The Gallery of Miracles and Madness: Insanity, Art and Hitler’s first Mass-Murder Programme

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Author :
Publisher : HarperCollins UK
ISBN 13 : 0008299641
Total Pages : 396 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (82 download)

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Book Synopsis The Gallery of Miracles and Madness: Insanity, Art and Hitler’s first Mass-Murder Programme by : Charlie English

Download or read book The Gallery of Miracles and Madness: Insanity, Art and Hitler’s first Mass-Murder Programme written by Charlie English and published by HarperCollins UK. This book was released on 2021-08-05 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ‘A riveting tale, brilliantly told' Philippe Sands The little-known story of Hitler’s war on modern art and the mentally ill.

Saving Italy: The Race to Rescue a Nation's Treasures from the Nazis

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Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 0393240452
Total Pages : 464 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (932 download)

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Book Synopsis Saving Italy: The Race to Rescue a Nation's Treasures from the Nazis by : Robert M. Edsel

Download or read book Saving Italy: The Race to Rescue a Nation's Treasures from the Nazis written by Robert M. Edsel and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2013-05-06 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Monuments Men "An astonishing account of a little-known American effort to save Italy's…art during World War II."—Tom Brokaw When Hitler’s armies occupied Italy in 1943, they also seized control of mankind’s greatest cultural treasures. As they had done throughout Europe, the Nazis could now plunder the masterpieces of the Renaissance, the treasures of the Vatican, and the antiquities of the Roman Empire. On the eve of the Allied invasion, General Dwight Eisenhower empowered a new kind of soldier to protect these historic riches. In May 1944 two unlikely American heroes—artist Deane Keller and scholar Fred Hartt—embarked from Naples on the treasure hunt of a lifetime, tracking billions of dollars of missing art, including works by Michelangelo, Donatello, Titian, Caravaggio, and Botticelli. With the German army retreating up the Italian peninsula, orders came from the highest levels of the Nazi government to transport truckloads of art north across the border into the Reich. Standing in the way was General Karl Wolff, a top-level Nazi officer. As German forces blew up the magnificent bridges of Florence, General Wolff commandeered the great collections of the Uffizi Gallery and Pitti Palace, later risking his life to negotiate a secret Nazi surrender with American spymaster Allen Dulles. Brilliantly researched and vividly written, the New York Times bestselling Saving Italy brings readers from Milan and the near destruction of The Last Supper to the inner sanctum of the Vatican and behind closed doors with the preeminent Allied and Axis leaders: Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and Churchill; Hitler, Göring, and Himmler. An unforgettable story of epic thievery and political intrigue, Saving Italy is a testament to heroism on behalf of art, culture, and history.

The Gallery of Miracles and Madness

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Author :
Publisher : Random House
ISBN 13 : 0525512063
Total Pages : 353 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (255 download)

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Book Synopsis The Gallery of Miracles and Madness by : Charlie English

Download or read book The Gallery of Miracles and Madness written by Charlie English and published by Random House. This book was released on 2021-08-10 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The untold story of Hitler’s war on “degenerate” artists and the mentally ill that served as a model for the “Final Solution.” “A penetrating chronicle . . . deftly links art history, psychiatry, and Hitler’s ideology to devastating effect.”—The Wall Street Journal As a veteran of the First World War, and an expert in art history and medicine, Hans Prinzhorn was uniquely placed to explore the connection between art and madness. The work he collected—ranging from expressive paintings to life-size rag dolls and fragile sculptures made from chewed bread—contained a raw, emotional power, and the book he published about the material inspired a new generation of modern artists, Max Ernst, André Breton, and Salvador Dalí among them. By the mid-1930s, however, Prinzhorn’s collection had begun to attract the attention of a far more sinister group. Modernism was in full swing when Adolf Hitler arrived in Vienna in 1907, hoping to forge a career as a painter. Rejected from art school, this troubled young man became convinced that modern art was degrading the Aryan soul, and once he had risen to power he ordered that modern works be seized and publicly shamed in “degenerate art” exhibitions, which became wildly popular. But this culture war was a mere curtain-raiser for Hitler’s next campaign, against allegedly “degenerate” humans, and Prinzhorn’s artist-patients were caught up in both. By 1941, the Nazis had murdered 70,000 psychiatric patients in killing centers that would serve as prototypes for the death camps of the Final Solution. Dozens of Prinzhorn artists were among the victims. The Gallery of Miracles and Madness is a spellbinding, emotionally resonant tale of this complex and troubling history that uncovers Hitler’s wars on modern art and the mentally ill and how they paved the way for the Holocaust. Charlie English tells an eerie story of genius, madness, and dehumanization that offers readers a fresh perspective on the brutal ideology of the Nazi regime.

