Spring/Summer Book Haul
Buying books is an emotionally charged experience for me and I’ve had a rather fruitful spring/summer season in terms of book procurement.
Mid-April from The OxFam Bookshop in Greenwich
Piranesi by Ian Jonathan Scott
Published 1975 in New York by St. Martin’s Press
A detailed biographical text accompanied by hundreds of reproductions of the 18th century Roman archaeologist, architect and artists’ key works. Giovanni Battista Piranesi is known as “Rembrandt of the Ruins”.
Fra Angelico by John Pope-Hennessy
Copyright 1981, printed 1989 in Italy by Sogema Marzari S.p.A.
The life and early works of Early Renaissance friar and Painter Giovanni da Fiesole, who just so happens to be the master behind two of my favorite versions of The Annunciation. It’s not lost on me, and I hope it was not on him, that the author’s surname hints at a certain religious inclination.
Writings on Art | Mark Rothko compiled posthumously by scholar Miguel López-Remiro
Various copyright dates across the works, printed in the US by Thomson Shore
A selection of artist Mark Rothko’s “Writings on Art”. He is said to have displayed “deep knowledge of art and philosophy” compared to his contemporaries and that these texts serve to “sharpen our biographical and artistic perception of Rothko”.
I’ve only read two essays but so far I have really enjoyed it. The Rothko Chapel in Houston is one of the most tranquil places in a buzzing city and buzzing existence.
Aesthetics & Painting by Jason Gaiger
Copyright 2008, published by Continuum International Publishing Group
Discussing major ideas on art and philosophy, this book dives into the aesthetics of painting, diving into the “complex relationship between what a painting depicts and the means by which it is depicted.” For a book whose title contains an ampersand, this looks to be a fairly dense read, though one for which I am excited.
The paperbacks on Amazon are selling for £70 and the Kindle version for £80, so I feel pretty happy with my £20 sticker price.
Victorian Olympus by William Gaunt
Copyright 1952, published in 1974 by Sphere Books in London
Books that hardly even exist on Amazon are such a treat and a key thrill of buying pre-loved books. London is a great city for these treasure hunts! This is the third in a trilogy, of which I am missing the first two, about the artistic movement of the Victorian era.
Victorian Olympus focuses on the prominent artists of the day who interpreted the classical style from the sculptures which were “transported” (read: stripped) from Greece and sold to the British government in 1816. One of the artists featured is Lord Leighton, whose house is now a museum, The Leighton House, which I visited in December of last year and rather enjoyed.
If you haven’t yet realized, this little used bookstore in Greenwich has an extraordinary arts section!
Good Will Hunting by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck
Copyright 1998, published in England by Clays Ltd
If there is one movie I think that you should see in your life it is Good Will Hunting. It is the perfect movie and I now own the screenplay. Every word in the film is curated perfectly and now I can consume it all on my own time with my own mental fabrications of Boston accents.
I should also note it a bit strange the level of interest I have in both Fra Angelico and Good Will Hunting and having never to my recollection ever run across a book about either, I find these two only feet apart separated by a shelf and few titles.
Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man by Fannie Flagg
Copyright 1981, published in England by Vintage
Earlier this year I read Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, a title likely known from the 1991 film featuring Kathy Bates. It’s a cutting but heartwarming story of families in the American south in the 1920s. The story features strong female characters and Daisy Fay seems to line up perfectly with the overall theme.
Mid-May (13th) from Hatchard’s
We’d gone to Spain for the week, returned home on a Friday evening and by midday Saturday had gone to invest in some written word - with the purchase of 5 books I also had to pick up a Hatchard’s tote :D
Letters to Gwen John by Celia Paul
Published in 2022, Vauxhall Bridge Road, London
Celia Paul is a British painter (who I was not familiar with) who has written a memoir in the form of letters to another female artist, Gwen John of Wales. John who died twenty years before Paul was born. Their lives share “extraordinary parallels” and the memoir is said to be “an unforgettable insight into a life devoted to making art”.
I’ve now gone down a rabbit hole on whether that punctuation mark in the last sentence belongs inside or outside of the final quotation mark. I found this article which calls out the US/UK preferences so maybe I’m British now.
Truly, I think the aesthetics of the punctuation inside of a quote at the end of a sentence or poor and though my life is not quote DEVOTED to making art, I will make my aesthetic choices as I go with little regard for the rules. <3
Caesar’s Vast Ghost: Aspects of Provence by Lawrence Durrell
Published in 1990, Bloomsbury House, London
The older I get the more delightful it is to run across things who have been on earth exactly as long as I have. I know nothing else of this book except for what’s written on the back cover which was enough for me.
”A seductive blend of travelogue, poet’s notebook and intimate autobiography, Durrell guides us through the rich layers of human history that lie beneath the region’s legendary landscapes.”
A description to aspire to when I finally decide to write!
