Volcanic: Vesuvius in the Age of Revolutions

A bit heavy. But interesting history of Vesuvius as a travel destination.

This brilliant and approachable writer’s “Pleasures of the Imagination” is a mainstay of cultural history, published elegantly by FS&G in 1997. Now, Yale University Press has issued his next volume as an ode to the volcanic by the standards of newsprint at its most odoriferously sulfurous. The paper is of the lowest standards of pulp mills, as shockingly incongruous with the Yale escutcheon as could be imagined by any taste for pleasure. The author deserves better, his reader deserves better. Wait for the paperback, it cannot be worse.