The Snow Tourist

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Author :
Publisher : Catapult
ISBN 13 : 1582435200
Total Pages : 289 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (824 download)

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Book Synopsis The Snow Tourist by : Charlie English

Download or read book The Snow Tourist written by Charlie English and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2009-11-10 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Combining on–the–slopes experience with off–trail research, author Charlie English follows in the footsteps of the Romantic poets across the Alps, learns how to build igloos with the Inuit on Baffin Island, examines snow–patches in the Cairngorms to detect signs of global warming, and tests his mettle on some of the most perilous peaks on Earth. Along the way, he meets up with a flurry of fellow enthusiasts, from avalanche survivors and resort operators to climate scientists and champion skiers. English is obsessed with snow, and has collected for our enjoyment an amazing array of not–so–random facts about the hexagonal substance that fills the human imagination with wonder. In this "snow handbook," he describes how snow is created, how to build an igloo, how avalanches occur, and (more importantly) how to survive an avalanche. His glossary is filled with snow terms that will delight, such as "coulior," "hoarfrost," "firn," and "sastrugi." Fresh and fun and infused with the adrenaline of adventure, The Snow Tourist is a fascinating account of one man's pilgrimage through the world's blanketed fields, ice–capped rooftops, cozy igloos, and snow–covered mountain peaks.

The Book Smugglers of Timbuktu

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Author :
Publisher : William Collins
ISBN 13 : 9780008126650
Total Pages : 416 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (266 download)

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Book Synopsis The Book Smugglers of Timbuktu by : Charlie English

Download or read book The Book Smugglers of Timbuktu written by Charlie English and published by William Collins. This book was released on 2018-05-17 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two tales of a city: The historical race to reach one of the world's most mythologized places, and the story of how a contemporary band of archivists and librarians, fighting to save its ancient manuscripts from destruction at the hands of al Qaeda, added another layer to the legend. To Westerners, the name "Timbuktu" long conjured a tantalising paradise, an African El Dorado where even the slaves wore gold. Beginning in the late eighteenth century, a series of explorers gripped by the fever for "discovery" tried repeatedly to reach the fabled city. But one expedition after another went disastrously awry, succumbing to attack, the climate, and disease. Timbuktu was rich in another way too. A medieval centre of learning, it was home to tens of thousands of ancient manuscripts, on subjects ranging from religion to poetry, law to history, pharmacology, and astronomy. When al-Qaeda-linked jihadists surged across Mali in 2012, threatening the existence of these precious documents, a remarkable thing happened: a team of librarians and archivists joined forces to spirit the manuscripts into hiding. Relying on extensive research and firsthand reporting, Charlie English expertly twines these two suspenseful strands into a fascinating account of one of the planet's extraordinary places, and the myths from which it has become inseparable

In the Full Light of the Sun

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Publisher : Houghton Mifflin
ISBN 13 : 054414757X
Total Pages : 437 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (441 download)

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Book Synopsis In the Full Light of the Sun by : Clare Clark

Download or read book In the Full Light of the Sun written by Clare Clark and published by Houghton Mifflin. This book was released on 2019 with total page 437 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Berlin in the 1920s is a city of seedy night clubs and sumptuous art galleries, where nothing is quite what it seems. It is home to Emmeline, a young art student; Julius, an art expert who loves paintings more than people; and Frank, a Jewish lawyer looking for a way to protect both his family and his principles as the Nazis begin their rise to power. Rachmann, a mercurial art dealer-- and newly discovered paintings by Vincent van Gogh-- will provide a scandal that turns all their lives upside down. -- adapted from jacket

Hitler's Court

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Publisher : Pen and Sword Military
ISBN 13 : 1526790718
Total Pages : 495 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (267 download)

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Book Synopsis Hitler's Court by : Heike B. Görtemaker

Download or read book Hitler's Court written by Heike B. Görtemaker and published by Pen and Sword Military. This book was released on 2022-01-12 with total page 495 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This revelatory history examines the loyal inner circle that followed—and enabled—Hitler’s rise to power and continued on after WWII. Hitler was not a lonely, aloof dictator. Throughout his rise in the NSDAP, he gathered a loyal circle around him, and was surrounded by people who celebrated, flattered and intrigued him. Who belonged to this inner circle around Hitler? What function did this court fulfill? And how did it influence the perception of history after 1945? Using previously unknown sources, Heike Görtemaker explores Hitler’s private environment and shows how this inner circle made him who he was. Hitler’s inner circle, the Berghof Society, was his private retreat. But the court was more than that. It provided him with the support he needed to take on the role of “Führer” at all, while at the same time allowing him to use its members as political front men. Most of all, it represented a conspiratorial community whose lowest common denominator was anti-Semitism. In this book, Heike Görtemaker asks new questions about the truth behind Hitler’s inner circle and, for the first time, also examines the “circle without leaders”; the networking of the inner circle after 1945.

The Unknown Night

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Publisher : Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
ISBN 13 : 1555847706
Total Pages : 471 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (558 download)

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Book Synopsis The Unknown Night by : Glyn Vincent

Download or read book The Unknown Night written by Glyn Vincent and published by Open Road + Grove/Atlantic. This book was released on 2007-12-01 with total page 471 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The best book yet written about this neglected and fascinating American painter” who anticipated abstract expressionism by more than fifty years (Gail Levin, The New York Times Book Review). At the dawn of the 20th century, Ralph Blakelock’s brooding, hallucinogenic paintings were a striking departure from the prevailing American tradition—and as sought after as the works of Winslow Homer and John Singer Sargent. In 1916, the record-breaking sale of Blakelock’s Brook by Moonlight made him famous. Yet at the time of his triumph, the troubled painter had spent fifteen years in a psychiatric hospital while his family lived in poverty. Released from the asylum, Blakelock fell into the dubious care of an eccentric adventuress, Beatrice Van Rensselaer Adams, who kept him a virtual prisoner while siphoning off the profits of his success, until his mysterious death. In this acclaimed biography, Glyn Vincent offers the first complete chronicle of Blakelock’s life. Vividly portraying New York in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the narrative begins with his childhood in Greenwich Village and the years he spent peddling his canvases door-to-door and playing piano in vaudeville theaters. Vincent also delves into Blakelock’s journeys among the Sioux and Uinta Native Americans; his mental illness; and the way his exploration of mysticism informed his radical shift away from the Hudson River School of art.

Stuff Matters

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Publisher : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN 13 : 0544236041
Total Pages : 277 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (442 download)

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Book Synopsis Stuff Matters by : Mark Miodownik

Download or read book Stuff Matters written by Mark Miodownik and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2014 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A world-leading materials scientist presents an engrossing collection of stories that explain the science and history of materials, from the plastic in our appliances to the elastic in our underpants, revealing the miracles of engineering that seep into our everyday lives. 25,000 first printing.

Jena 1800

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Publisher : Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN 13 : 0374720541
Total Pages : 139 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (747 download)

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Book Synopsis Jena 1800 by : Peter Neumann

Download or read book Jena 1800 written by Peter Neumann and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2022-02-15 with total page 139 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An exhilarating account of a remarkable historical moment, in which characters known to many of us as immutable icons are rendered as vital, passionate, fallible beings . . . Lively, precise, and accessible.” —Claire Messud, Harper’s Around the turn of the nineteenth century, a steady stream of young German poets and thinkers coursed to the town of Jena to make history. The French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars had dealt a one-two punch to the dynastic system. Confidence in traditional social, political, and religious norms had been replaced by a profound uncertainty that was as terrifying for some as it was exhilarating for others. Nowhere was the excitement more palpable than among the extraordinary group of poets, philosophers, translators, and socialites who gathered in this Thuringian village of just four thousand residents. Jena became the place for the young and intellectually curious, the site of a new departure, of philosophical disruption. Influenced by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, then an elder statesman and artistic eminence, the leading figures among the disruptors—the translator August Wilhelm Schlegel; the philosophers Friedrich "Fritz" Schlegel and Friedrich Schelling; the dazzling, controversial intellectual Caroline Schlegel, married to August; Dorothea Schlegel, a poet and translator, married to Fritz; and the poets Ludwig Tieck and Novalis—resolved to rethink the world, to establish a republic of free spirits. They didn’t just question inherited societal traditions; with their provocative views of the individual and of nature, they revolutionized our understanding of freedom and reality. With wit and elegance, Peter Neumann brings this remarkable circle of friends and rivals to life in Jena 1800, a work of intellectual history that is colorful and passionate, informative and intimate—as fresh and full of surprises as its subjects.