Before the Coffee gets Cold: Tales from the Cafe by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
2017, MacMillan, Ireland
Funiculi Funicula cafe in Tokyo offers the regular coffee shop experience with one added experience, the chance to travel in time. We will meet several characters with the desire to look back.
The Fran Lebowitz Reader
2021, Vintage Books, New York
I sometimes discern small happenings as acts of fate.
I picked this book up after incorrectly reading the spine and thinking it was an Annie Leibowitz (the photographer) book. I’d heard of Fran Lebowitz but didn’t really have any impression of who she was.
The introductory page highlighted a few things - her ties with Warhol and Scorsese and that though these essays were over 40 years old, “the essays still glitter, every bone-dry sentence pared down and packed with her unmistakable personality”.
Quotes from the back cover called it acerbic and hilarious, containing caustic wit to the vicissitudes of life.
I have a strange mental picture of glitter and bones and acid, though that isn’t what they intended to evoke. Either way, I am looking forward to this one.
The Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Arnim
1922, Macmillan
What a treat to find something published by a woman 101 years ago with a topic that felt modern and bright. An advertisement is posted in the paper “To those who appreciate Wistaria and Sunshine” which ultimately brings a group of four women together for the month of April.
I’ve actually already finished this book and though it had many themes, one of them was definitively that time in Italy can hea; your soul — something that I also believe.
Late May (20th) from The Royal Academy Store
My intention this day was truly to cut through the Royal Academy as an air-conditioned passage on my way to visit an art gallery a street north, but on my way I accidentally saw I sign that store inventory was on sale. Nothing I bought that day - of course - was actually on sale.
The River Cafe Look Book by Rogers, Wyn Owen, Trivelli and Donaldson
2022, New York by Phaidon Press
The left and right page pairings comprising the first half of this book are full page photos - combinations of a beautifully, yet subtly plated dishes on one side and an aesthetically complementary image, whose subject is not all related to the dish, on the other:
A pink phone and a raspberry sorbet
Salmon served with cherry tomatoes and a bright orange hull of a boat in dry dock
I had already decided to buy this book before I realized it was a recipe book - those were just a “cherry on top”. You’re welcome for the food pun.
Even later May from Librairie Galignani in Paris
I don’t think there was a week in May where I worked 5 days straight. For the final bank holiday of the month, we took a short trip to Paris where I perhaps “over-galleried” myself - if that is such a thing.
Day 1 of 2 of my Louvre visits I happened upon a bookstore as I was wandering around before my entrance time and wandered into a bookstore at the north edge of the Tuileries almost exactly at the halfway point of the gardens.
I had only a small backpack whose space was already mostly occupied and had hours of carrying it around, so I must practice restraint I told myself going in.
Luckily for me the majority of the books were in French, otherwise I would have been in trouble. Unsurprisingly they had a rich selection of books on art, art history, and the like.
I found one in the used book section for 10 euro which I hadn’t seen before. Considering its novelty to me and the thematic relevance, I made this single purchase.
Mona Lisa: People and The Painting by Martin Kemp and Giuseppe Pallanti
2017 by Oxford University Press
Kemp and Pallanti trace the lives of Lisa Gherardini and her husband and their connection with the life of Leonardo da Vinci and examine the creation of the cultural icon of a painting.
Two days later from Shakespeare’s Book Company in Paris
TL;DR a short history and the time I for some reason bought a book because I thought I had something to prove.
The Original Shakespeare and Company Book Store was opened in 1919 by influential American Sylvia Beach and was known to be a gathering place of Hemingway, F Scott Fitzgerald, and Gertrude Stein. The store closed in 1941 under the German occupation. There is a book called The Paris Bookseller which details the story. I’ve never read it but heard it was good.
The current store, which is in a new location on the left bank of the Seine, was opened in 1951 and adopted the name of Beach’s store in 1964.
Back to the present day - they have a pretty iconic tote bag that I really wanted so I arrived at the store to find a queue of around 50 people but the wait was not more than 15 minutes.
Upon arrival at the door I saw a sign indicating they were out of Tote Bags. I figured the sign was accurace but decided to ask the person at the registration if they had any to which she confirmed they did not.
As I walked away I heard her comment to her co-worker that people came only for the totes and though that was the sole reason I arrived I took strange offense to this as if she thought I wanted the tote bag but was not a “reader”.
Completely unfounded and not even the person whom I met at the point of purchase at the exit, I felt that I had to buy something.
Heroes by Stephen Fry
2018, Penguin
I am actually really excited for this book. Fry’s Troy is one of my favourite books that I read last year but actually never finished. I read the first half and then went back to read it again and take detailed notes on the genealogy of the families (including the mythological ones) of those involved in the Trojan War.
Despite my slow progress on the other, I am really excited to read about “mortals and monsters, quests and adventures” in Heroes.
Whew! 15 books? This is the highest acquisition rate I’ve had in quite some time!
