I’m not entirely sure how to describe myself other than as a committed writer and a devoted reader. Mine has been a fairly unconventional career. It has moved me from one spot on the globe to another and has placed me on both ends of the publishing equation—first, as a book publisher, and, next, as the author of a variety of books. I’m certain of a single shared fact: that no matter whether fiction or non-fiction, regardless of the subject, a story always rests on the success of engaging the reader.
I wrote
What the Ermine Saw: The Extraordinary Journey of Leonardo Da Vinci's Most Mysterious Portrait
Carved from wood or ivory, Japanese Netsukes were created by both great craftsmen and gifted amateurs. A Netsuke served a single purpose: as the toggle on a cord for a cloth container holding medicine or tobacco. I’m drawn to this book because its author, Edmund de Waal, enlists his ancestor’s collection of Netsuke to combine several genres brilliantly well. It is, at once, a family memoir, travel literature, and essays of migration and exile. I agree with his belief that "objects have always been... stolen, retrieved and lost. It is how you tell their stories that matters."
264 wood and ivory carvings, none of them bigger than a matchbox: Edmund de Waal was entranced when he first encountered the collection in his great uncle Iggie's Tokyo apartment. When he later inherited the 'netsuke', they unlocked a story far larger and more dramatic than he could ever have imagined.
From a burgeoning empire in Odessa to fin de siecle Paris, from occupied Vienna to Tokyo, Edmund de Waal traces the netsuke's journey through generations of his remarkable family against the backdrop of a tumultuous century.
The subject of this book is featured in a large portrait by John Singer Sargent, painted in 1881 and entitled “Dr. Pozzi at home.” It would be an understatement to say that the good doctor cut a fascinating figure. Julian Barnes does a wonderful job regaling us with Pozzi’s escapades and explaining how, by the time Pozzi died of a gunshot wound inflicted by a crazed patient, his fame had become international. Barnes is a wonderful raconteur, and he invites us into Pozzi’s colourful life with infectious charm, while offering his own erudite first-person ruminations.
'A bravura performance, highly entertaining' Evening Standard
The Booker Prize-winning author of The Sense of an Ending takes us on a rich, witty tour of Belle Epoque Paris, via the life story of the pioneering surgeon Samuel Pozzi.
In the summer of 1885, three Frenchmen arrived in London for a few days' shopping. One was a Prince, one was a Count, and the third was a commoner, who four years earlier had been the subject of one of John Singer Sargent's greatest portraits. The commoner was Samuel Pozzi, society doctor, pioneer gynaecologist and…
How to begin? In 1520, Albrecht Dürer, the most celebrated artist in Northern Europe, sailed to Zeeland to see a beached whale with the intention of drawing its likeness. But this fact is only the starting-off point for a memorably vivid journey that straddles countless subjects. Each chapter is anchored in a particular image by Dürer. There is a seamlessness to Hoare’s prose in this book and I marveled at his gifts of insight and observation.
A NEW STATESMAN BOOK OF THE YEAR
AN OBSERVER BEST ART BOOK OF 2021
SHORTLISTED FOR THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE 2022
'This is a wonderful book. A lyrical journey into the natural and unnatural world' Patti Smith
'Everything Philip Hoare writes is bewitching' Olivia Laing
An illuminating exploration of the intersection between life, art and the sea from the award-winning author of Leviathan.
Albrecht Durer changed the way we saw nature through art. From his prints in 1498 of the plague ridden Apocalypse - the first works mass produced by any artist - to his hyper-real images of animals and…
Among the thousands of confiscated pictures in Nazi-occupied Vienna were those painted by Gustav Klimt. He had often been commissioned to paint the women in wealthy Jewish families, most of whom perished in the Holocaust. Here, the author traces the history of the dazzling gold-leaf portrait of the Jewish society beauty, Adele Bloch-Bauer. Included are the multi-generational journeys of members of some of the great Viennese families. The author makes a point of recounting the tragedies that befell these families, but she also illustrates how—against the odds— they pulled what was left of their families back together. For that I am appreciative.
The true story that inspired the movie Woman in Gold starring Helen Mirren and Ryan Reynolds. The Award-Winning Nazi Art Theft Saga Winner of the Marfield National Award for Arts Writing Winner of a California Book Award Library Journal Top 10 Book of 2012 Christian Science Monitor Top 15 Nonfiction of 2012 Best Huffington Post Art Book 2012 Top 12 Nonfiction 2012 of Examiner.com
The spellbinding story, part fairy tale, part suspense, of Gustav Klimt's Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, one of the most emblematic portraits of its time; of the beautiful, seductive Viennese Jewish salon hostess who sat for it;…
This novel is a bit of a dark horse. I was initially doubtful about its premise, but, like any good book, it lured me into its story. I won’t go into too much detail, other than to say that the story is actually two stories that merge. One is of George, a contemporary 16-year-old girl who— struggling to come to terms with the sudden death of her mother— attends counselling sessions at her school during which she recalls more and more of the trip she and her mother took to Italy. It was there that she became intrigued by an elusive Italian Renaissance painter of the 1400s, Francesco del Cossa, who, in fact, is indeed known for the frescoes he painted in the mid-1400s. Running concurrent to this fictional story is that of Francesco’s from his own perspective.
Two versions of the book were published simultaneously, one in which George’s narrative is introduced first; the other in which Francesco’s is. After giving way to the novel’s unconventional approach, How to Be Both impressed upon me art’s transformative power and left me weeping at the last page.
WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2015 WINNER OF THE GOLDSMITHS PRIZE 2014 WINNER OF THE 2014 COSTA NOVEL AWARD
'I take my hat off to Ali Smith. Her writing lifts the soul' Evening Standard
How to be both is a novel all about art's versatility. Borrowing from painting's fresco technique to make an original literary double-take, it's a fast-moving genre-bending conversation between forms, times, truths and fictions. There's a renaissance artist of the 1460s. There's the child of a child of the 1960s.
Two tales of love and injustice twist into a singular yarn where time gets timeless,…
Some 530 years ago, a young woman sat for her portrait. The unique being who painted it was Leonardo da Vinci; he accomplished something that manages even today to do what very little else can—it astonishes anyone who looks at it. The masterpiece is known simply as Lady with an Ermine and, among those who owned it, stole it, or saved it from destruction were the ruthless Italian duke who commissioned it, an unconventional noblewoman who founded the first public museum in Poland, and Hitler, determined to add it to his private collection. History told in the form of stories is less likely forgotten, which is why, rather than convey the portrait’s history from a purely historical perspective, I decided to do so by way of those who crossed its path during its mysterious five-century journey.
Not So Little Things by Kyle Ann Robertson unravels the meticulously crafted life of Tina, an artist engrossed in the intricate world of historically accurate miniatures. As she dutifully honors her deceased father's desire for her to follow in his artistic and historical footsteps, Tina's controlled existence is shaken by the emergence of long-buried secrets when she takes a commission to build a replica of Jake Martin’s family mansion.
Robertson navigates the delicate balance between Tina's devotion to her father's wishes and the disruptions caused by revelations from the past. The novel beautifully explores the complexity of familial expectations and…
Tina Edwards loved her childhood and creating fairy houses, a passion shared with her father, a world-renowned architect. But at nine years old, she found him dead at his desk and is haunted by this memory. Tina's mother abruptly moved away leaving Tina with feelings of abandonment and suspicion. Raised by her loving, wheelchair-bound Aunt Liddy, her father's sister, 33 year old Tina has become a miniature room artist and cherishes the control she has over her life in Northeast Georgia as she works hard to please her beloved dead father's wishes of following in his footsteps in art and…
