The Museum of Modern Love by Heather Rose

October 11, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – Kindle edition. Algonquin Books, 2018. Originally published 2016. 256 pgs. Purchased. What is art? How does it encourage people to form connections with others, to express their love towards those in their lives? These are the questions posed by Heather Rose in her fictional exploration of the very real Marina Abramović performance of The Artist is Present at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City. Over 75 days, Abramović sat largely immobile in the MoMA atrium […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Art, Awards and Prizes, Fiction, New York, North America, Stella Prize, United States • Tags: Heather Rose

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

May 27, 2018 by Christina

Fiction — audiobook. Read by Anna Fields. Blackstone Audio, 2008. Originally published 2001. 11 hours, 24 minutes. Library copy.  In an unnamed country in South America, guests arrive at the Vice President’s home to celebrate the birthday of a Japanese businessman, Katsumi Hosokawa. Eager to woo the businessman and encourage him to invest in the country, the country has invited a famous American opera singer by the name of Roxane Cross to serenade Katsumi. The party is interrupted by a […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Art, Audiobook, Awards and Prizes, Book Club, Fiction, South America, Women's Prize • Tags: Ann Patchett, Anna Fields

Paris Red by Maureen Gibbons

April 27, 2015 by Christina

Fiction – print. W. W. Norton, 2015. 288 pgs. Review copy courtesy of the publisher. As she stands in front of a shop working on her sketch and wearing her green “whore” boots, seventeen-year-old Victorine Meurent meets a mysterious man who helps her understand how to properly add shadows and, therefore, dimensions to her drawings. The young woman lives and works in the poorer left bank of Paris in 1862, and experience has made her slightly leery of the older […]

Categories: 2015 Reads, Art, Europe, Fiction, France • Tags: Maureen Gibbons

The Art Forger by B.A. Shapiro

March 18, 2015 by Christina

Fiction — audiobook. Read by Xe Sands. HighBridge, 2012. 10 hours. Library copy. Blacklisted by museums, dealers, and most of her fellow artists, Claire Roth produces immaculate copies of some of the world’s most famous paintings, including those by Edgar Degas, for an online retailer. The gig earns her publicity in the Boston Globe yet the art community continues to marginalize her assuming this gig is befitting of someone who claimed to produce a painting known as “D4” that took the […]

Categories: 2015 Reads, Art, Audiobook, Fiction, New England, North America, United States • Tags: B.A. Shapiro, Xe Sands

The Monuments Men by Robert M. Edsel with Bret Witter

November 26, 2014 by Christina

Nonfiction — audiobook. Read by Jeremy Davidson. Macmillan Audio, 2009. 14 hours, 19 minutes. Library copy. Subtitled “Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History”, this book traces the effectors of five so-called Monuments Men and one women between D-Day (June 6, 1944) and Victory in Europe Day (VE Day) on May 8, 1945. One of the little known programs of the Nazi regime was to steal, plunder, and amass the great works of art across Europe […]

Categories: 2014 Reads, Art, Audiobook, Chunkster, Europe, France, Germany, Nonfiction, Poland • Tags: Bret Witter, Jeremy Davidson, Robert M. Edsel

MetaMaus by Art Spiegelman

November 17, 2014 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. Pantheon, 2011. 300 pgs. Library copy. This companion to Spiegelman’s Pulitzer-winning Maus contains one long interview with the author addressing the questions he commonly receives about his work – Why the Holocaust? Why mice? Why comics? – and explores the impact the novel has had on those around Spiegelman in a series of smaller, shorter interviews. It also includes an archive of the audio interviews Spiegelman conducted with his father, historical documents he used to supplement the […]

Categories: 2014 Reads, Art, Comics, Genocide, Holocaust, Nonfiction • Tags: Art Spiegelman

The Lady and the Unicorn by Tracy Chevalier

May 27, 2014 by Christina

Fiction — print. Plume, 2004. 250 pgs. Purchased. Chevalier’s attempts to answer the mystery behind one of the art world’s great masterpieces — a set of medieval tapestries hanging in the Cluny Museum in Paris today. They appear to portray the seduction of a unicorn, but the story behind their making is unknown. Set in France and Brussels in 1490, Chevalier introduces us to Jean Le Viste, a French nobleman who commissions six tapestries celebrating his rising status at Court. […]

Categories: 2014 Reads, Art, Europe, Fiction, France

Three Favorite Children’s Books

August 7, 2012 by Christina

My aching mouth post-wisdom teeth removal interrupted my concentration when it came to reading. I was too tired and too crabby to focus on anything other than these three favorite books from my childhood. Fiction — print. Thompson, Kay. Eloise. Simon and Schuster, 1983. Originally published 1955. 65 pgs. Gift. Subtitled “A book for precocious grownups, about a little girl who lives at The Plaza Hotel”, Thompson’s classic children’s book introduces readers to a true “enfant terrible”. Eloise makes life […]

Categories: 2012 Reads, Art, Classics, Europe, Fiction, Juvenile, New York, North America, Reread, Swedish, Translated, United States • Tags: Christina Bjork, Kay Thompson, Lena Anderson, Shel Silverstein

Behind the Secret Window by Nelly S. Toll

August 1, 2012 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. Scholastic, 2004. Originally published in 1993. 161 pgs. Purchased. Subtitled “A Memoir Of A Hidden Childhood During WWII”, Toll’s memoir was one of my first introductions to the Holocaust. I purchased the book from the Scholastic school catalog and the rest, they say, is history. Toll’s life turns upside down at the age of six with the Nazi invasion of Poland. By the time she is eight, she has lost most of her family and has turned […]

Categories: 2012 Reads, Art, Europe, Genocide, Holocaust, Juvenile, Nonfiction, Poland, Reread • Tags: Nelly S. Toll

The Last Ember by Daniel Levin

June 13, 2012 by Christina

Fiction — print. Riverhead Books, 2009. 415 pgs. Borrowed from my mom. I borrowed this book from my mom due to its subject matter — Italian antiquities, illegal artifact digging in Jerusalem, museums possessing stolen artworks. In Levin’s novel, former classics scholar turned lawyer Jonathan Marcus accidentally discovers a hidden message carved inside a client’s fragment of an ancient stone map. The discovery reunites him with a college friend, Dr. Emili Travia, on a perilous journey from the labyrinth beneath […]

Categories: 2012 Reads, Art, Crime, Fiction, Middle East • Tags: Daniel Levin

Museum of the Missing by Simon Houpt

December 26, 2011 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. Sterling, 2006. 192 pgs. Library copy. Whereas coffee table books typically focus on a particular artist and the breadth of his/her works, this book focuses on those pieces that have been stolen from museums, action houses, and private homes around the world. The title of this book comes from the mythical museum of all the stolen works of the world known as the “Lost Museum” or the “Museum of the Missing” to those who investigate art theft; […]

Categories: 2011 Reads, Art, New England, Nonfiction, North America, United States • Tags: Simon Houpt

Trespass by Ethel Seno

November 28, 2011 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. Taschen, 2010. 320 pgs. Borrowed from my uncle. My uncle has one of the largest, most eclectic collection of coffee table books I’ve ever seen. He told me during my most recent visit to his place that he actually doesn’t purchase the books for their content but rather for how well they match the decor. To each there own, I guess. Subtitled “A History Of Uncommissioned Urban Art”, this book examines the rise and global reach of […]

Categories: 2011 Reads, Art, Nonfiction, North America, United States • Tags: Ethel Seno