Welcome to issue no.2 of The Deep Read, where you can find out what Mr B’s booksellers have been reading and lots of other shenanigans. This month, Laura K heads to Italy on the trail of Olivia Laing, we have a Q&A with debut author Lidija Hilje, and Tom has read the new Woody Allen novel so you don’t have to...

Casanova’s Ghost

When is the best time to visit Rome? Could it be peak summer, to make the most of the gelaterias and fountain-perching, or autumn when private courtyards invite the public in for a slice of walled-off history? A slightly less crowded spring?  The answer is simple: the best time to visit Rome must be whenever you’re reading Olivia Laing’s new novel The Silver Book. 

I visited Rome in early September with no other plan than to show my partner the usual highlights and eat all the pizza, but turns out our trip began to organically map itself out according to whatever was happening in this amazingly propulsive novel my colleague Liv suggested I choose as a holiday read. She. Was. So. Right. 

It all started with a spritz – as it so often does – in Trastevere, where I fell deep into a 1970s alternate city full of hustling art-house types with equal parts creative ambition and sex on their minds. It so happened the area where I was staying was also homebase for the novel’s protagonist, Danilo Donati, who Laing crafted around the real costume and set designer extraordinaire of the same name. When his partner in the book says he’s never visited the neighbourhood, Danilo replies “Why would you? It’s not for tourists.” Those days are sadly gone, Trastevere has now been ‘discovered’, but it’s managed to retain some of the outsider atmosphere present in the novel. As one local excitedly put it to me one night: “I could get dinner, have a beer, see a friend and get mugged all on the same square, there’s life!” That there was. Every night until the wee hours, much like in the book. Testaccio, a more unassuming neighbourhood with a jewel of a cemetery just across the Tiber, also features in the book as a stomping ground, but it’s the island that acts as a bridge between the two I had my sights on.

I was on the hunt. Not least because at the back of her novel Laing has a classy black and white author photo of herself taken somewhere on this fascinating islet. The place itself is stunning when viewed from either riverbank, a mirage of a floating church and hospital, and I was going to make my partner walk around it all until we found The Exact Place. Down the steps, to the bank, under the bridge, past the raucous teens and heron fishing for its lunch – and finally, a familiar wall. With less shrubbery, but it had to be the one. The weather was too hot for me to have donned a trench like Laing, but I’m rather pleased at my mock-casual lean and what my personal photographer managed to capture.

In the novel – as in real life – Donati works alongside Fellini and Pasolini on their iconic movies Casanova and Salò, and where they work is a mythical factory of cinematic dreams called Cinecittà. The studios wouldn’t still be there now, would they? And you surely couldn’t visit, could you? Cue frenetic googling and a very happy camper: the studios are still standing and open to the public. Unlike in Danilo’s day, you no longer have to hop on a cramped tram for an hour in the punishing heat to reach what was then middle of the Italian countryside – the doorman told us it was all cows for days. It’s still a bit of a mission, but the metro station is right outside the gates.

The entrance looks like a building straight out of Hollywoodland’s golden age of movie making, and it’s no coincidence, more like just what the architect had in mind. Well, it’s a raging success and I was transported. Like Danilo says: “Cinecittà, it’s a whole thing. It’s a world like Rome is a world.” It was just me, my partner and three others on the tour that day – in peak season! Insanity! People need to know! – and we got to go into the actual studio spaces where Danilo would have been sweating away with last minute changes and grandiose commissions similar to the giant head of Venusia (made for Casanova, but by Giantito Burchiellaro). So much of Laing’s novel takes place here, under the demanding eye of the director, in and amongst the cameras, picked-off-the-pavement extras, rivalries, and impossible deadlines. We took the metro back, but I would have paid good money to hear that tram rattle into view and down the interminable highway into the city.

Circo Massimo – check. The Borghese gardens – check. Eating maritozzas in the morning – check. But what was that line again, the one about Giolitti? “Go out and eat ice cream. But don’t go to Giolitti. I want to take you there myself.” Now this must be where gelato goes to die. My final pilgrimage does not disappoint, the green neon of the Giolitti sign casting a phantasmagoric glow on my fluffy cone and the entire holiday where Danilo and the layers of this semi-fictional city have intruded on my days. I welcomed them.

By Laura K

The Silver Book by Olivia Laing, out in hardback 6 November.

Q&A with Lidija Hilje

Lidija Hilje, author of Mrs B’s favourite book of 2025, Slanting Towards the Sea, which Juliette called “a stunning and intense exploration of love and letting go set by the sparkling sea and parched olive groves of the Croatian coast”, joins us for some bookish questions…

You are on a long train journey but can only take one book. Which of your existing book collection would you choose to take to re-read? 

Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout is the book I keep returning to the most. I love Strout’s Amgash series and this is my favourite among them. Lucy Barton, the protagonist, feels like an old friend whispering the story of her life to me over coffee. I often pull this book off the shelf only to read a paragraph or two; to feel that particular comfort of knowing a character so well and reading something that feels true and familiar.

Where do you do most of your reading?  

During the summertime, I often read on the beach. There’s something so special about that experience, tuning out the chirp of cicadas and the loud clamour of other beachgoers, and being pulled under by the power of someone’s storytelling. The rest of the year, I usually read before bed or on the couch with my daughters, often having to fight them for the best reading spot. 

What is on your “to be read” pile currently? 

My TBR pile is devastatingly long, but these are some books I hope to get to soon: Seascraper by Benjamin Wood, The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai, Just a Little Dinner by Cécile Tlili; The Imagined Life by Andrew Porter, and The Hypocrite by Jo Hamya. 

When you visit a bookshop, which section do you go to first? 

