Book Thirtyfour: The Sixteen Pleasures

The Sixteen Pleasures, Robert Hellenga



A young woman goes to Florence in the 60s after the Arno floods to help recover and restore damaged books. While living in a convent and helping to rescue their flooded library, she discovers a rare old book that contains pornographic engravings and poems. From there, she has a love affair, has some adventures with the explicit book, and discovers some things about herself while reflecting on the past. Sound trite? Well, surprisingly, it isn't. I wouldn't normally have picked this book, but it was for book club, and in the end I was glad to have read something out of my ordinary realm.