Just finished reading the Bellini Card,loved it .I feel it really caught the atmosphere of Venice in those days, as do all the books with Istanbul.
Although I have never visited Istanbul I feel I know it.
Excellent series let’s have more please.
Thoroughly enjoyed the book but please could someone tell me why it is called The Bellini “Card”?! Thought it is about a painting, not a card, or am I missing the point?
Thanks for writing. Hmmm. I do take your point – in Italian it’s called Il Ritratto de Bellini, which is The Bellini Portrait. But it sounds a trifle flat in English, so I brought in ‘card’ in the sense of playing a card – a gambit, really. Gambit would have been good but Boris Akunin has book called The Turkish Gambit and I don’t want to tread on his toes! Isn’t it hard?
The Janissary Tree – everyone said it was too obscure, but I thought that people know what a tree is; and it worked as a title. The Snake Stone – well, I wanted it called The Serpent Column but that didn’t happen.
The next is called An Evil Eye.
Perfect!
Hi, we thought that was probably the reason why, but I agree it must be very hard to think up titles which are unique, different and catching! I’ve not read your other 2 books, so I now need to buy them when next in the UK (we live in France!)
On the subject of titles, my godmother was Stella Gibbons of Cold Comfort Farm fame and that expression, “cold comfort” has crept so much into use these days as well as “something nasty in the woodshed”! So I hope that The Bellini Card might do the same thing for you.
THe Bellini Card is wonderful yet maddening book. I love Venice and have spent much time there although I have been too busy to look at the stars, sad to say. Istanbul is just as unique in it’s own way and you bring both cities to life. I feel rather stupid in asking but what is the pattern that figures so prominently in the story? I wish the American edition had had it pictured on the frontispiece or the cover somewhere.
I have enjoyed all the Yashim books and look forward to more.
February 23, 2009 at 2:56 pm |
Just finished reading the Bellini Card,loved it .I feel it really caught the atmosphere of Venice in those days, as do all the books with Istanbul.
Although I have never visited Istanbul I feel I know it.
Excellent series let’s have more please.
February 23, 2009 at 4:53 pm |
Thanks, Roger! I hope you do visit Istanbul some time… Yashim is on the case again, and he’ll be back next year in a book called The Evil Eye.
July 21, 2009 at 12:09 pm |
Thoroughly enjoyed the book but please could someone tell me why it is called The Bellini “Card”?! Thought it is about a painting, not a card, or am I missing the point?
July 21, 2009 at 12:34 pm |
Thanks for writing. Hmmm. I do take your point – in Italian it’s called Il Ritratto de Bellini, which is The Bellini Portrait. But it sounds a trifle flat in English, so I brought in ‘card’ in the sense of playing a card – a gambit, really. Gambit would have been good but Boris Akunin has book called The Turkish Gambit and I don’t want to tread on his toes! Isn’t it hard?
The Janissary Tree – everyone said it was too obscure, but I thought that people know what a tree is; and it worked as a title. The Snake Stone – well, I wanted it called The Serpent Column but that didn’t happen.
The next is called An Evil Eye.
Perfect!
July 23, 2009 at 3:41 pm
Hi, we thought that was probably the reason why, but I agree it must be very hard to think up titles which are unique, different and catching! I’ve not read your other 2 books, so I now need to buy them when next in the UK (we live in France!)
On the subject of titles, my godmother was Stella Gibbons of Cold Comfort Farm fame and that expression, “cold comfort” has crept so much into use these days as well as “something nasty in the woodshed”! So I hope that The Bellini Card might do the same thing for you.
July 29, 2009 at 10:44 pm |
THe Bellini Card is wonderful yet maddening book. I love Venice and have spent much time there although I have been too busy to look at the stars, sad to say. Istanbul is just as unique in it’s own way and you bring both cities to life. I feel rather stupid in asking but what is the pattern that figures so prominently in the story? I wish the American edition had had it pictured on the frontispiece or the cover somewhere.
I have enjoyed all the Yashim books and look forward to more.