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The Sinner's Grand Tour: A Journey Through The Historical Underbelly Of Europe (2011)

by Tony Perrottet(Favorite Author)

3.43 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

0307592189 (ISBN13: 9780307592187)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Broadway Books

review 1: LOVED this book! If you have an interest in traveling to less savory locations with historical significance, read this and take notes. Personally, I saved several sites to visit and loved the in-depth description of places I could never hope to enter, such as Sade's Chateau, the warehouse with Edward VII's infamous sex chair, or the Stufetta di Bibbiena in the Vatican, never mind its state of disrepair. This book was informative and engaging!
review 2: I can't remember how I stumbled across this book, but its description as a recreation of the hidden, taboo aspects of the classical Grand Tour caught my attention. I envisioned trips to opium dens and brothels, Oscar Wilde's London and Byron's Swiss exploits. Some of my hopes were met -Byron had his own chapter a... morend I was pleasantly surprised by a journey to Casanova's Venice -but the book as a whole seemed haphazard and random. Perrottet was not really uncovering the dirty secrets of the classical grand tour, he just seemed to be exploring anything and everything that had to do with sex before the 20th century. I almost gave up on the book after a chapter devoted to the sex lives of medieval peasants in a tiny village in the Pyrenees mountains. The book does have its interesting chapters but readers might be better served picking and choosing the chapters that sound appealing and ignoring the chapters that seem to be thrown in just for the sake of Perrottet's own journey. As far as armchair traveling goes this book does not exactly transport you to the locales that Perrottet visited, but it is an interesting historical survey and perhaps a starting-point for further reading of the bizarre and licentious aspects of European history. less

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