Why am I passionate about this?

Iā€™m the descendant of three generations of visual artists, a gene I thought had skipped me. However, art popped up in many of my stories when I started writing fiction. In 2012, I published The Life Story of a Chilean Sea Blob, and to promote it, I launched a street art campaign that included putting plaster blobs on the streets of Washington, D.C. This blossomed into several other street art projects and earned attention from The Washington Post and several D.C. TV news stations. My next two books centered around Frida Kahlo and Edvard Munch.


I wrote

Stealing the Scream

By Theodore Carter,

Book cover of Stealing the Scream

What is my book about?

In 2004, masked thieves stole Edvard Munch's ā€œThe Screamā€ from an Oslo museum. Norwegian police recovered the painting two yearsā€¦

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

The books I picked & why

Book cover of The Picture of Dorian Gray

Theodore Carter Why did I love this book?

This is not the origin of the haunted painting trope, but itā€™s certainly the best. Beautiful Dorian Gray is a stunning subject for painter Basil Hallward, and the painting reflects the young manā€™s natural allure. However, Gray laments the inevitable loss of his beauty and wishes the painting would age instead of him. When it does, he sets off on a hedonistic path that ultimately ravages the painting and the man.  

Part antiquated pontifications about beauty, part horror novel, and doused in homoerotic innuendo, this book hits hard on several fronts. While I loved this book when I read it in junior high, it became better with each reread.

By Oscar Wilde,

Why should I read it?

16 authors picked The Picture of Dorian Gray as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'A triumph of execution ... one of the best narratives of the "double life" of a Victorian gentleman' Peter Ackroyd

Oscar Wilde's alluring novel of decadence and sin was a succes de scandale on publication. It follows Dorian Gray who, enthralled by his own exquisite portrait, exchanges his soul for eternal youth and beauty. Influenced by his friend Lord Henry Wotton, he is drawn into a corrupt double life, indulging his desires in secret while remaining a gentleman in the eyes of polite society. Only his portrait bears the traces of his depravity. This definitive edition includes a selection ofā€¦


Book cover of Bluebeard

Theodore Carter Why did I love this book?

In trademark Vonnegut fashion, Bluebeard uses humor to juxtapose the horror and violence of World War II. In this way, it is similar to Slaughterhouse-Five

However, Vonnegut skewers the art movement born out of the warā€™s aftermath: abstract expressionism. Bluebeard is the story of Rabo Karabekian (who first appeared in Breakfast of Champions), a war veteran and failed illustrator who accidentally found success as a contemporary of Rothko and Pollock. At the end of his life, heā€™s ready to unveil one final secret locked away in a damp potato barn.

By Kurt Vonnegut,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Bluebeard as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

ā€œRanks with Vonnegutā€™s best and goes one step beyond . . . joyous, soaring fiction.ā€ā€”The Atlanta Journal and Constitution

Broad humor and bitter irony collide in this fictional autobiography of Rabo Karabekian, who, at age seventy-one, wants to be left alone on his Long Island estate with the secret he has locked inside his potato barn. But then a voluptuous young widow badgers Rabo into telling his life storyā€”and Vonnegut in turn tells us the plain, heart-hammering truth about manā€™s careless fancy to create or destroy what he loves.

Praise for Bluebeard

ā€œVonnegut is at his edifying best.ā€ā€”The Philadelphia Inquirerā€¦


Ad

Book cover of The House Swap

The House Swap by Miranda Rijks,

Two perfect families. Two beautiful homes. A one-way trip to hell.

When the Browns and the Lesters organise a house swap, it seems like the perfect holiday arrangement.

Sounds wonderful. Except for one thing - both families are hiding dark secrets, and secrets have a way of coming out...

Inā€¦

Book cover of The Petting Zoo

Theodore Carter Why did I love this book?

This posthumously published novel is the last offering from the punk rocker, poet, and writer Jim Carrol. Carrol was a friend of Patti Smith and Andy Warhol and a product of the New York City art scene in the 1970s and 1980s.

The central character is Billy, a successful painter with such deep artistic sensitivities that navigating small things like relationships, his health, and earning money is crushingly difficult. The book reads like an allegory as much novel as moving characters through action seems a secondary aim. In this way, it reminds me of Franz Kafkaā€™s A Hunger Artist.

By Jim Carroll,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Petting Zoo as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A moving, vividly rendered novel from the late author of The Basketball Diaries.

When poet, musician, and diarist Jim Carroll died in September 2009, he was putting the finishing touches on a potent work of fiction. The Petting Zoo tells the story of Billy Wolfram, an enigmatic thirty- eight-year-old artist who has become a hot star in the late-1980s New York art scene. As the novel opens, Billy, after viewing a show of VelĆ”zquez paintings, is so humbled and awed by their spiritual power that he suffers an emotional breakdown and withdraws to his Chelsea loft. In seclusion, Billy searchesā€¦


Book cover of Little

Theodore Carter Why did I love this book?

This fictionalized biography of Madame Tussaud is a wild blend of fact and fiction. Orphan Marie (Madame Tussaud) works as an apprentice to a physician, making wax models of body parts and organs. This progresses to full-body models and even a grisly hall of famous murderers displayed for ticket-paying patrons. As Marieā€™s skill grows, so does her renown. Soon, she becomes an art instructor to the princess on the eve of the French Revolution.

What makes this book great is that while itā€™s based on fact, it reads like a surreal fairy tale. The inclusion of Careyā€™s illustrations throughout is an added bonus in this art-centric story.

By Edward Carey,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Little as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

LONGLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD 2020

LONGLISTED FOR THE RSL ONDAATJE PRIZE 2019

LONGLISTED FOR THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZE FOR HISTORICAL FICTION 2019

LONGLISTED FOR THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE 2019

SHORTLISTED FOR THE HWA CROWN AWARDS 2019

A Times and Sunday Times Book of the Year, Little tells the extraordinary story of a singular, diminutive crumb of a servant girl turned entertainment mogul.

'A startlingly original novel' Times

Born in Alsace in 1761, the unsightly, diminutive Marie Grosholtz is quickly nicknamed 'Little'. Orphaned at the age of six, she finds employmet in Bern, Switzerland, under the charge ofā€¦


Ad

Book cover of Too Good

Too Good by Carol Moreira,

This is a steamy tale of vulnerability and betrayal. Struggling in her marriage, her new life in England, and her work in a hospice, Canadian-born Lindsey is drawn to her best friend's attractive husband, David.

Guilt about her fascination with David is complicated by her admiration for his wife, Grace,ā€¦

Book cover of Luster

Theodore Carter Why did I love this book?

At the beginning of this book, I recognized the ingredients that make up popular erotic novels. The main character, Edie, a Black woman and struggling artist, is beginning a relationship with an older, wealthy, successful white man in an open marriage. Thereā€™s a power imbalance. To a certain extent, this excites Edie, and in this way, the book fits neatly into the parameters of the genre.

However, the relationship becomes messy, and Edieā€™s life, both with and away from Eric, is fraught with bad decisions. Race, wealth, and gender intersect with sex in a complex and uncomfortable milieu. Through all of this, and with the guidance of Ericā€™s wife, Edie begins to make progressive, less destructive choices, and as she does, her art progresses.

By Raven Leilani,

Why should I read it?

6 authors picked Luster as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year

WINNER of the NBCC John Leonard Prize, the Kirkus Prize, the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, the Dylan Thomas Prize, and the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award

One of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2020
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: NPR, The New York Times Book Review, O Magazine, Vanity Fair, Los Angeles Times, Glamour, Shondaland, Boston Globe, and many more!

"So delicious that it feels illicit . . . Raven Leilaniā€™s first novel reads like summer: sentences like ice that crackle orā€¦


Explore my book šŸ˜€

Stealing the Scream

By Theodore Carter,

Book cover of Stealing the Scream

What is my book about?

In 2004, masked thieves stole Edvard Munch's ā€œThe Screamā€ from an Oslo museum. Norwegian police recovered the painting two years later but never explained how or where they had found it. Stealing The Scream examines/re-imagines the event, offering a tantalizing account of what happened through fictional characters, Percival Davenport, an artist whose obsession with Munch leads him to steal ā€œThe Screamā€ and Leonard, a museum security guard and amateur sleuth, whose interest in Davenportā€™s art leads him and the police to the artistā€™s door, setting up a tense climax and a satisfying if unexpected ending to the story.

Book cover of The Picture of Dorian Gray
Book cover of Bluebeard
Book cover of The Petting Zoo

Share your top 3 reads of 2024!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

2,007

readers submitted
so far, will you?

Ad

šŸ“š You might also likeā€¦

Book cover of Built on Sand

Built on Sand by S R Kay,

Elsie has two feet in the 20th century. Smith has one foot in the 19th. Their marriage, founded on physical attraction, is built on sand as all around them the earth of Europe also starts to quake. Prised apart by emotional conflict and the loss of two children they areā€¦

Book cover of From One Cell: A Journey into Life's Origins and the Future of Medicine

From One Cell by Ben Stanger,

Everybody knows that all animalsā€”bats, bears, sharks, ponies, and peopleā€”start out as a single cell: the fertilized egg. But how does something no bigger than the period at the end of this sentence give rise to the remarkable complexity of each of these creatures?

FROM ONE CELL is a diveā€¦

5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in New York State, life satisfaction, and France?

New York State 580 books
Life Satisfaction 229 books
France 958 books