#The Art Thief

[youreacow-boylikeme]

if we were villains, the secret history, and the art thief are making me want to go to a boarding school in new hampshire to wear pencil skirts, tights, blazers, button ups, and mary janes in brown, black, cream, and white and study latin and theater and music and literature

[ofliterarynature]

NOVEMBER 2024 WRAP UP

[ loved liked okay nope dnf (reread) ]

Kicking Ice • (The Bride of the Blue Wind) • Animal Farm • The Lost Manuscript • Heart's Blood • Hotel • The Liar's Knot • The Education of Pip • The Glassblower • Terec and the Wall • (The Hands of the Emperor) • The Village Library Demon Hunting Society • One Good Turn • The Silence of Bones • (The Raven Tower) • The Art Thief • Safer Places • Letters to Half-Moon Street

* * * * * *

Letters to Half-Moon Street - an absolutely charming epistolary regency romance told mostly through letters between the main character, his siblings, and his love interest. The mc is gay and demi-sexual (and a younger son) in a queer-norm England where gender norms have been replaced by rules about birth order, and there's magic - it's very Sorcery & Cecelia meets KJ Charles (if not quite as good). As I said, very charming, but when I read the two shorter follow ups, One Good Turn and The Education of Pip, it was pretty clear that the epistolary format (and romance) helped cover a lot of hurts. I applaud the author for including an aromantic character and trying to write stories about finding your place and self-recovery without romance, but in her attempt to create comfort she sacrificed any real development to the characters or the plot. (also, while the rich upper class characters are exceedingly nice to the lower-class characters, we still almost never see any of their servants. hmm.) There's a few more books in the series that are romances (and at least one looks like it might be epistolary), so we'll have to see if she improves. Fantastic covers though!

Safer Places - a comic collection that was supposed to be for my book club but didn't quite work out unfortunately! These comics were very strange and dreamlike, making me not quite sure what happened but very much wanting to think about it. The artist also returned to a story idea several times, sometimes taking on an entirely new shape, and it really lent a sense of connection to the book as a whole. Would recommend!

The Art Thief - I'm not really one for more narrative-type nonfiction or for true crime, but non-violent crime involving fine art? I don't know why I find the fine-art world (and crime) so fascinating, but I do, and I enjoyed this! It was actually a fairly nice, chill read to distract myself with in the middle of the election.

The Raven Tower - revisiting my first Ann Leckie 5 years later - this was incredible! Slow yes, but watching the story build itself out of all the pieces was absolutely fascinating. 100% satisfied with the ending, but it was also a bit of a cliff-hanger? I'll be absolutely fascinated to see what kind of stories Leckie felt compelled to write that take up half of the Lake of Souls collection.

The Silence of Bones - DNF @ 11%. I was very interested in this as a historical mystery with a female protagonist set in Korea, but leery of it being YA. I admit I wasn't a big fan of the audiobook narrator, but an hour and a half into the audiobook I still hadn't hadn't settled into the story, so decided to drop it.

The Village Library Demon Hunting Society - This was very high on my watch-list for 2024 due to my love for CM Waggoner's first book Unnatural Magic, but was somewhat leery of the cozy-fantasy vibes it was giving. My first shock came when it turned out to have a fairly modern and contemporary setting and was not in a fantasy other-world, though as expected it was definitely going for the cozy-fantasy and elderly-person-solves-murder vibes that are popular right now, and with which I've personally had mixed results. Overall though, it was aiming to be a sort of meta-commentary on cozy mystery tropes, which I think it was successful at! I think it definitely did better than its sci-fi cousin, the Midsolar Murders series by Mur Lafferty. I just wish it had a better title, this one is a bit of a mouthful and only semi-relevant.

The Hands of the Emperor - started slowly rereading this a few months ago with the intention of getting around to my first reread of the sequel. Honestly, the perfect book to be reading during an absolutely horrible election, I imagine I'll be burying my head in the Nine Worlds a lot in the upcoming years.

