With holidays happening all around us, in spite of the
seamen going dry, guidebooks of all shapes and sizes pour from the presses. I suppose about 1 per cent of them come my way, and now and again there is one that cries aloud to be celebrated. Such is the seventh Collins's Companion Guide, Florence, by Eve Borsook I36s.), who seems to be a kind of female BB. At any rate, she's an American art historian, and no one would deny Berenson that descrip- don, which is a good start when writing a book' About a city that is a work of art. And s Ott cannot expect such a scholar to know that osso buco (literally 'hollow bone') is not veal chop with marrow-bone but just shin of veal w ith the marrow in it, nor to bother w ith more than twenty-live menu terms when she has to tind room for two dozen pages of bibliography. .
I used to know Florence well. and I would have know n it far better far sooner with the help of Dr Borsook, including the three adjec- tives for wine: franc o, schietto, gagliardo--- genuine, plain and lively. This is a book to read before vou go. to carry with you and to re-read on sour return. As for the price, you can make it up by following her advice about picnicking: I felt cheated that. knowing the city as well as she does, she did not tell us where to eat the good things from the pkricherie.
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