MY READING LIST
If you are surprised that a particular book is not on my personal list, it's probably because I've already read it. From my list you can surmise what I appreciate and what I eschew. The first one listed here is the one I'll start with. Beyond that, no order is implied. Some I chose for the artist, some for the author. You'll notice: no cutthroat violence. I can't stand to read of cruelty.

THE UNDERPAINTER Jane Urquhart. Invented elderly artist paints events and people in his life.
I AM MADAME X, Gioia Diliberto. The model for Sargent's shocking society portrait and her tempestuous personality.
LEAVING VAN GOGH, Carol Wallace. Van Gogh's last months under the care of Dr. Gachet.
STEALING THE MYSTIC LAMB, Noah Charney. The Ghent alterpiece by Jan van Eyck, the most valueable piece of art of its time, threatened.
SWAN THIEVES, Elizabeth Kostova. The mystery of the identity of a woman in a painting.
THE LOST PAINTING, Jonathan Harr. In a decaying palazzo in an Italian hill village, a female graduate student discovers The Taking of Christ by Caravaggio.
THE ART FORGER, B. A. Shapiro. Based on the Isabella Stewart Gardner 1990 theft of thirteen paintings.
THE RUBY RING, Diane Haeger. Raphael's beloved Margherita recalls him after his death.

There are only eight. I am a slow reader. I enjoy sentences. The beautiful ones I read more than once and enter them in my reading journal.