I wasn't quite ready to head directly into AtFotS after finishing Hands, so jumped around to some of Victoria's short stories I hadn't read yet. Terec and the Wall is the second Terec story - I admit I really don't have much interest in this sub-series? This one in particular was at least interesting in the second half because of its crossover with the Greenwing & Dart series, so I recommend you don't read this until you've read that. The Glassblower was...fine. It showed promise, but it was so short! I hope the second part fleshes out more, but idk. It's also related to the Ysthar collection of books, which is the only part of the Nine Worlds that I haven't bothered to revisit yet. To skip ahead a bit, the third of the Sisters Avramapul novellas is finally out! It's been a while so I decided to reread the first two books, starting with The Bride of the Blue Wind. It's a Bluebeard retelling and deals with pregnancy/body horror and is not for the faint-hearted! Sardeet was SO YOUNG in this, I don't think I quite realized before. Good but not my favorite of the series.

The Liar's Knot - loved loved loved. These books are so good even if (or because?) all of the plot twists are somewhat soap-operatic. I think this is my favorite in the series because the characters are a bit more settled but also having to learn to trust each other. And all of the secret identity reveals!!! I had a wonderful time.

Hotel -DNF @ 8%. picked this up at a recent library sale because a mystery at a hotel sounds cool! Then I started it on audiobook and realized it was a thriller (not my thing) written by a guy in the 60's (ditto). What I read was certainly passable and maybe I could have gotten through it, but I lost interest.

Heart's Blood - I've seen Marillier's work around somewhere, and picked this one up at a library book sale at some point. I got so close to DNF'ing this early on and almost wish I had. It wasn't bad I think, it has some beauty-and-the-beast vibes, but it felt excruciatingly slow, and something that I couldn't quite put my finger on was annoying the heck out of me. It made me wish more times than I should admit that I was reading Chalice by Robin McKinley instead. I'm not entirely scared off of trying Marillier's other work, but I'd proceed with extreme caution.

The Lost Manuscript - DNF @ 19%. A surprisingly lighthearted novel told in letters about a woman who finds a manuscript in a hotel bedside table and proceeds to track down the original author, only to discover someone else had added to the manuscript at some point after he lost it. She and her contacts try and trace its history back to find the mystery author. Seemed very nice, if you're looking for something calm and lighthearted? Just not what I was looking for at the time.

Animal Farm - somehow managed to escape reading this for school, and a podcast I listen to loves recommending this, so I picked up a copy at the same sale as Heart's Blood. I feel like I spent most of the book sagely nodding my head, like yup, that's how it can be! Very smart book, not a favorite but I'm glad I read it.

Kicking Ice - backed this on Kickstarter ages ago when I was still deep in my Check, Please! fervor. Finally picked it up because it was short and I needed to finish another book for my owned-tbr challenge. It was ok. Maybe a better choice if you're a young girl interested in hockey or sports in general? I also didn't like the art style used for most of the book, so a pass from me. I'm sure a lot of the info about the NWHL is also outdated by this point.

[slow-media]

books and jazz

[doumekiss]

2024 Book Recs 1-4/?

1- Tress of The Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson 

This book tells the story of Tress a young woman who’s fiance is kidnapped by a witch and goes on a daring adventure in hope of rescuing him. It has a very interesting worldbuilding, colorful side characters, and the heroine was so compelling, I won’t say to much because I do think it’s best to experience Tress and her development without knowing much about it but I can say that Tress felt a lot like she could have been a Discworld heroine. This is a Cosmere universe novel but it is not necessary to know anything about it previously to understand the book.   

Recommended for: Fantasy fans, lady pirate fans, people that liked The Princess Bride, Stardust or Discworld.  

