Dear reader,
A slight change of pace this week as we ventured from the English riverbank to 19th century Sicily to live amongst princes.
Both Dominic and I had read Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s novel, The Leopard, previously but it was a pleasure to slip back into the sumptuous world of Don Fabrizio and experience it all again.
It was particularly enjoyable to explore the Risorgimento, the life of the princely author, his relationship to the aristocratic family and the novel’s journey to posthumous publication.
Perhaps one of the best-read authors we’ve covered so far, it’s tragic that Lampedusa never saw his work become such a huge success and earn his place amongst the classic works he so revered.
History, decay, change, mortality, eroticism… All themes found within The Leopard, should you decide to read it or, better still, introduce it to your book club (using our Book Notes below). We’ll even forgive Lampedusa for technically running a rival book club…
Read on for further book recommendations, polls and an exploration of The Leopard.
After our call out last week, you flooded our inbox with excellent recommendations for books any 12-year-old would love after one of our community wrote in asking for advice to get her son reading.
Don’t forget to send us your thoughts about The Leopard to [email protected] so we can share them in our Reviewers’ Corner.
I’d be particularly interested to hear whether you found the cynicism unrelenting like Dominic, or, like me, you encountered some relief in the dark humour.
Until next time,
If you enjoyed The Leopard
Some more recommendations for your list
📚 The Last Leopard by David Gilmour - Dominic and Tabby referenced this “brilliant” biography of Lampedusa.
📚 Childhood Memories and Other Stories by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa - A collection of remaining writing and workshopping by the author of The Leopard.
📚 The Viceroys by Federico De Roberto - Written in 1894 and often mentioned as a companion novel to The Leopard, this follows three generations of an aristocratic family struggling to face the changes to Sicily covered in Lampedusa’s work.
🎙The Rest Is History: Historical Fiction - Dominic and Tom Holland previously discussed The Leopard in this special episode back in 2021.
📽 The Leopard (1963) - Dominic is a big fan of this film adaptation of the story, starring Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon and Claudia Cardinale. You can purchase it to watch on streaming services like Apple.
📺 The Leopard (2025) - Last year saw a big-budget adaptation of Lampedusa’s story hit Netflix. The Guardian called the series “a steamy, sumptuous treat”. (We asked Tabby and Dominic for reviews - but alas, they have not watched it.)
🏨 As mentioned on the show, you can stay in the Palazzo Lanza Tomasi in Palermo - the final home of Lampedusa, now converted into hotel rooms.
We need your vote
Dominic described the cynicism in The Leopard as “a bit overwhelming” while Tabby felt that it was countered with “dark humour and there is beauty and value amidst all the darkness”. How did you feel?
Click to vote – and if you leave an extra comment, include your name so we can include your thoughts in Reviewers' Corner
Notes on… The Leopard
Listening to the passion with which Tabby and Dominic talked about The Leopard can leave you in no doubt that this is a perfect tale for a book club to dissect over an evening.
In case you feel put off by the weighty subject matters, it’s also worth mentioning that it’s relatively short too.
Here is a raft of talking points to dig into the complexities and wonders of the novel.
E.M. Forster was a huge fan of The Leopard and famously said it was "not a historical novel" but "a novel which happens to take place in history". Dominic said it's "limiting to call it the greatest historical novel”. “I think it's much better than that. I think it is a great 20th century novel about memory, nostalgia, disappointed hopes, and how you make sense of your life as it moves towards its end,” he added.
Did you find the background history enhanced or detracted from your enjoyment of The Leopard? In what ways do you think calling this a historical novel is "limiting"?
Tell your group about the historical background to the story from the podcast. There is more information about the 19th century unification here. You can also find out about Garibaldi’s Red Shirts and their conquering of Sicily here. Discuss what you learned about the Italian politics of the time in reading this book.
It’s described as the “greatest historical novel ever written”. Does it deserve the accolade? What other works of historical fiction would you compare it to?
Lampedusa was incredibly well read. Tabby described how he would take a copy of Shakespeare or The Pickwick Papers everywhere, like a comfort blanket.
Austen, Brontë, T.S. Eliot, Graham Greene, Dickens and Shakespeare are just some of the authors Lampedusa was known to be a fan of. Explore the ways you can see the influences of authors you know and love in the text.
When, near the end of his life, Lampedusa finally wrote The Leopard, it took him a very long time. “He wants to avoid any cliches,” says Dominic. “He spent all his life thinking about books and he wants every single sentence, every word to be packed with imagery and with subtlety and with nuance.” What were your favourite examples of this in his writing?
