It's tragic that this sly and wonderful romp is out of print and never even had a paperback. The Florentine Papers is a small gem about a doltish poet roughly used by a determined young woman named Maria who burns to write her magnum opus: a comprehensive treatise on spinach (thus, Palmer's title). A naked homage to Nabokov except leavened somehow (by brevity? sheer American-ness?), Palmer's prose is transparent enough to reveal the narrator as the classically pedantic fool the master would have loved--one who is no match for the object of his affections. Hilarious, accomplished, and most of all delicious. Get a copy however you can.