There is a vogue for novels that tell the story behind great works of art. But Dunant’s book, set in Renaissance Florence, is richer and deeper — and more exciting — than the genre’s more insipid efforts. Kicking off with a nun’s deathbed scene, it recounts the life of Alessandra, a merchant’s daughter with an anachronistically modern sensibility and a passion for the art of her native city. Her arranged marriage to her brother’s boyfriend, and her passion for the Flemish painter who is decorating the family chapel, are played out as Savonarola terrorises the pleasure-loving city (a terrible and fascinating strand of Italian history). Sterlin reads with a voice of strangulated intensity, but you get used to it.

(Time Warner, CDs/tapes £13.99, 6 hours, abridged)

THE SUNDAY PHILOSOPHY CLUB
by Alexander McCall Smith
read by Phyllis Logan

The ruminations of a philosopher of applied ethics don’t half slow down a good murder investigation, but, if you’re not in any hurry, settle down and enjoy this playful tale of bad behaviour in genteel Edinburgh. Isabel Dalhousie — Jean Brodie with a private income, voiced in cut-glass Edinbourgeoise by Logan — investigates the “accidental” death of a young financier, but as she goes after the facts, she can’t ignore the ethical implications of her own and others’ behaviour. The result is a fascinating tour of her own and the great philosophers’ ideas on life’s most important matters (love, truth and lies, hypocrisy). She even solves the mystery — eventually.

(Time Warner, CDs £13.99/tapes £12.99, 6 hours, abridged)

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