“He's never one thing at once,” says Tabby of Don Fabrizio. “He remains a very central figure right to the end, even though he's depleted and exhausted and apathetic. And he's intelligent enough to see that his world is dying. But he's cultivated enough to observe that death with kind of beautiful serenity and enduring charm.”
Discuss the character of Don Fabrizio. Did you, like Tabby, find him appealing? Dominic argued that his cynicism makes him a great narrator and observer of people. What other cynical narrators in literature did he remind you of?
Dominic says the scenes involving Tancredi and Angelica are "one of the best examples in literature of the chase". The presenters found eroticism and sensuality weaved throughout. Where did you see this in the text?
In a very modernist way, the narrative sometimes throws forward to moments in the future that the characters are, as yet, unaware will happen. It means the novel is steeped in a "grimly ironic tone," says Dominic. How effective is this narrative device?
"The cynicism and the emphasis that everything is rotten and everything is putrid, I thought: ‘Come on, would you never give your characters a tiny bit of true happiness or of a lightness as well as the shade?’" said Dominic. He docked one point from his final score "because I wondered on rereading whether the cynicism and the scepticism was a bit overwhelming”.
Did you find The Leopard was too unrelenting in its cynicism or side with Tabby's counter-arguments that this novel reflects reality and that there is beauty amid the darkness?
"I kept highlighting and highlighting,” Tabby said of her time reading the book ahead of the episode. “It ended up being kind of whole pages because it was so perfect. It is a piece of art." Where did you find the beauty in The Leopard?
The quote that says it all
“I belong to an unlucky generation swung between the old world and the new and "I find myself ill at ease in both.”
As highlighted by the presenters, this quote sums up the position of Don Fabrizio, resolved to observing the inevitable decay of his life and position. But what quote stayed with you after you finished ? Email us and let us know.
Who should you give this to?
Someone who thinks they can’t be out-misanthroped? A friend taking a trip to Sicily this summer? A history buff who needs to broaden their reading horizons? Tell us, who would you share this with?
Recommended reads
This week, we’re taking over this section with your answers to last week’s quandary from Joana, who was hitting a wall finding books for her history-loving 12-year-old.
After Dominic and Tabby gave their brilliant options, our fantastic community stepped in with more suggestions. Forward these to parents, save them for the future, or just indulge in some nostalgic reading yourself.
Continue to send your general book recommendations and why this group should read them to [email protected] and we’ll continue to share them as usual again next week.
School librarian Carolyn writes to suggest The Young Sherlock books by Andrew Lane, The Ruby in the Smoke series by Philip Pullman, Lockwood & Co by Jonathan Stroud, The Books of Beginning trilogy by John Stephens and Gregor the Overlander series by Suzanne Collins.
Meliz suggests Robin Jarvis’s The Deptford Histories, which they first read at 12. “It combines all the best bits of history (Great Fire of London, the plague etc), with fantasy, adventure, villains and heroes. I've re-read them as an adult and loved them just as much.”
“We were in the same boat a few years ago and chanced upon two brilliant series that the whole family ended up loving,” writes Georgina who recommends the Ranger’s Apprentice series by John Flanagan (“Excellent adventure romps”) and The Saga of Roland Inness books by Wayne Grant (“The writing is beautiful and the stories fast paced.”)
Rachael urges you to seek out the novels of Geoffrey Trease, a contemporary of Rosemary Sutcliff, but “sadly neglected”. She adds: “His historical adventure stories were driven by a deep sense of social justice, featuring a hero and heroine (always both) drawn from unexpected backgrounds.”
Reviewers’ corner
We can’t wait to see your responses to The Leopard. Write in to [email protected] with ‘review’ in the subject line and tell us…
Your thoughts on Dominic’s likening it to Mrs Dalloway and his argument for why Woolf’s novel is less beloved.
What you felt Lampedusa was trying to say about human nature.
Here are some of your takes on last week’s text, The Wind in the Willows.
Your polls
Last week, we tested the theory that every Englishman can be likened to one of the characters in The Wind in the Willows, asking you who you thought Tabby and Dominic most resembled.
While Tabby thought Dominic was Ratty, you opted for Badger (37% of the vote). “Wise and on occasion a little curmudgeonly,” said one voter. Dominic thought Tabby was a mix of Rat and Mole - 51% of you went for Ratty, with one book clubber saying it was because she had “sheer enthusiasm for any task and always up for adventure”.
And when it came to scores out of 10, you agreed with Dominic - the leading score was 10/10, which got 25.81% of votes.
