City of the Soul

Author William Murray, having grown up in Rome, takes the listener on a walking tour of the city, complete with detailed descriptions of landmarks worth seeing, historical facts and rumors associated with his favorite haunts, and a unique personal perspective full of his own memories. Murray fully captures the sights and sounds of the city in his writing; his recollections span a lifetime within its walls, investigating both the great monuments and the smaller plazas. Grover Gardner picks up Murray's prose and runs with it. His somewhat highbrow reading gives the work a retro feel, appropriate for a travel guide that starts with life in the city as far back as the 1940s. His pace matches Murray's as he expertly weaves history and personal experience together in an enjoyable conversational manner. The presentation has the feel of an insider's guide to the great city, complete with all the baggage one would expect. H.L.S. (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine

November 11, 2002
"Rome is so many things, but most of all, perhaps, a city of ghosts, of memories, of visions, of time remembered and faithfully honored," writes Murray (Janet, My Mother and Me) in this highly evocative, largely personal guide to the Italian capital, the latest addition to the Crown Journeys series. Having spent much of his childhood and early adulthood in Rome, Murray has many ghosts, memories and visions to exhume. Thankfully for readers, he keeps the reminiscing to a minimum and fits up a straightforward and well-researched but still romantic—and even, at times, funny—portrait of the city and its people. "Rome is nothing if not a feast for the eyes," Murray muses, and his descriptions of the city's many churches, ruins, fountains and piazzas display his quirky assessments: the Palazzo Venezia reminds him of "an old-fashioned typewriter," the Piazza Navona is "God's waiting room" and the Coliseum boasts a "great yawning façade staring out... to testify to the city's imperial past." Murray doesn't hesitate to share negative depictions, either: the Campo dei Fiori, "not one of Rome's prettier scenes," is "hemmed in by the burnt-orange and amber-colored houses around it, and an air of doom seems to hang over it, even at noon on crowded market days." Like a nice walk, Murray's work is leisurely yet not too long, inspiring daydreams of zooming around town on a Vespa in an espresso-induced state of ecstasy. Map not seen by PW.

Writer William Murray, thoroughly American but Italian born and sometimes bred, takes the listener on a walk through Rome, giving a guide and history, and occasionally a memoir of his own life or a remembrance of his accomplished family. Urbane and civilized in the fullest senses, he meanders but is never lost; his know-ledge of the city and its history are both deep and at his fingertips. This is guidebook enough that at times we wish for a map, but it's more a love letter than a Frommer's. Murray's voice is scratchily old but not unpleasant; his patent love of Rome gives the book a dimension a different reader could not provide. W.M. (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine