full of light and air.
2) NO-ONE CAN SEE YOUR LIKES - Twitter has reworked its algorithms so your followers can’t see your LIKES. If you want your followers to know
what you like, RT it.
3) CAKES INSPIRED BY ART - Thiebaud, Mondrian, Klimt.
4) BOOKS INSPIRED BY ART - V.S. Naipaul, Donna Tartt, Tracey Chevalier
5) ART INSPIRED BY BOOKS - Picasso, Millais, Dali.
6) LIVING WITH GREAT ART – Picasso, Bacon, Uccello.
7) THREE FRENCH NUDES – Duchamp, Léger, Picasso.
8) IT’S NOT ONLY HARVEY - It’s about considering women like resources.
9) TEN THINGS MEN CAN’T SAY ANYMORE - Why didn’t she say something sooner?
10) IT’S NOT ONLY JOHN LASSETER - While the art of animation is cutting edge, the culture is primitive and misogynistic.
11) ART INSPIRED BY FOOD - Da Vinci, de Heem, Arcimboldo
1) ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE, Anthony Doerr ↑↑↑
During WWII, Werner in Germany and Marie-Laure, a blind girl in France, are caught up in an intrigue about a fabulous gem. Doerr gets the smells and streets of Paris and St. Malo so right, but it’s surprising that he gets the food, so important in French culture, so wrong.
2) THE HONORABLE SCHOOLBOY, John Le Carré ↑↑↑
This is the third time I’ve read this book and it is my all-time favorite Le Carré. He gets out of grey London and shows us exotic and still British Hong Kong (in the rain, in a typhoon, in the fog, in the moonlight). We also visit Laos and Viet Nam at the end of the US war. Lots of action, some of it shocking. Marvelous protagonists seething with anger, stoicism and lust. This really needs to be a movie: Stephen and Timothy Cornwell at the Ink Factory, what are you waiting for? 3) ABOUT GRACE, Anthony Doerr ↑↑↑
The protagonist has a super-power but Doer keeps it so tightly wrapped in reality that it seems almost plausible. A heart-rending character who endures much suffering and world travel in a good cause.
4) TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY, John Le Carré ↑↑↑
A masterpiece of richly observed spies in dreary London venues, a convoluted chase after a mole with barely perceptible hints and clues. If you don’t pay attention, you’ll miss them but you won’t care because the writing is so superb.
5) FOUR SEASONS IN ROME, Anthony Doerr ↑↑↑
If you’ve never been to Rome, read this book first. It’s one of the best introduction you can have to the Eternal City. Doerr quotes Pliny the Elder while baby-sitting his twin sons and is amazed that Roman doctors charge him nothing for his wife’s overnight stay in the hospital.
6) DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP? Philip K. Dick. ↑
I always wondered if the book was the source of the magic of BLADE RUNNER, supposedly based on this book but, after reading it it seems Ridley Scott is the film’s magician.
7) THE SHELL COLLECTOR: STORIES, Anthony Doerr ↑↑↑
Shells and marine snails feature in the title story and reappear in ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE. Scintillating writing on diverse subjects.
8) MEMORY WALL: STORIES, Anthony Doerr ↑↑↑
The title story has an element of fantasy/science-fiction but is all about humanity and struggle. More spacious, dazzling writing.
9) THE NIGHTINGALE: A NOVEL, Kristin Hannah - ↓↓↑
Wanting to see what sort of fiction was on the NYT best-seller list, I read this novel that takes place during WWII: two sisters who are supposed to be, but could never in a million years be, French, move woodenly through an unrecognisable France. They predictably encounter hunger, danger, nice & nasty Nazis and naturally, join the Resistance. This book made me scream and swear.
10) DARKNESS AT NOON, Arthur Koestler – I understand this is a masterpiece, but the translation is so awful it’s painful to read.
I may not finish it.
*
BOOKS, DOERR, WEINSTEIN, LE CARRÉ, LASSETER, FOOD, ART, HARASSMENT
