Continuing my previous list of art, music, theater books for the summer (Part One is here):
**The Bellini Madonna by Elizabeth Lowry (Farrar, Straus & Girouz). A first novel designed to be a page-turner, it chronicles the attempts of a “debauched [American] art historian” trying to track down a long-lost Madonna by Bellini. When the action moves to an English stately home, he is entangled in lives of its occupants, the work’s last known owners.
**Tenor by John Potter (Yale University Press). Everyone loves the Tenor, especially after the “Three Tenors” sang together. Potter traces the history of tenors from its pre-history in medieval times, telling tales about the world’s great performers, and more.
**Paris From the Ground Up by James H.S. McGregor (Belknap Press, Harvard). An ode to the City of Light, this book traces the history of Paris through its art and architecture from its Roman era through contemporary times.
**The Last Supper by Rachel Cusk (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). An award-winning novelist flees Britain with her family to spend three months in Italy for the food, weather, scenery and especially the art.
**The Gardner Heist by Ulrich Boser (Collins). You know the outlines of the story; Ulrich fills in the details, recounting 18 years of searching for the precious paintings that were stolen in 1990.
**Obelisk: A History by Brian A. Curran, Anthony Grafton, Pamela O. Long and Benjamin
Weiss (MIT Press). This one’s a little obscure, but it answers a question: why were these weird objects so sought after, dragged across countries and oceans as trophies? The authors explain the “many meanings of obelisks across nearly forty centuries” — as well as the
misunderstandings about them.
Happy reading.