SEEING THE WORLD THROUGH BOOKS

Jane Austen–EMMA Jane Austen–LADY SUSAN Jane Austen–MANSFIELD PARK Jane Austen–PERSUASION Dorothy Baker–YOUNG MAN WITH A HORN Earl Derr Biggers–THE HOUSE WITHOUT A KEY Romano Bilenchi–THE CHILL Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz–THE PASSENGER Paul Bowles–THE SHELTERING SKY Paul Bowles–THE SPIDER’S HOUSE Anton Chekhov–A NIGHT IN THE CEMETERY and Other Stories Jacques Chessex–THE TYRANT Wilkie Collins–THE MOONSTONE Wilkie Collins–THE […]

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THE PAINTED DRUM by Louise Erdrich PAINTER OF SILENCE by Georgina Harding THE PALESTINIAN LOVER by Selim Nassib A PANTHER IN THE BASEMENT by Amos Oz PAPA SARTRE by Ali Bader THE PAPERS OF TONY VEITCH by William McIlvanney PARADISE by Abdulrazak Gurnah PARIS by Marcos Giralt Torrente PARIS NOCTURNE by Patrick Modiano PASSAGE OF […]

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Gary Inbinder–THE MAN UPON THE STAIR: A Mystery in Fin-de-Siecle Paris Arnaldur Indridason–THE DRAINING LAKE Arnaldur Indridason–HYPOTHERMIA Arnaldur Indridason–INTO OBLIVION Arnaldur Indridason–JAR CITY Arnaldur Indridason–OPERATION NAPOLEON Arnaldur Indridason–OUTRAGE Arnaldur Indridason–REYKJAVIK NIGHTS Arnaldur Indridason–VOICES Izzo, Jean-Claude–TOTAL CHAOS (Book I of the Marseilles Trilogy) Roy Jacobsen–CHILD WONDER Howard Jacobson–THE FINKLER QUESTION Hanry James–THE BEAST IN THE JUNGLE […]

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“In the early morning hours of March 18, 1990, two thieves gained entry to the Gardner Museum and stole 13 works of art by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Manet, Degas, and other artists. The works including Rembrandt’s Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee, his only known seascape, and Vermeer’s The Concert, are worth more than $500 million. The Gardner heist remains [to this day] the biggest unsolved art theft in history.” Though more than thirty years have passed since this crime, no one has forgotten it. As recently as the winter of 2022, new clues were being assessed, and hopes of finding the missing artworks have not waned. Written by the staff of the Gardner Museum, and others highly familiar with the robbery, the emphasis is on the artworks themselves, with photographs of the missing artworks as the focus. The museum is offering a reward of $10 million for information leading to the discovery of the stolen works.

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Using known facts and details provided by Mary Wollstonecraft’s husband, William Godwin, following Wollstonecraft’s death in 1797, at age thirty-eight, author Samantha Silva creates an intense and vibrant fictional biography of a woman many generations ahead of her time. The feminist ideals she exemplifies in her life, which shocked the women of her own time, include her years-long relationship with a woman friend and her desire to set up a “female utopia” with her; her establishment with others of a school for young women under the banner of being “dissenters” from the Church of England; her flagrant affairs with two well-known writer-philosophers; her stay in France and support of the French Revolution; and her much-loved child from her out-of-wedlock relationship with Gilbert Imlay. The publication of her ‘A Vindication of the Rights of Woman’ (1792), considered “one of the trailblazing works of feminism,” added to her reputation as one of the early founders of feminist philosophy. In author Samantha Silva’s hands, however, Mary’s story becomes completely human, with two narratives conveying her life stories from two different times and perspectives. Here Mary Wollstonecraft’s feminist beliefs play out within the context of her life two hundred years ago, as these ideas come vibrantly to life among writers, publishers, and political leaders during that time.

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