For those readers who did not receive invitations to George’s wedding in Venice, here are a couple of consolation prizes. Richard Bosworth’s latest book, Italian Venice: A History (Yale UP, 2014), offers a characteristically engaging account of the city since the fall of the Republic in 1797, covering inter alia the most significant contemporary issues: the threat of flooding, the festivals, tourism. A very different view of the city is presented by the philosopher Philip Kitcher whose Deaths in Venice: The Cases of Gustav von Aschenbach (Columbia UP, 2013), takes Thomas Mann’s novella as an entry point to an exploration of the general relations between literature and philosophy.