Wandering through Life: A Memoir

by Donna Leon Narrated by Suzanne Toren

Overview

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 also 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.

Editorial Reviews

OCTOBER 2023 - AudioFile

Suzanne Toren gives an exemplary performance of this memoir by Donna Leon, author of the Commissario Brunetti mystery series. Leon, who is in her 80s, shares illuminating vignettes of her family; her love of reading, tennis, and opera; her travels and her life in Venice; and her peripatetic career path in a life she describes as "unplanned." Toren's rich, elegant voice helps listeners settle into Leon's reminiscences, which blend into a magnificent tapestry of her life. Toren perfectly paces the narrative, pausing to highlight moments of joy or difficulty, and bringing forth the humor sprinkled throughout. While Leon's fans will appreciate learning of her personal history, this audiobook will also be of interest to a general audience as a testament to an adventurous and spirited life. M.J. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

Publishers Weekly

09/18/2023

Silver Dagger Award winner Leon (the Guido Brunetti series) underwhelms with this meandering series of reflections on her life and work. In 30 short chapters, Leon recounts the “unusual things” she’s seen and done across eight decades, leaping around in chronology and subject matter. Early reminiscences about growing up in 1950s New Jersey are amusing—she paints an especially vivid picture of her aunt Gert, a “pillar of the church” and an unrepentant cheater at bridge—but too many entries fall flat: a two-page section in which Leon describes feeling abandoned by her mother when she’s left at her first day of grammar school demonstrates none of the depth or subtlety that suffuse her fiction. The author’s accounts of teaching English in Iran in the 1970s and inventing the off-color, Monopoly-inspired board game $audiopoly(“Caught distributing Bibles on number 7 bus. Fined 700 riyals. Lose one turn”) while a professor at King Saud University in Riyadh are more interesting, but fans are likely to be disappointed by the lack of insight into her writing. In the end, Leon’s early admission that she’s “feckless and unthinking by nature and never planned more than the first step in anything I’ve done” appears to be an apt description of her approach to the memoir at hand. This disappoints. (Sept.)

From the Publisher

Praise for Wandering through Life: 

Named a Most Anticipated Book by the Millions

“In this book, Ms. Leon puts Brunetti firmly in the background and brings herself to the fore . . . Her book is full of spontaneous decisions and aimless meandering . . . Warm, witty, and engaging.”—Malcolm Forbes, Wall Street Journal

“The bestselling detective novelist sold tomatoes in New Jersey and taught English in Iran,before finding happiness (and murder) in Venice . . . So how has La Maestra achieved so much? A delightful companion in life and on the page, she says her high-flying literary career is due to a ‘general chipper stance towards the world’ and, despite her Catholic parents, a Protestant work ethic. Let’s call them the wings of Leon.”—Mark Sanderson, The Times (UK)

“Wandering through Life is subtitled ‘A Memoir,’ but this does not do justice to such a remarkable book. It is not, by any means, a conventional memoir. It is a series of short, sometimes directionless excursions into facets of Leon’s life and view of the world, some autobiographical, some philosophical and some purely whimsical . . . Leon has created a beautifully crafted looking glass into her world.”—Justin Washaw, Times Literary Supplement

“[Leon’s] memoir invites readers into her world of adventures, and she’s certainly had plenty . . . She vividly and engaging describes her love of crime, Venice, and opera, her dream of finding the perfect cappuccino (more difficult than one might imagine), and the games she created with friends throughout the world. Leon’s wit and life well-lived will draw in varied audiences, who can live vicariously through her. Fans of her series will certainly enjoy this memoir and the brief letter she includes to dissuade them from trying to find Guido Brunetti at the Questura.”—Library Journal

“Charming . . . Delightfully approachable.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Although celebrated crime writer Leon describes herself as ‘feckless and unthinking by nature,’ she is anything but in the pages of her sprightly memoir, where she focuses the same keen eye for detail and backstory that infuses her beloved, long-running Venetian mystery series featuring Guido Brunetti . . . Leon is coy and discerning in the anecdotes she selects to chronicle her 80 years on Earth, whether lamenting Venice’s environmental degradation or reveling in the works of Handel. Though fans will bask in these candid glimpses, one need not be a devoted Brunetti aficionado to appreciate Leon’s delightfully spirited account of a life well lived.”—Booklist

“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 . . . 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.”—BookReporter

“A remarkable life story by a remarkable woman, Wandering through Life is an impressively written memoir laced with keen observation and humor. An inherently fascinating and memorable read from start to finish.”—Midwest Book Review