When I visit my local bookshop, I go straight to the Literature in Foreign Languages section, where books written in English are displayed. I started reading in English in 2019, when I realized that if I wanted to publish my book outside Croatia, I would have to write it in English, and not rely on someone else translating it for me. Since then, I’ve been reading almost exclusively in English, as a way of mastering the language. If I were visiting a UK-based bookstore, though, I would go to the Literary Fiction section, and once my cart was full, and I’d shuffle over to the Classics. I love seeing different editions of famous works, and the idea that a story can be so powerful it outlives its creator by decades, or even centuries. 
 

Do you love olives and olive oil as much as your character Ivona (in Slanting Towards the Sea) does? 

Perhaps not quite as much as Ivona, since she tends her own olive grove and produces oil. It was actually my father who was the olive oil aficionado before his stroke; he grew olives and was trained in sensory testing of olive oil. He was deeply involved with the olive grower and producer community. When he became ill, he decided to sell his olive grove. I’m assuming it was too painful for him to keep it without being able to tend it. While I wasn’t interested in growing olives myself, I loved certain aspects of it, especially olive picking in October and November. I miss it so much—those cold, windy, sunny days; the laughter ringing among the trees; combing through the olive fruits with my fingers… 

 
If you could only eat one Croatian dessert for the rest of your life, what would it be? 
 
Medena pita. The direct translation would be ‘honey pie,’ but it’s actually a layered cake: thin sheets of dough made with honey, filled with cream. Once, my parents brought back a piece that had been prepared by their friend’s mother, an older woman from northern Croatia. Never in my life had I tasted anything better. Sadly, no matter how much I tried, I was never able to fully recreate it.  

The ultimate dinner party – who would your top three guests be? (real of fictional!) 

My great-grandfather Nikola Makario Skroza. He died before I was born, but he remains very much alive in my family’s stories. He was a man ahead of his time; for example, he chose to educate my grandmother instead of her brothers, reasoning that they would find their way more easily as men. He was a famous liquor producer, winning gold medals in London and Paris in the early 20th century. The way he weathered the turbulent and violent shifts of power in these parts during the two world wars and beyond, was nothing short of astounding. I wish I could hear his story in his own words.  

Jane Eyre. She is both sensitive and vulnerable, yet resilient and self-sufficient. She proves that it’s possible to embody the female principle, while also being independent, strong, and powerful.  

Captain Jean Luc Picard. I’ve grown up watching Star Trek: The Next Generation, and for me it was always more than a pastime. The series shows humanity in a light that was difficult to imagine while the war was raging around me (and even more so today), yet in a light I want to believe is possible. Captain Picard embodies those core values. I’m re-watching the series again with my daughters and it makes referencing decent human behavior so much easier. 

As told to Juliette

Click here to find out more about Slanting Towards the Sea!

I Read the Woody Allen Novel So You Don’t Have To

Woody Allen – legendary director, humourist, and alleged sexual abuser – has, at 89 years old, released his debut novel. Just what the world wanted and needed, huh? Well, never put off by controversy, and buoyed by my colleagues distaste for us even stocking it, I thought I’d see if it’s any good.

If What’s With Baum? was crap, this would be a very simple review. The truth, however, is much more complex. When any celebrity releases a novel, scepticism requires the answering of two questions: Would it have been released if it wasn’t written by the celebrity? And can you forget they are the author when you read it?

The answer to the first of these questions is a resounding yes. What’s With Baum? is very well written, tightly plotted and often funny. In many ways, it is classic Allen storytelling: a middle-aged Jewish man bounces around New York, trying to rescue his ailing literary career while running into all sorts of larger-than-life characters. Baum has also recently started talking to himself out loud, echoing Allen’s genius in breaking the fourth wall in Annie Hall, his most endearing and brilliant movie. It’s all very familiar but well executed.

The problem comes with the second of my posed questions: can we forget this is Woody Allen? The answer, unfortunately, is absolutely not. Baum’s arc leads him into the orbit of Sam, the girlfriend of his insufferable stepson Thane. Thirty years younger and very beautiful, Baum can’t help himself, despite already being at the centre of a scandal where he groped a young reporter after an interview. Cue the tiresome complaining about cancel culture… bring out the violins, everyone! All of this leaves a horrible taste in the mouth, and you are left thinking: Woody Allen sat in a room making this stuff up? Really? Does the man have no self-awareness?

What’s With Baum? is not a bad novel at all. If it had been written by someone else, I’d say buy it and enjoy it. But it wasn’t. So don’t.

By Tom Mooney

What’s With Baum? is available now

News in Brief

  • One of our team’s favourite fantasy novels of recent years was Mordew, by Alex Pheby (published by our good friends at Galley Beggar Press). One of the big draws to the novel is the stunning cover artwork, which was created by local illustrator James Nunn. James has now made some gorgeous limited edition prints – and there’s 20% off for Mr B’s customers! Click here to browse his work and use the code MrBs20 to claim your discount.
  • If you are looking for some interesting listening material, look no further than Nic’s appearance on The Art and Heart of CX podcast, where he discusses all things Mr B’s, shares his and Juliette’s journey to opening the bookshop, and shares his customer service tips. Click here to listen on Spotify.
  • Bath Film Festival is coming up and this year celebrates its 35th anniversary. One event that caught our eye is the screening of The Thing with Feathers, the adaptation of friend-of-Mr B’s Max Porter’s debut novel. They have dozens of events and screenings around Bath – click here to see their full program.
  • Amazing local charity The Genesis Trust, who have been supporting Bath’s homeless and vulnerable people for 35 years, have opened a photography exhibition about their work. The exhibition is at St Michael’s Church and runs until October 8th. Get down there and support them! Click here to find out more.