Comfort reads
We asked about the childhood comfort reads you return to. Natasha from Melbourne wrote in to say hers are “Winnie-the-Pooh, Milly-Molly-Mandy, Anne of Green Gables, The Hobbit, and The Chronicles of Narnia”.
Alex, who grew up in Germany, highlighted two authors that are seminal to them. “The first is Cornelia Funke. I especially devoured her series Die Gespensterjäger, which means The Ghost Hunters in English. It’s a book about a young boy named Tom, who finds a ghost in his basement and proceeds to seek advice from a professional ghost huntress called Hedwig.” They add: “The second author is Otfried Preußler… probably one of the juggernauts of classic German children's fiction. I remember reading his book Krabat when I was 12 and being absolutely enchanted by it.”
Friends who shorten the weary way
“I reread The Wind in the Willows every year, and each time I'm always struck by how good and dear a friend Ratty is to Mole,” writes Laura, with this touching take. “Not just for taking him happily under his wing at River Bank, but for how tactfully he resolves to dispel Moley's despair and help him find his narrow little hole, mired as they are in the freezing snow and still a long walk from home. That we should all have such a friend in tough times, ‘who by a flow of cheerful talk and anecdote endeavoured to beguile his spirits back and make the weary way seem shorter.’”
Will also wrote in about the friendships at the heart of the story, saying: “Approaching The Wind in the Willows with standard critical eyes reveals a work which shuns so many literary conventions (the structure is episodic, the plot absurd and ragged, toads don't have hair), but such an approach exposes a churl. One of the main charms is the presence of indulgent forays, of whimsy given prominence (such as the Piper at the Gates of Dawn chapter). But the primary charm is, obviously, the central gang. A common point, but one does feel befriended by the four friends, and so the book itself become the most warm-hearted of companions.”
Judging Toad
Layla writes in to say: “This week, I am performing in The Wind in the Willows at Putney Theatre, and was delighted when I found out that you were doing an episode on [the book]. I am playing a judge, who sentences toad to his 20 years in prison.” “In the book, I found it easier to sympathise with him, but in the play, he just seemed annoying,” she adds. Here’s Layla passing sentence…
Poop poop!
Being unbiased, it’s important to note not everyone is a The Wind in the Willows fan. Jenny from Brisbane emailed in: “I didn't read this as a child and there is simply no way I could have. I'm a 39-year-old and I could barely get through the 13,748 word sentences! I didn't find the story enjoyable at all (nor did my nine-year-old son who I read it to), the characters were quite unremarkable and I was just glad it was over. I do enjoy animals being the main characters, I did enjoy the pictures.”
Sarah in Dorset adds: “I re-read this for the podcast after many years and was blown away by the beauty of much of the writing, but I just can’t bear Toad!”
Beyond Potter
Stan wrote from Georgia, USA to say: “In The Wind in the Willows episode, Dom placed the book's 1908 publication in the context of Beatrix Potter's books. But there were other popular animal stories in the US, and I suspect in the UK as well - Br'er Rabbit, Br'er Bear, Br'er Fox, and the others in the Uncle Remus stories by Joel Chandler Harris. The first book, Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings, was published in 1882, with several sequels following. In 1908 when The Wind in the Willows came out, Harris was editing the Uncle Remus Magazine. I believe Theodore Roosevelt was a fan as well.”
Never too late
If your ‘to read’ pile is getting bigger by the day, Kellie brings inspiration. “I finally read a book that I’ve owned for over 40 years, The Silmarillion by Tolkien,” she wrote to tell us. “I filled a notebook with notes on every character and made copies of the maps so I could mark them up with who went where.” We had to ask for a picture…
Scoreboard
Book | Dominic’s Verdict | Tabby’s Verdict |
|---|---|---|
The Leopard | 9/10 | 10/10 |
The Wind in the Willows | 10/10 | 8/10 |
A Game of Thrones | 8/10 | 8/10 |
Little Women | 7/10 | 5/10 |
The Code of the Woosters | 11/10 | 10/10 |
Next on The Book Club
Here’s what’s coming up over the next few weeks…
July 21: Circe by Madeline Miller
July 28: The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan
August 4: My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante
August 11: Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
August 18: For Whom The Bell Tolls Ernest Hemingway
August 25: Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
September 1: Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
September 8: Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Keeping score
This week, Dominic awarded the book nine sexy eye patches out of 10 😜 . Tabby gave it 10/10. But what did you think?
See you next week for Circe.
The Book Club Team
