It is a brave writer who takes on Venice, La Serenissima, given the long list of distinguished predecessors in whose footsteps he or she must tread, not least those of John Julius Norwich and Jan Morris, let alone the Victorian sage John Ruskin and his 'The Stones of Venice'. Jonathan Keates, the author of La Serenissima, is well aware of the challenge involved. Indeed, he starts his brief introduction with the comment made by Goethe some fifty years before Ruskin was writing that 'about Venice everything that can be said has been said and printed'. Despite Goethe's stricture and the legacy of Ruskin, Keates' version of the story of Venice is well worth reading. It is written as a fast-paced adventure story, full of colourful anecdotes and unusual characters, in which triumph and disaster often walk side by side. Above all it is a celebration of this remarkable city and its turbulent history. A history that starts as a refugee hideout in the marshes from t