off on the old trip-blogging this time, I think, and maybe just post short reports and photos on the Facebook page. Well, even I'm not immune to all the current talk of going off the radar to confuse 'the man'.

3.6.2013
 And in film news, Graham G. writes from Australia to tell me about a Venice-set film I'd previously missed. Venetian Bird (aka The Assassin) is a black and white British thriller set just after WWII. It stars Richard Todd, Eva Bartok and...Sid James! It's based on a novel by (who remembers?) Victor Canning which I have listed but haven't read,yet. The DVD is coincidentally due to be released in the UK in September. And the newest (and third?) date for the release of  Emma Thompson's legally-quagmired film about John Ruskin and Effie (now called Effie Gray) is October 2013. But breath-holding is to be discouraged.

21.5.2013
I've just started on the new Dan Brown, which is called Inferno and is set in Florence, as you probably know. I'll be reading it in Florence, because we're off there tomorrow. And will there be a
Florence Trip Report?
of course there will.

19.5.2013
My spies tell me that a brand new German Brunetti TV episode was broadcast last week. They called it Auf Treu und Glauben (In Good Faith), but we know it as A Question of Belief. The action mostly centred around Cannaregio this time, with a funeral in the Madonna Dell'Orto.

9.5.2013
Back from a wonderful week in Munich to wonderful news from Venice - billionaire art collector Francois Pinault's hated statue of the naked boy with the frog has been taken down for the last and final time. Read the story here. And staying with good news: David Adams Cleveland, who wrote With a gem-like flame, a Venice-set novel we liked, writes with news of a new novel, Love's Attraction also with a Venice setting. Expect a review very soon.

30.4 - 7.5.2013
I'm spending a week in Munich, and you can follow my
Munich Trip Report
or not, it's entirely up to you.

 

more news here
 

June 2013
Wu Ming Altai Venice
Penguin Underground Lines:
Twelve Stories from Twelve Authors London
Victor Canning Venetian bird Venice
May 2013
Dan Brown Inferno Florence
David Adams Cleveland Love's attraction Venice
April 2013
Da Vinci's Demons Florence TV
 Jon Courtenay Grimwood The Exiled Blade Venice
Donna Leon The Golden Egg Venice
March 2013
Christobel Kent A Darkness Descending Florence
Suffer the Little Children, The Girl of his Dreams
and About Face Brunetti TV series
February 2013
Avenger of Venice Venice films
Magdalen Nabb Death of an Englishman Florence
The Lost Moment Venice films
Rupert Thomson Secrecy Florence
Who was Edgar Allen?  Venice films
The Venetian Affair Venice films
Infanzia, vocazione e prime esperienze di Giacomo Casanova, veneziano Venice films
January 2013
The Protectors Venice TV
Dennis Wheatley The Rape of Venice Venice
The Thief of Venice Venice films
E. Temple Thurston The City of Beautiful Nonsense Venice
 Helen Humphreys The Frozen Thames London
Philip Davies London - Hidden Interiors London
Alessandro Barbaro The Eyes of Venice Venice

December 2012
Alana White The Sign of the Weeping Virgin Florence
November 2012
Christobel Kent A Fine and Private Place Florence
October 2012
Nancy Huston Infrared Florence
Terry Pratchett Dodger London
Donna Leon The Jewels of Paradise Venice
September 2012
Lucretia Grindle Villa Triste Florence
Simon Barnes Venetia Venice
August 2012
Linda Proud A Gift for the Magus Florence
Ben Aaronovitch Whispers Under Ground London
July 2012
Marco Vichi Death in Sardinia Florence
June 2012
Maxim Jakubowski, ed. Venice Noir Venice
Tonya Macalino Faces in the Water Venice
Paul Strathern The Spirit of Venice Venice
Giacomo C.  Venice comics
The lost historic centre Florence