Praise for Donna Leon’s Commissario Guido Brunetti Mysteries:

“This endlessly enjoyable series, with its deep thoughts about justice and vengeance and charming classical allusions, can’t help making you smile.”—Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review

“[Leon] has never become perfunctory, never failed to give us vivid portraits of people and of Venice, never lost her fine, disillusioned indignation.”—Ursula K. Le Guin, New York Times

“You become so wrapped up in these compelling characters . . . Each one is better than the last.”—Louise Erdrich, PBS NewsHour

“Few detective writers create so vivid, inclusive, and convincing a narrative as Donna Leon . . . One of the most exquisite and subtle detective series ever.”—Washington Post

“The sophisticated but still moral Brunetti, with his love of food and his loving family, proves a worthy custodian of timeless values and verities.”—Wall Street Journal

“[Leon] uses the relatively small and crime-free canvas of Venice for rips about Italian life, sexual styles and—best of all—the kind of ingrown business and political corruption that seems to lurk just below the surface.”—Chicago Tribune

“Hers is an unusually potent cocktail of atmosphere and event.”—New Yorker

“For those who know Venice, or want to, Brunetti is a well-versed escort to the nooks, crannies, moods, and idiosyncrasies of what residents call La Serenissima, the Serene One . . . Richly atmospheric, [Leon] introduces you to the Venice insiders know.”—USA Today

“Donna Leon is the undisputed crime fiction queen . . . Leon’s ability to capture the social scene and internal politics [of Venice] is first-rate.”—Baltimore Sun

“Terrific at providing, through its weary but engaging protagonist, a strong sense of the moral quandaries inherent in Italian society and culture.”—San Francisco Chronicle

“Brunetti is one of the most attractive policemen in crime fiction today.”—Philadelphia Inquirer

“As always, Brunetti is highly attuned to (and sympathetic toward) the failings of the humans around him.”—Seattle Times

“Leon’s writing trembles with true feeling.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Leon started out with offhand, elegant excellence, and has simply kept it up.”—Guardian

“Compassionate yet incorruptible, Brunetti knows that true justice doesn’t always end in an arrest or a trial.”—Publishers Weekly

“[Brunetti] is a superb police detective—calm, deliberate, and insightful as he investigates with a reflective thoroughness.”—Library Journal

“The appeal of Guido Brunetti, the hero of Donna Leon's long-running Venetian crime series, comes not from his shrewdness, though he is plenty shrewd, nor from his quick wit. It comes, instead, from his role as an Everyman . . . [his life is] not so different from our own days at the office or nights around the dinner table. Crime fiction for those willing to grapple with, rather than escape, the uncertainties of daily life.”—Booklist

“It’s difficult to describe the work of Donna Leon other than in superlatives . . . An annual blessing, a fine series—one of the finest (see what I mean) in the mystery (or any) genre . . . There are few reading joys that equal cracking the binding of a new Leon novel . . . If you have not experienced this world, so exotic and yet so familiar, you can pick up literally any volume in the series and begin a comfortable entry into Brunetti’s Venice.”—BookReporter

“One of the most popular crime series worldwide . . . While the Brunetti books, with their abundance of local color and gastronomic treats, appeal to the fans of the traditional mystery, Leon has something darker and deeper in mind.”—Life Sentence

“No author has delved into Venetian society quite like Leon, whose insider’s view shows how crime seeps throughout the city, touching all strata of society.”—Mystery Scene

 

Library Journal

08/01/2023

In her latest book, novelist Leon ("Guido Brunetti" mysteries; So Shall You Reap) shares her own adventures through a series of humorous nonfiction vignettes. Now 80, Leon grew up in New Jersey and spent most of her adult life living and working in Europe. She now lives in Switzerland. Her memoir invites readers into her world of adventures, and she's certainly had plenty. To name a few, she taught English in Iran during the early part of the 1979 revolution and conducted classes in China and Saudi Arabia. She also went to Italy, where she created a life that outdoes her mysteries' protagonist. She vividly and engagingly describes her love of crime, Venice, and opera, her dream of finding the perfect cappuccino (more difficult than one might imagine), and the games she created with friends throughout the world. VERDICT Leon's wit and life well-lived will draw in varied audiences, who can live vicariously through her. Fans of her series will certainly enjoy this memoir and the brief letter she includes to dissuade them from trying to find Guido Brunetti at the Questura.—Rebekah J. Buchanan

Kirkus Reviews

2023-06-15
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.

Delightfully approachable but disappointingly unrevealing.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940160076331
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	09/19/2023
Edition description:	Unabridged

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