Around the Year in 52 Books discussion

Dance, music, visual arts... this week, we are reading a book that relates to something within the arts. Maybe it's a memoir from a famous actress, or maybe you opt to go with a fiction book about an art heist. There's so many ways you could go with this one!

ATY Listopia: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...

What are you reading for this prompt? How does it connect to the arts?

I'm looking for something different from my normal reading, and this sounds very different:
Radiance by Catherynne M. Valente - Decopunk pulp SF alt-history space opera mystery set in a Hollywood-and solar system-very different from our own."

If I'm feeling nostalgic for old Hollywood when the time comes, I might pick:
We'll Always Have Casablanca: The Legend and Afterlife of Hollywood's Most Beloved Film
Finding Dorothy
Siren Queen
Mercury Pictures Presents

It'll be hard to choose from the following!:
Still Life - Sarah Winman (salvaging paintings during WWII)
The Woman in the Moonlight - Patricia Morrisroe (music, Mozart)
Girl with a Pearl Earring - Tracy Chevalier (painting by Vermeer)
The Marriage of Opposites - Alice Hoffman (mother of artist Camille Pissarro)
The Painted Kiss - Elizabeth Hickey (painter Gustav Klimt)
My Name Is Red - Orhan Pamuk (book illumination)
Illyrian Spring - Ann Bridge (painting trip to coast of Yugoslavia)

EDIT: I actually read: The Marriage of Opposites by Alice Hoffman. I loved this book. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Judy wrote: "I'm looking for something different from my normal reading, and this sounds very different:
Radiance by Catherynne M. Valente - Decopunk pulp SF alt-history space o..."

You might like The Air You Breathe. It’s about South American musicians who make it to golden age Hollywood.

I’ll be reading more than one book for this prompt. No doubt. I like reading a bio and fictional book about an artist at the same time. (A bookclub reading of Georgia O Keefe was fun. Frida Kahlo might work.)
Other possibilities.
My name is red
The secret piano
The invention of morel
Vincent and Theo
Claude and Camille
Still Life
The judgment of Paris
.. Rilke and Rodin
All my puny sorrows
Tomorrow x3
Gods of tango
Horse
The Colony
Richard Powers book?

Clara and Mr. Tiffany has been on my TBR forever. But The House of Fortune comes out next month and I want to read that too. Decisions decisions.

The Curiosities by Susan Gloss or Luncheon of the Boating Party by Susan Vreeland

I totally recommend Under the Egg by Laura Marx Fitzgerald, one of the best middle-grade books.

What I'd like getting done:
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
This Savage Song by Victoria Schwab
Daughter of Smoke & Bone by Laini Taylor
Night Film by Marisha Pessl

If you're a manga reader, I would highly recommend Blue Period, Vol. 1 which made me cry many times.

It's funny, I consider myself to be much more of an "arts person" than a "science person," but I sure read a lot more science books! I wonder if it's because my work is more arts-oriented and so I want something different for my leisure time, or whether I like to consume science through literature because that makes it more approachable?

My top pick for myself is The Matisse Stories, which was recently recommended to me by the lovely NancyJ. I loved Possession by the same author (which I would highly recommend for this prompt, it's entirely about poets and poetry). I suppose as a back up, I might read The Colony (which is about a painter) or, if I decide to go in a nonfiction direction, The Lady in Gold: The Extraordinary Tale of Gustav Klimt's Masterpiece, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer.

Besides Possession, I would recommend Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood, which is about a painter and her childhood experiences that have affected her life and art.

I'm telling you right now - you HAVE TO READ

If We Were Villains

<3

this will be my first book of the year and this challenge:

If we were Villains by M.L.Rio

If We Were Villains was my best audiobook of 2022! Excellent choice for this prompt!

I'm planning on reading A River Enchanted by Rebecca Ross for this prompt. The protagonist is a musician who has to summon spirits with song. My son got it for me for Christmas.

Grown


I will be reading Grown, by Tiffany D. Jackson.
Author Tiffany D. Jackson delivers another ripped-from-the-headlines mystery that exposes horrific secrets hiding behind the limelight and embraces the power of a young woman's voice. When legendary R&B artist Korey Fields spots Enchanted Jones at an audition, her dreams of being a famous singer take flight. Until Enchanted wakes up with blood on her hands and zero memory of the previous night. Who killed Korey Fields?Before there was a dead body, Enchanted’s dreams had turned into a nightmare. Because behind Korey’s charm and star power was a controlling dark side. Now he’s dead, the police are at the door, and all signs point to Enchanted.

I read Light from Uncommon Stars the main character is a violinist and music is a large theme

I read .

I read The Boys: A Memoir of Hollywood and Family by Ron and Clint Howard. Ron Howard is, of course, known for his TV roles and for becoming an acclaimed director. Clint is his character actor brother.

If anyone is looking for scifi that can meet this prompt, A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine is set in a civilization that uses arts, culture, and poetry as the basis of their society.

I read A Ballad for Georg Henig by Viktor Paskov and translated from Bulgarian. A lovely story of a young boy and his father, a musician in the orchestra, who have essentially "adopted" an impoverished old man, Georg. Georg at an earlier time in his life was a renowned violin maker.

A hard book to get ahold of. It seems the only place to get in in PA is from university libraries. Well worth the extra effort.