2 - Unruly : The Ridiculous History of England’s Kings and Queens by David Mitchell 

A history of the england monarchs told by David Mitchell (not the Cloud Atlas author, but the one we know from peep show, would I lie to you, upstart crow and many other british comedy shows), really interesting and fun and made me learn a lot of stuff I wasn't aware before, also it was cool to read a history book by an author that doesn’t even try to pretend to be impartial

Recommended for : History buffs in general, people who like David Mitchell’s type of humor, Horrible Histories fans 

3 - Earth Fathers are Weird/Earth Fathers are Odd by Lyn Gala 

The cutest story ever written about a guy getting accidentally impregnated by aliens. 

Recommended for: people that like unconventional love stories and fluff 

4 - The Art Thief : A True Story of Love, Crime and a Dangerous Obsession by Michael Finkel 

This book tells the story of Stéphane Breitwieser, a successful thief who stole over 400 pieces from museums, auctions and churches in 7 different countries, not for money but for an obsession with art and who eventually lost everything because of it. 

Recommended for: People interested in true crime, obsessive collecting, and narratives about human hubris

[sandramiksaauthor]

reading vlog, writing update, and my obsession with art crime 🖼️

[elizabethgrofskyramos]

Bought this at the airport and stuck it into my emergency book bag. My apologies to the author for waiting so long to read it. It was great. When is the movie?

2025 Goal = 100 books.

99 to go.

[rainbowofcrazy]

The Art Thief, by Michael Finkel (narrated by Edoardo Ballerini)

I'm not really into true crime, and I ATE THIS RIGHT UPPPP. The true story of the greatest art thief who has ever lived. Fricking loved it!

Full review: https://rainbowofcrazy.wordpress.com/2024/12/06/book-review-the-art-thief-by-michael-finkel/

[bookcoversonly]

Title: The Art Thief | Author: Michael Finkel | Publisher: Knopf (2023)

[dracula-smokes-weed]

Drawing For Nothing is out!

Forgot to announce this here but the first ten chapters for Drawing For Nothing have been released! For those who missed the last post, this is a free, digital art book for animated films that were either canceled or bombed due to complicated issues.

https://www.drawingfornothing.com/

More chapters are to come. A few highlights in the next installation will be My Peoples and Larrikins.

Also, if anyone wants to help research, feel free to send a DM! We're also working on a new cover that will feature custom artwork of various characters from these movies. If you think you got what it takes to draw in the style of another artist, we would appreciate the help!

[pmg227]

Favorite Reads of April '24

“Some of these things are true and some of them lies. But they are all good stories.” Hilary Mantel in Wolf Hall Being Elisabeth Elliot: The Authorized Biography: Later Years Ellen Vaughn. Though I’ve known that Elisabeth Elliot was the wife of Jim Elliot (a missionary killed in Ecuador in 1956), that’s pretty much all I knew about her. A shame since she was living and writing during my younger…

[theadmiringbog]

Everything you want to do in the presence of a compelling piece is forbidden in a museum. What you first want to do, he advises, is relax, pillowed in a sofa or armchair. Sip a drink, if you desire. Eat a snack. Reach out and caress the work whenever you wish. Then you'll see art in a new way.

--

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory

Spielberger's State-Trait Anxiety Inventory

Raven's Progressive Matrices

[youreacow-boylikeme]

the art thief is a beautiful book, i just began to read it

i’m unwell over the writing style of books like this, including if we were villains (my absolute favorite) and the secret history

“aesthetics are high than ethics”

[alikunsblog]

It has its own atmosphere

[storyofmorewhoa]

Pygmalion and Galatea (1763) by Étienne Maurice Falconet Paul and Virginia (1844) by Alessandro Puttinati Worship of the Female Form (early 20th century) by Alméry Lobel-Riche Kneeling man embracing a standing woman (1908) by Gustav Vigeland In Paradise (1918) by Max Svabinsky Thief of the Moon (1924) by Norman Lindsay

[wickedcriminal]

THE OL' SWTCHEROO

[sandramiksaauthor]

July TBR 🖼️ | art, art crime, artists, and more art books