Author of “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” will discuss that book, his new one.

CAMDEN – Best-selling author, essayist and journalist John Berendt will speak about his most recent work, “The City of Falling Angels,” Sunday, Feb. 19, at the Camden Opera House.

The author of “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” – one of the best-selling nonfiction works of all time – will speak at 2:30 p.m. as part of the Camden Public Library’s Arts and Lecture Series.

Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: A Savannah Story,” was on The New York Times Bestseller List for four years.

Berendt spent most of the 1980s researching and writing “Midnight,” immersing himself in the cultural and social circles of Savannah, Ga. Berendt gathered enough stories and local folklore to create an “elegant and wickedly funny work” (New York Times), which is part murder-mystery and part cultural-travelogue. The book was made into a movie in 1997 by Clint Eastwood, starring John Cusack and Kevin Spacey.

Employing the same research methods, Berendt moved to Venice, Italy, and began investigating the fire that destroyed the city’s famed opera house, the Gran Teatro La Fenice. The question of it being an accident or arson became the backdrop for “The City of Falling Angels,” which was published in September.

As in Savannah, Berendt manages to ingratiate himself with Venice’s famously exclusive social circles. He reveals a city much older, more beautiful and even more decadent.

“Berendt’s Venice is Savannah with gondolas, a world-class center of civic shenanigans, full of hidden agendas and local rivalries, where any ordinary conversation might be a web of stratagems,” writes Richard Lacayo of Time Magazine.

In his Sunday-afternoon lecture, Berendt will discuss the process of writing “The City of Falling Angels” and compare the experience of writing the two books. Both works delve into the endless cultural and historical intrigues of two larger-than-life cities, which Berendt spins into vivid and witty storytelling.