Tag: Books
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King of the Confessors: a Crazy Story About the Cloisters Cross
Thomas Hoving’s King of the Confessors is about his adventures in acquiring the so-called Cloisters Cross. The story is wild, and I couldn’t put it down.
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The Self-Portrait: A Cultural History, by James Hall
James Hall’s The Self-Portrait: A Cultural History is an interesting, well-thought-out assessment of self-portrait painting as a cultural phenomenon.
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The Mystery of the Disappearing Velasquez (maybe)
The Vanishing Velasquez tells the wild but true story of a man who believed that he owned a lost Velasquez masterpiece. It’s still an unsolved mystery.
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Colorful Travels with Victoria Finlay
Victoria Finlay travelled across the world to research historical sources of color. Her book is full of surprising and sometimes alarming facts.
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Rogue’s Gallery – Art Dealers as Colorful as any Artist
Rogue’s Gallery is a fascinating book about the history of art dealers. As it turns out, it’s not just the artists who have big personalities.
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Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts
My thoughts on Meetings With Remarkable Manuscripts, a really excellent and informative book about twelve, world-class medieval manuscripts.
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A Review of the Morgan Library and Museum
My experience at the Morgan Library and Museum, a New York City museum of rare books and manuscripts, works on paper, and other small treasures.
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Lost Languages and conversations about them
It’s been a long time since I’ve been as excited about a book as I was about Andrew Robinson’s Lost Languages: The Enigma of the World’s Undeciphered Scripts (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002), and I get excited about books almost every day. Lost Languages is a really excellent and informative introduction to the world’s un-deciphered writing…
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My review of David Day’s The World of Tolkien: Mythological Sources of The Lord of the Rings
The fact that it is still December and I’m already writing a review of a book I got for Christmas should tell you everything you need to know about how wonderful this book was. David Day’s The World of Tolkien: Mythological Sources of The Lord of the Rings. (New York: Chartwell Books, Inc., 2013) is a 184-page-long,…
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B.A Shapiro’s “The Art Forger: A Novel” – a personal reaction
My reaction to B.A. Shapiro’s The Art Forger, a novel about a fictional young art forger and the real-life Isabella Stewart Gardner heist of 1990.
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William Shakespeare’s Dictionary (or not?)
My boss just brought this news item from last month to my attention. It seems that two book dealers in New York City have stumbled upon what they believe may be William Shakespeare’s dictionary, complete with annotations and markings by the Bard himself. If that is true, it would be very exciting indeed! I would…
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Leonardo’s Lost Princess
Some thoughts on Leonardo’s Lost Princess, a book about a drawing controversially attributed to Leonardo da Vinci.
