With unusual insight and great enthusiasm, Ross King has several times written books about monumental works of art, placing them in historical context, characterizing the artist, and emphasizing what makes these artistic achievements unique. Each of these books about an artwork – the dome of a cathedral, the Sistine Chapel ceiling, and the Last Supper mural – has received international recognition for its literary style, the accuracy of the research, and the excitement King generates as he details the trials and troubles the artist faced while creating his work for a sometimes less-than-adoring public. Brunelleschi’s Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture was Non-Fiction Book of the Year for Book Sense in 2000. Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling was nominated for both the 2003 National Book Critics Circle Award and the Governor General’s Literary Award (Canada), and this year Leonardo and the Last Supper was winner of the Governor General’s Award for Non-Fiction – all well deserved prizes. King’s fast-paced narrative style, his vibrant descriptions (aided by well chosen illustrations), and intuitive understanding of what makes art come alive for readers make him unique among contemporary authors, a man whose writing about an artwork pays true homage to the art itself. This is an exciting and utterly absorbing study of an artist, his work, his frustrations, and his glory.
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A choirboy whose voice was akin to the divine has grown up, as this novel opens, and his life has changed even faster than his voice. Now forty-eight, former choirboy Gudlauger Egilsson has been working for a Reykjavik hotel as a doorman, general handyman, and during this holiday season, as the hotel’s Santa Claus. For many years he has lived in a small room in the basement of the hotel, leading a solitary life with no connection to his family. When Inspector Erlendur of the Reykjavik police is called to his room by the hotel, however, he finds Santa in decidedly compromising circumstances, his costume in disarray, and a knife protruding from his chest. With the dark humor that he has made his trademark, Icelandic author Arnaldur Indridason describes the murder scene and the reaction of his assistants to it, and even prissy readers will be amused by some of their reactions and comments about this dark and ironic scene. And when Erlendur, who has no plans for Christmas, helps himself to the exotic holiday buffet upstairs, enraging the chef, this wild and darkly funny noir novel takes off, filled with terrible crimes committed by seemingly innocent people.
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Posted in 9-2012 Reviews, Algeria, Humor, Satire, Absurdity, Italy, Literary, Mystery, Thriller, Noir, Social and Political Issues on Dec 13th, 2012
Algerian author Amara Lakhous, now an Italian resident, pens a sly satire of an immigrant’s life in Italy, using the murder of a young man in the elevator of an apartment building adjacent to Piazza Vittorio as the catalyst through which he explores the hidden and not-so-hidden prejudices of Roman residents toward “outsiders.” The victim, Lorenzo Manfredini, also known as the Gladiator, drew nasty pictures, wrote obscenities, and urinated in the building’s elevator, earning the enmity of every resident. When the police investigate, each of the residents and merchants in the immediate vicinity tells his story, revealing hidden agendas and casual resentments against immigrants. Amedeo, a respected resident thought to be an Italian volunteer helping immigrants deal with Roman bureaucracy, is sought for the crime. No one has seen him since the murder. Lakhous cleverly creates twelve unique voices, with each person telling “the truth according to…” These separate voices alternate with “wails” from Amadeo, as he gives his own “take” in response to each statement. Amedeo is not, in fact, an Italian, though he speaks Italian like a native, and his running commentary on life in the apartment building and in Rome, as an immigrant sees it, points up the contrasts between what people say when they think he is Italian and what they say and do about their immigrant neighbors behind their backs.
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Originally from Belfast, forty-year-old Killian has tried to remake his life, having emigrated to New York City after spending his first twenty-three years in The Life in Belfast. A tinker, or Pavee, sometimes even referred to as a gypsy, Killian was in involved crimes of many varieties, including drugs, extortion, and even murder there, but he managed to get out of that life, learn to read, go to college, study history and the arts, and live a more “normal” life. Or more normal for him. He still adheres to his aboriginal values: “We [Pavee] live two lives. A life here on Earth in what we call the real world and a life in The Dreaming which is really the real world, where everything has a purpose, where we are more than thinking reeds, are part of some great scheme of things.” Author Adrian McKinty, who grew up in Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland, before emigrating to New York City, endows both New York and Ireland with life as he creates a sometimes likeable, though often violent main character, who is unable to abide by the rules set by governments for society and instead abides by his own inner code and a more vengeful sense of honor and justice. As Killian tries to locate a missing ex-wife and her two children, the author keeps the action moving quickly, providing new insights into post-ceasefire life in Northern Ireland.
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When three middle-aged losers independently and simultaneously show up to look at an old farmhouse for sale in the countryside of Campania, outside of Naples, each sees it for its potential as a Bed and Breakfast retreat. For each of these men, creating such a retreat would represent a whole new way of life, one far more satisfying than anything he has known to date. None of them can afford this dream, however. Though they do not know each other, they are (barely) smart enough to realize that the only way any of them can afford to participate in the B & B project, is to pool their resources and buy it together. Within a month, this disparate group has signed the papers together and received the keys to a farm that someone else once tried to restore but has abandoned. The novel is clever and well developed, great fun for those who are looking for a different kind of novel, a wonderful break from the bleak and often depressing noir novels which have also been coming from Italy recently. If this were summer, I might say that this is the perfect “beach read,” full of fun, very funny, and very exciting, but as it is not, I will say only that readers here and now will be wise to pay particular attention to the titles of the last three chapters, each of which is from the point of view of a different main character. The cumulative effect of these chapters provides the real conclusion which will delight readers, even in the short, dark days of winter.
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