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books tagged “Art Fiction”
books tagged “Art Fiction”
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Caravaggio : A Novelby Christopher PeachmentISBN 0312314485 (0-312-31448-5)
Hardcover, St. Martin's Press
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The Illuminatorby Brenda Rickman VantreaseISBN 0312331924 (0-312-33192-4)
Softcover, Griffin
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Illuminator'Book summary:It is England, in the late fourteenth century, a time when the whim of a lord or the pleasure of a bishop can seal nearly anyone's fate. The printing press has yet to be invented. Books, written only in Latin or Norman French, are rare and costly, painstakingly lettered and illuminated with exquisite paintings---far beyond the reach of ordinary people.[via]
But there are cracks in the old feudal order---and in the absolute power of the Church. Finn is a master illuminator who works not only for the Church but also, in secret, for the heretical Oxford cleric John Wycliffe. Under the nose of the powerful Abbot of Broomholm, Finn illuminates pages for Wycliffe---an English translation of the Bible, meant to bring the word of God to the masses. And Finn has another secret, one that will lead both himself and his beloved daughter into ever-increasing peril.
Lady Kathryn, the mistress of Blackingham Manor, is a widow who finds herself caught between the King's taxes and the Church's tithes. To protect her sons' inheritance, she strikes a bargain with the abbot---Kathryn will take in the illuminator and his daughter, and gain the monastery's protection. What begins as a hesitant friendship between Finn and Lady Kathryn grows into a passionate alliance that touches off a chain of betrayals, tragedies, and unexpected acts of heroism.
Richly detailed and irresistibly compelling, The Illuminator is a glorious novel of love, art, religion, and treachery at an extraordinary turning point in history. -
Italian Feverby Valerie MartinISBN 0375705228 (0-375-70522-8)
Softcover, Vintage Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Italian Fever'Book summary:Italian Fever is a strange soufflé--half mystery and half squib on American innocence and European experience. In Brooklyn, Lucy Stark, an author's assistant who has "come to prefer liberty to passion," despairs over her boss's latest manuscript. "DV's books were always awful, but what made this one worse than the others was the introduction of a new element, which was bound to boost sales: There was a ghost in the villa. DV had gone gothic." But then the phone rings, and she learns that DV will scribe no more, having died under strange circumstances in Ugolino. At least his demise will afford Lucy a vacation of sorts--a stay in Tuscany so that she can identify his body, sort through his effects, and perhaps divine the cause of his death.
Of course, from the moment her plane lands, she suffers from cultural disorientation, and worse. Why, exactly, is her handsome if humorless chauffeur, Massimo, so solicitous? Why is DV's villa in fact a farmhouse? And are its proprietors, the Cinis, conspiring to keep her from the truth? Then there are Lucy's Nancy Drew-like discoveries--a terrifying drawing of DV and a mysterious love letter. And is the scratching at the walls a sign from DV's ghost or something more quotidian? All in all, our heroine can't sort out hallucination from Italian provocation, which is all too much for someone who has long prided herself on her clear sight.
Though Valerie Martin's seventh novel has its share of stomach-clenching moments, it is most successful in its many comic scenes (not something this talented author has hitherto been known for). Whether Lucy is trying to break through Massimo's defenses or get to the bottom of the Cinis' behavior, she is usually miles from the truth. Meanwhile, Martin offers up a host of memorable minor figures, from DV's ultrasophisticated New York publisher to the quail-consuming, epigram-spouting Antonio Cini, who gets most of the good lines. When Lucy tells him that she's forever in Massimo's debt, he languidly responds: "Forever, that must be a tiresome sensation." Though Italian Fever is never in the least tiresome, its biggest mystery is how Martin--who has written so strikingly of possession in The Great Divorce--is here far stronger on satire than the supernatural. --Kerry Fried [via]
The Lost Diaries of Frans Halsby Michael KernanISBN 0312131178 (0-312-13117-8)
Softcover, St. Martin's Press
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The Masterpieceby Emile Zola, Thomas WaltonISBN 0192839632 (0-19-283963-2)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Masterpiece'Book summary:The Masterpiece is the tragic story of Claude Lantier, an ambitious and talented young artist who has come from the provinces to conquer Paris but is conquered instead by the flaws of his own genius. Set in the 1860s and 1870s, it is the most autobiographical of the twenty novels in Zola's Rougon-Macquart series. It provides a unique insight into Zola's career as a writer and his relationship with Cezanne, a friend since their schooldays in Aix-en-Provence. It also presents a well-documented account of the turbulent Bohemian world in which the Impressionists came to prominence despite the conservatism of the Academy and the ridicule of the general public. [via]
