From The Guardian (May 23, 2020):
I first went to Hydra six years ago, when it was simply a beautiful Greek island and not a place I went to commune with its ghosts. I don’t think I was even aware that it was the island Leonard Cohen had lived on, and knew nothing of Charmian Clift, George Johnston and the bohemian community they fostered.
Bloomsbury Publishers: 1960. The world is dancing on the edge of revolution, and nowhere more so than on the Greek island of Hydra, where a circle of poets, painters and musicians live tangled lives, ruled by the writers Charmian Clift and George Johnston, troubled king and queen of bohemia. Forming within this circle is a triangle: its points the magnetic, destructive writer Axel Jensen, his dazzling wife Marianne Ihlen, and a young Canadian poet named Leonard Cohen.
Into their midst arrives teenage Erica, with little more than a bundle of blank notebooks and her grief for her mother. Settling on the periphery of this circle, she watches, entranced and disquieted, as a paradise unravels.
Burning with the heat and light of Greece, A Theatre for Dreamers is a spellbinding novel about utopian dreams and innocence lost – and the wars waged between men and women on the battlegrounds of genius.
Polly Samson is an English novelist, lyricist and journalist. She is married to musician David Gilmour, and has written the lyrics to many of Gilmour’s works, both as a solo artist and with the group Pink Floyd.
Titian (active 1506–1576) produced a masterful group of paintings for Philip II of Spain, celebrating the loves of gods, goddesses, and mortals. Depicting scenes from Ovid’s narrative poem Metamorphoses, Titian named them “poesie” and considered the works as visual equivalents of poetry.
A selection of three essential articles read aloud from the latest issue of The Economist. This week, has 
Five generations after Giovanni Gaja founded his eponymous winery in the Piedmont town of Barbaresco, the family continues to produce some of Italy’s best vintages. Their uncompromising commitment to quality is helping to maintain one of the world’s finest vintners.
A conversation with the acclaimed poet and New Yorker writer Cynthia Zarin that transports us to two of her favorite cities, Venice and Rome, in a celebration of Italy as the country begins to loosen the longest coronavirus-related lockdown in Europe. The episode features evocative readings from her forthcoming book,Two Cities, which captures the meditative yet constantly surprising nature of travel from a deeply personal point of view. 
Monocle 24 checks in on Switzerland’s plans to further ease coronavirus restrictions and ask whether the country is setting an example that others should follow.
Boomers Daily 