Listen free for 30 days

  • The City of Falling Angels

  • Written by: John Berendt
  • Narrated by: Holter Graham
  • Length: 12 hrs and 52 mins
  • 4.0 out of 5 stars (3 ratings)

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo + applicable taxes after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
The City of Falling Angels cover art

The City of Falling Angels

Written by: John Berendt
Narrated by: Holter Graham
Try for $0.00

$14.95 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $40.04

Buy Now for $40.04

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Tax where applicable.

Publisher's Summary

It was a few years ago that Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil achieved a record-breaking four-year run on The New York Times best-seller list. John Berendt's inimitable brand of nonfiction brought the dark mystique of Savannah so startlingly to life for millions of people that tourism to Savannah increased by 46 percent. It is Berendt and only Berendt who can capture Venice, a city of masks, a city of riddles, where the narrow, meandering passageways form a giant maze, confounding all who have not grown up wandering into its depths. Venice, a city steeped in a thousand years of history, art, and architecture, teeters in precarious balance between endurance and decay. Its architectural treasures crumble, foundations shift, marble ornaments fall, even as efforts to preserve them are underway. 

The City of Falling Angels opens on the evening of January 29, 1996, when a dramatic fire destroys the historic Venice opera house. The loss of the Fenice, where five of Verdi's operas premiered, is a catastrophe for Venetians. Arriving in Venice three days after the fire, Berendt becomes a kind of detective, inquiring into the nature of life in this remarkable museum-city-while gradually revealing the truth about the fire.

©2005 High Water Incorporated (P)2005 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc.

What the critics say

"Funny, insightful, illuminating...[Venice] reveals itself, slowly, discreetly, under Berendt's gentle but persistent prying." (The Boston Globe)

"Berendt has given us something uniquely different....Thanks to [his] splendid city portrait, even those of us far from Venice can marvel." (The Wall Street Journal)

"One of the longest-awaited literary encores in recent times....Teems with a diverse cast of aristocrats and lowlifes....Berendt's voice is gentle and tolerant, reveling in human complexities; he has no pretensions of offering anything more than a good story." (The New York Times Book Review)

What listeners say about The City of Falling Angels

Average Customer Ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    0
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

If you liked “Midnight …”

If you liked “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil”, you will like this book. The author has an uncanny ability to be right at the heart of some amazing stories about eccentric people whom he befriends and then portrays kindly. The performer has a neutral voice (good imho) and smooth pronunciation of the Italian. As “Midnight …” inspired us to visit Savannah, so “City …” made us curious to re-experience Venice and visit these particular sites.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!