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The Masterpieceby Thomas Walton, Emile Zola, Roger PearsonISBN 0192829068 (0-19-282906-8)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Masterpiece'Book summary:The Masterpiece is the tragic story of Claude Lantier, an ambitious and talented young artist who has come from the provinces to conquer Paris but is conquered instead by the flaws of his own genius. Set in the 1860s and 1870s, it is the most autobiographical of the twenty novels in Zola's Rougon-Macquart series. It provides a unique insight into Zola's career as a writer and his relationship with Cezanne, a friend since their schooldays in Aix-en-Provence. It also presents a well-documented account of the turbulent Bohemian world in which the Impressionists came to prominence despite the conservatism of the Academy and the ridicule of the general public. [via]
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Moon and Sixpenceby W. Somerset MaughamISBN 0140185976 (0-14-018597-6)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Moon and Sixpence'Book summary:On a trip to research French artist Paul Gauguin, Maugham sailed into Tahiti's Papeet harbor, where he imagined an exotic tale of the ultimate outsider, one who rejects his entire way of life to pursue an obsession. The result of his efforts is a story of rebellion and escape from civilization which continues to attract and captivate readers to this day. Introduction by Perry Meisel. [via]
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The Moon And Sixpenceby Robert Calder, W. MaughamISBN 0143039342 (0-14-303934-2)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Moon And Sixpence'Book summary:[via]The Moon and Sixpence, published in 1919, was one of the novels that galvanized W. Somerset Maughams reputation as a literary master. It follows the life of one Charles Strickland, a bourgeois city gent whose dull exterior conceals the soul of a genius. Compulsive and impassioned, he abandons his home, wife, and children to devote himself slavishly to painting. In a tiny studio in Paris, he fills canvas after canvas, refusing to sell or even exhibit his work. Beset by poverty, sickness, and his own intransigent, unscrupulous nature, he drifts to Tahiti, where, even after being blinded by leprosy, he produces some of his most extraordinary works of art. Inspired by the life of Paul Gauguin, The Moon and Sixpence is an unforgettable study of a man possessed by the need to createregardless of the cost to himself and to others.
- Includes a new introduction by distinguished Maugham scholar and biographer Robert Calder
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The Museum Guardby Howard NormanISBN 0312204272 (0-312-20427-2)
Softcover, Picador USA
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The Music Lessonby Katharine WeberISBN 0312252854 (0-312-25285-4)
Softcover, St Martins Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Music Lesson'Book summary:Patricia Dolan defines herself by her job as an art historian and her identity as an Irish American. When she is 41, the combination of the two proves explosive, leading her to a rough cottage in West Cork. In Ireland she has for company only her own words, one elderly neighbor, and "The Music Lesson," a beautiful Vermeer executed on wood. As she anticipates the arrival of Mickey, her distant relative and lover, Patricia slowly, tantalizingly reveals the events that have led to her isolation. Before Mickey had appeared one day outside her office at New York's Frick Museum, she had become inured to loss and death, a high-functioning depressive. But her 25-year-old third cousin once removed reawakens her. Alas, his interest is both personal and political, and she is soon involved in a plot to kidnap and ransom the Vermeer, property of the Queen. The painting, she tells herself fervently, "is an instrument of magic. Perhaps now it is also an instrument of change, a talisman, the charm that will force powerful people to pay attention and take decisive action at last."
The Music Lesson is far from your everyday, action-packed IRA saga. Instead, Katharine Weber's second novel is very much like the intimate portrait her heroine so lovingly describes--an exquisite miniature in which images, ideas, and deep emotions keep coming out of the woodwork. --Kerry Fried [via]
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Still Lifeby A. S. Byatt, Antonia Susan ByattISBN 0020178557 (0-02-017855-7)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Still Life'Book summary:Fictional Novel, Literary Fiction [via]
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Violet Clayby Gail GodwinISBN 034538993X (0-345-38993-X)
Softcover, Ballantine Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Violet Clay'Book summary:Violet Clay had come to New York City from Charleston to take the art world by storm. But nine years, many affairs, and thousands of drinks later, the reality of her shadow life is made clear when she is fired from her job as a freelance illustrator. That same day, she hears that her beloved Uncle Ambrose, an unsuccessful writer, has shot himself.
As Violet collects the shattered pieces of her uncle's life, she is forced to face herself and her own tattered dreams. And what she discovers is that she has just been going through the motions of living. She's not even sure she can do anything else. But she's in her mid-thirties and knows she still has time to try again. If she succeeds, she will have broken from her family of dreamers forever and can deservedly claim both the rich rewards and frustrating adversities of the artist's life.... [via]More editions of Violet Clay:
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