Venice Palazzo, Other People's Notebooks, Giant Trees, Austen Goodies & More: Endnotes 09 January

Every Friday, we celebrate the weekend — and all the reading and relaxing and daydreaming time ahead — with Melissa's favorite book- and travel-related links of the week. Why work when you can read fun stuff?!

This post is part of our Endnotes series.

That invitingly mysterious view above is the Doge’s Palace on St. Mark’s Square in Venice. It was built between 1301 and 1450 in the Venetian Gothic style — a blend of Moorish, Byzantine, and Gothic elements — that gives the exterior the appearance of an elaborate wedding cake. Inside, it’s a museum where you can tour chambers decorated with paintings by Renaissance masters like Veronese, Tintoretto, and Titian. You can also visit the prison where common criminals were kept in The Wells — dark, damp, water-filled dens — and the Bridge of Sighs, which offered prisoners their last view of Venice as they made the final walk to their prison cells. Just a 15-minute walk away, along the Grand Canal, is the 500-year-old Palazzo Dario — and for a mere $21 million, it can be yours! The famed palace is currently on the market, and it’s a beauty: Four floors, with entrances from both the water and from land. It’s decorated with a fountain, Venetian fabrics, and antique chandeliers. It tempts you with terraces, a fireplace, and a marble staircase. It’s so lovely, Claude Monet committed it to canvas in 1908 — the painting — overcoming his own reluctance, having confided to his wife, ‘It is too beautiful to be painted! It is untranslatable.’ But beware! Palazzo Dario is known as ‘the house that kills.’ It’s believed by Venetians to be cursed. As the story goes, anyone who stayed in this beautiful building for more than 20 days died, committed murder (!), or went bankrupt. Perhaps it was built on a Templars’ cemetery, or is placed at the crossroads of evil origins. No one knows for sure, but even local fishermen refuse to cast their lines near the infamous residence. The ArtCurious Podcast has the whole story.

• This is a very fun peek inside other people’s notebooks.

• The (excellent) Closely Reading Substack offers easy prompts to better understand your reading identity: four short emails with ‘gentle reflection questions to help you define your reading identity, rituals, goals, and writing habits.’ What a great way to start a new year of reading!

• From now until February 14, New York’s Grolier Club is hosting Paper Jane: 250 Years of Austen. It’s a celebration of Austen’s life through all manner of paper ephemera: rare first editions and manuscripts, popular reprintings, giveaways, movie posters, illustrations, theater playbills, and more. Explore this treasure trove online. (Love the ‘pinking of Austen’ from the 1960s.)

• Related: Emma Thompson was recently a guest on the BBC Bookclub podcast to reflect on her adaptation of Sense and Sensibility. Such a wonderful episode!

• And also: The Pride and Prejudice Bennet family home from the 1995 adaptation is on the market. ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged that little compares to a honey-coloured manor house in the Cotswolds.’ It can be yours for about $5 million.

• Oooh, yes! Can we all start using the word githerments?!

• Don’t be a snooty traveler! How The Snooty Traveler Ruins Everything. ‘The Snooty Traveler always has a story that tops yours. The Snooty Traveler knows the real way to see a place. The Snooty Traveler is quick to say what you’ve done is too touristy, that it doesn’t quite measure up.’

• Daydream fodder: 25 Castles You Can Book on Airbnb, including Loire Valley châteaux, 15th-century Venetian homes, and upstate New York mansions. There’s even one in the Czech Republic with a cozy library!

• Test your knowledge of world cuisine with this quiz. I got 10/10.

• ‘In the woods, Cain and Ferreira are literally hugging trees to get the tape measure around massive trunks, but neither is anything like popular ideas of the metaphorical tree hugger.’ Meet a pair of big tree hunters in North Carolina — and treat yourself to stories of epic trees, bobcat encounters, and leaves the size of a hubcap.

• What happens when the book club leaves the living room? ‘One writer trades her usual reading nook for the open road, joining a travelling community in Bali for literary workshops, sunset readings, and enlightening conversations that go beyond the page.’

• Doesn’t seem like Scotland is a hard sell, but just in case: 8 Reasons to Visit Scotland in 2026. While you’re considering, perhaps you’d enjoy our podcast episode Scotland: Wraiths, Rebels, and Royalty.

• Whoa. I hadn’t considered that Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mister Ripley is a retelling of Macbeth. Neat!

• Two ‘best of’ lists before we totally kick 2025 to the curb: the best comics, from The Comics Journal and the best multi-voice audiobooks, recommended by AudioFile.

• 7 Stylish Period Dramas to Swoon Over in 2026. Our household is very excited about Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials (trailer).

Wishing you all good things in 2026.

Top image courtesy of Massimo Adami/Unsplash.