San Domenico Palace Taormina: The Hotel That Inspired Renowned Literary Classics Launches Its Summer Book Club
This is the it-place for a luxury book club, with reading lists shared by Dua Lipa and the Miu Miu Literary Club has arrived to the shores of Sicily…
The motive of this Four Seasons property book club is to create a place where books are not confined to bookshops, rather carried in beach totes to the beach, and seen as cultural status symbols. The San Domenico Palace Taormina hotel has always had an intimate relationship with books and literature so it was a no brainer for the brand to launch its Summer Book Club. The hotel, a former monastery has been a rescue writing retreat and place of relaxation for history’s leading literary figures of the 20th century.
This Summer Book Club will be taking place during the city’s Taobuk- Taormina International Book Festival. The annual festival illuminates the city, making it an international gather place of literature where writers, artists, and intellectuals from around the world will gather under the same mission: a love of books.
Goethe is credited to making Italy an it-place to visit when he did his Italian journey, making Taormina a must visit destination for the European elite, when he did his European Grand Tour. According to announcement notes, Taormina was a must-visit place for those who hungered for the intellectual life. Of the famous authors that stayed in the hotel, it’s: Thomas Mann, Anatole France, Tennessee Williams, Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, Oscar Wilde, D.H. Lawrence, Truman Capote, John Steinbeck, and Vladimir Nabokov frequented the hotel. It’s believed that Lawrence was inspired by the hotel and its surroundings, which led him to write Lady Chatterley’s Lover, when he stayed at the hotel in the 1920s.
When guests arrive to the hotel they will be given a brochure where they can choose from the Summer Book Club list of 10 books of timeless classics, cult novels, and modern works. Upon borrowing their chosen title, they will be given a tote bag and bookmark and invited to read on the terrace overlooking the sea, the ancient cloister, and the long Sicilian days. This club is an invitation to slow down, stop scrolling, and get lost in a story from yesteryear.
The titles include:
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, Italian Journey by Goethe, Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote, Lighea by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, and The Cloven Viscount by Italo Calvino — the latter personally chosen by Imelda Shllaku, General Manager of the hotel. Alongside the great classics, contemporary voices include Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico, Bel Canto by Ann Patchett, The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith, and White Noise by Don DeLillo.
The Summer Book Club cements the San Domenico Palace Taormina as a local, yet, also international hotel that brings an intellectual curiosity to hospitality, reminding us that the books on the list are just as important and inspiring as they were when they were written.
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