When David Gentleman wrote his book he thought that Portofino ‘ought to look ruined by all its cash and commerce and new paint, but I thought it a pretty, lively and charming place…This is how the Mediterranean ideally ought to look.’ Apart from actually going there, and trawling wistfully through David Gentleman’s book, the next best thing will be re-reading The Enchanted April (set near Portofino), we sell it in the shop among ‘the fifty books we wish we had published’.