Mein Kampf

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Author :
Publisher : ببلومانيا للنشر والتوزيع
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 522 pages
Book Rating : 4./5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis Mein Kampf by : Adolf Hitler

Download or read book Mein Kampf written by Adolf Hitler and published by ببلومانيا للنشر والتوزيع. This book was released on 2024-02-26 with total page 522 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Madman, tyrant, animal—history has given Adolf Hitler many names. In Mein Kampf (My Struggle), often called the Nazi bible, Hitler describes his life, frustrations, ideals, and dreams. Born to an impoverished couple in a small town in Austria, the young Adolf grew up with the fervent desire to become a painter. The death of his parents and outright rejection from art schools in Vienna forced him into underpaid work as a laborer. During the First World War, Hitler served in the infantry and was decorated for bravery. After the war, he became actively involved with socialist political groups and quickly rose to power, establishing himself as Chairman of the National Socialist German Worker's party. In 1924, Hitler led a coalition of nationalist groups in a bid to overthrow the Bavarian government in Munich. The infamous Munich "Beer-hall putsch" was unsuccessful, and Hitler was arrested. During the nine months he was in prison, an embittered and frustrated Hitler dictated a personal manifesto to his loyal follower Rudolph Hess. He vented his sentiments against communism and the Jewish people in this document, which was to become Mein Kampf, the controversial book that is seen as the blue-print for Hitler's political and military campaign. In Mein Kampf, Hitler describes his strategy for rebuilding Germany and conquering Europe. It is a glimpse into the mind of a man who destabilized world peace and pursued the genocide now known as the Holocaust.

The Storied City

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Author :
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1594634297
Total Pages : 434 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (946 download)

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Book Synopsis The Storied City by : Charlie English

Download or read book The Storied City written by Charlie English and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-05-01 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Timbuktu is a real place, and Charlie English will fuel your wanderlust with true descriptions of the fabled city’s past, present, and future.” –Fodor’s Two tales of a city: The historical race to “discover” one of the world’s most mythologized places, and the story of how a contemporary band of archivists and librarians, fighting to save its ancient manuscripts from destruction at the hands of al Qaeda, added another layer to the legend. To Westerners, the name “Timbuktu” long conjured a tantalizing paradise, an African El Dorado where even the slaves wore gold. Beginning in the late eighteenth century, a series of explorers gripped by the fever for “discovery” tried repeatedly to reach the fabled city. But one expedition after another went disastrously awry, succumbing to attack, the climate, and disease. Timbuktu was rich in another way too. A medieval center of learning, it was home to tens of thousands—according to some, hundreds of thousands—of ancient manuscripts, on subjects ranging from religion to poetry, law to history, pharmacology, and astronomy. When al-Qaeda–linked jihadists surged across Mali in 2012, threatening the existence of these precious documents, a remarkable thing happened: a team of librarians and archivists joined forces to spirit the manuscripts into hiding. Relying on extensive research and firsthand reporting, Charlie English expertly twines these two suspenseful strands into a fraught and fascinating account of one of the planet's extraordinary places, and the myths from which it has become inseparable.

Reefer Madness

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Author :
Publisher : HMH
ISBN 13 : 054752675X
Total Pages : 355 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (475 download)

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Book Synopsis Reefer Madness by : Eric Schlosser

Download or read book Reefer Madness written by Eric Schlosser and published by HMH. This book was released on 2004-04-01 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times Bestseller: The shadowy world of “off the books” businesses—from marijuana to migrant workers—brought to life by the author of Fast Food Nation. America’s black market is much larger than we realize, and it affects us all deeply, whether or not we smoke pot, rent a risqué video, or pay our kids’ nannies in cash. In Reefer Madness, the award-winning investigative journalist Eric Schlosser turns his exacting eye to the underbelly of American capitalism and its far-reaching influence on our society. Exposing three American mainstays—pot, porn, and illegal immigrants—Schlosser shows how the black market has burgeoned over the past several decades. He also draws compelling parallels between underground and overground: how tycoons and gangsters rise and fall, how new technology shapes a market, how government intervention can reinvigorate black markets as well as mainstream ones, and how big business learns—and profits—from the underground. “Captivating . . . Compelling tales of crime and punishment as well as an illuminating glimpse at the inner workings of the underground economy. The book revolves around two figures: Mark Young of Indiana, who was sentenced to life in prison without parole for his relatively minor role in a marijuana deal; and Reuben Sturman, an enigmatic Ohio man who built and controlled a formidable pornography distribution empire before finally being convicted of tax evasion. . . . Schlosser unravels an American society that has ‘become alienated and at odds with itself.’ Like Fast Food Nation, this is an eye-opening book, offering the same high level of reporting and research.” —Publishers Weekly