For this prompt, I read:
The Vanishing Velázquez: A 19th-Century Bookseller's Obsession with a Lost Masterpiece by Laura Cumming - 3.5* - My Review

I’m reading Songwriters on Songwriting for this. It’s a beast of a book (729 pages) but so interesting and inspiring to see the process of other songwriters (I’m a songwriter too, although amateur for now).

I read The Unsinkable Greta James for this. The main character is a musician/song writer which play a big role in the book. It was a very enjoyable book.

I read Unquiet by Linn Ullmann, the daughter of the film director Ingmar Bergman and the actress Liv Ullman. It's a fictionalised memoir, partly about the author's childhood with both parents and partly her attempts to interview her father in the last year of his life. There are lots of references to cinema, theatre, books and music. Despite the title, it's a quiet book, beautiful in parts.

Recommendations:
Let Me Tell You About A Man I Knew; Frida Kahlo and My Left Leg; Painted Ladies; Lizzie Siddal: The Tragedy of a Pre-Raphaelite Supermodel.

I read Finding Me by Viola Davis is a memoir from a famous actress that won a Grammy and became the 18 person to have EGOT status.

I read Light from Uncommon Stars and I loved it.

I read The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt.

It centers around the 1654 Carel Fabritius painting, "The Goldfinch" and the boy who survived a terrorist bombing at The Met. Fascinating book. I can see why it won the Pulitzer. Unfortunately, the author employs my pet peeve -"playing in the dark" and all her characters of color are marginal, subservient and without any real character development.
I'm about to watch the movie which has one of my favorite actors, Jeffrey Wright. I'm interested to see how the film treats the story. I've heard it was a flop, so I'm curious as to why since the cast is excellent.

I read Portrait of an Unknown Woman by Daniel Silva. It is a later release in the Gabriel Allon series that is named after the van Dyck work and involves the visual art world.

I finished The Blazing World by Siri Hustvedt, about an older female artist in NYC who embarks on a project hiring male "faces" for her art to prove her hypothesis that this will completely change how her exhibitions are received. I enjoyed this a lot. It's dense, constructed of philosophy-quoting journal entries, interviews, magazine articles, and reviews -- but it gains momentum in the second half when her third and final male "face" claims her suddenly popular art installation as his own.

I read Woman on Fire: A Novel. 3 stars. It's about stolen art. It reminded me of Girl On A Train or Gone Girl. People using people.

Light Rains Sometimes Fall: A British Year through Japan’s 72 Ancient Seasons - 5 stars

For this I read Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier.

I read Star Trap by Simon Brett
It is about a play touring England

I just finished Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki. The art connection is both about being a violinist, and also as a side story, being a high level violin maker. I really enjoyed it!

This could also be used for: Asian diaspora author, interracial relationship (human/alien), stars on the cover, and possibly others.

If you are looking for more LBTQIA+ representation, both the author and at least one character cover that base.

My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I am reading Murder in Miniature at Honey church Hall. It is by Hannah Dennison and connected to the arts by handmade dollshouses and antique miniatures.

Gillian Clarke: Collected Poems.

Beautiful nature imagery, childhood memories, and the legends of Wales are contained in these poems.

Tracy wrote: "I just finished Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki. The art connection is both about being a violinist, and also as a side story, being a high level violin make..."

I really loved this book. Its a wild story, but so very compelling. I loved the music. I read a few other books with trans characters last year but the character in this book seemed much more authentic. I agree it works for many different prompts.

I just finished Now Is Not the Time to Panic by Kevin Wilson. Fantastic coming of age story about Frankie and Zeke, who together in the summer of 1996 create a wild and crazy piece of art and unleash it on the world. A bad thing? Maybe. But isn't art meant to be shared? I loved this book. Kevin Wilson is just terrific.

I read Talk Before Sleep by Elizabeth Berg. One of the main characters is an artist, and she meets the other main character at one of her exhibits

I read The Last Painting of Sara de Vos

Mozart in the Jungle: Sex, Drugs, and Classical Music by Blair Tindall.

I shan't look at classical musicians in the same way again! Fascinating, but I wonder how much translates from the States to Europe. Quite a lot, I would imagine.

LeahS wrote: "Mozart in the Jungle: Sex, Drugs, and Classical Music by Blair Tindall.

I shan't look at classical musicians in the same way again! Fascinating, but I wonder how much t..."

Leah, I've not read the book, but loved the Amazon Prime series of "Mozart in the Jungle". It was one that I was so sorry to see end.

This book has a play being written and performed, as well as connections to literature (especially studying the classics of Greek literature)

Cloud Cuckoo Land – Anthony Doerr – 5*****
It’s hard to describe this book. It is equal parts historical, contemporary and futuristic. It took me a while to get into the rhythm of Doerr’s storytelling. I was so confused at the beginning by the changing scenarios and could not imagine how he would weave this into a cohesive story. But I’m glad I persevered, and I finally saw how intricately he managed to weave these stories together. The teenagers, who are lonely and/or alone, find solace in an ancient fantasy and ultimately in reaching out to others.
LINK to my full review

A Theatre for Dreamers by Polly Samson.

The book is set amongst a colony of writers, artists and musicians living on the Greek island of Hydra in the 1960s. Characters include the Australian writers George Johnston and Charmian Clift, and Leonard Cohen and Marianne Ihlen.

I wasn't sure about a novel dealing with people who have died only recently, but the author has done a great deal of research, talked to relevant people, and in the case of Cohen, uses his own words.

It is a wonderful description both of Hydra itself and the bohemian life led there.

Reading All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays by George Orwell this month.