In Montparnasse

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Author :
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1101981199
Total Pages : 338 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (19 download)

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Book Synopsis In Montparnasse by : Sue Roe

Download or read book In Montparnasse written by Sue Roe and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-08-18 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Describes with plenty of colour how surrealism, from Rene Magritte's bowler hats to Salvador Dali's watches, was born and developed." - The Times (UK) As she did for the Modernists In Montmartre, noted art historian and biographer Sue Roe now tells the story of the Surrealists in Montparnasse. In Montparnasse begins on the eve of the First World War and ends with the 1936 unveiling of Dalí’s Lobster Telephone. As those extraordinary years unfolded, the Surrealists found ever more innovative ways of exploring the interior life, and asking new questions about how to define art. In Montparnasse recounts how this artistic revolution came to be amidst the salons and cafés of that vibrant neighborhood. Sue Roe is both an incisive art critic of these pieces and a beguiling biographer with a fingertip feel for this compelling world. Beginning with Duchamp, Roe then takes us through the rise of the Dada movement, the birth of Surrealist photography with Man Ray, the creation of key works by Ernst, Cocteau, and others, through the arrival of Dalí. On canvas and in their readymades and other works these artists juxtaposed objects never before seen together to make the viewer marvel at the ordinary—and at the workings of the subconscious. We see both how this art came to be and how the artists of Montparnasse lived. Roe puts us with Gertrude Stein in her box seat at the opening of The Rite of Spring; with Duchamp as he installs his famous urinal; at a Cocteau theatrical with Picasso and Coco Chanel; with Breton at a session with Freud; and with Man Ray as he romances Kiki de Montparnasse. Stein said it best when she noted that the Surrealists still saw in the common ways of the 19th century, but they complicated things with the bold new vision of the 20th. Their words mark an enormously important watershed in the history of art—and they forever changed the way we all see the world.

Pictures and Tears

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 113595013X
Total Pages : 218 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (359 download)

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Book Synopsis Pictures and Tears by : James Elkins

Download or read book Pictures and Tears written by James Elkins and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2005-08-02 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This deeply personal account of emotion and vulnerability draws upon anecdotes related to individual works of art to present a chronicle of how people have shown emotion before works of art in the past.

Madapple

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Author :
Publisher : Knopf Books for Young Readers
ISBN 13 : 0375849580
Total Pages : 418 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (758 download)

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Book Synopsis Madapple by : Christina Meldrum

Download or read book Madapple written by Christina Meldrum and published by Knopf Books for Young Readers. This book was released on 2008-05-13 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE SECRETS OF the past meet the shocks of the present. Aslaug is an unusual young woman. Her mother has brought her up in near isolation, teaching her about plants and nature and language—but not about life. Especially not how she came to have her own life, and who her father might be. When Aslaug’s mother dies unexpectedly, everything changes. For Aslaug is a suspect in her mother’s death. And the more her story unravels, the more questions unfold. About the nature of Aslaug’s birth. About what she should do next. About whether divine miracles have truly happened. And whether, when all other explanations are impossible, they might still happen this very day. Addictive, thought-provoking, and shocking, Madapple is a page-turning exploration of human nature and divine intervention—and of the darkest corners of the human soul.

33 Artists in 3 Acts

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Author :
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 0393245810
Total Pages : 448 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (932 download)

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Book Synopsis 33 Artists in 3 Acts by : Sarah Thornton

Download or read book 33 Artists in 3 Acts written by Sarah Thornton and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2014-11-03 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This compelling narrative goes behind the scenes with the world’s most important living artists to humanize and demystify contemporary art. The best-selling author of Seven Days in the Art World now tells the story of the artists themselves—how they move through the world, command credibility, and create iconic works. 33 Artists in 3 Acts offers unprecedented access to a dazzling range of artists, from international superstars to unheralded art teachers. Sarah Thornton's beautifully paced, fly-on-the-wall narratives include visits with Ai Weiwei before and after his imprisonment and Jeff Koons as he woos new customers in London, Frankfurt, and Abu Dhabi. Thornton meets Yayoi Kusama in her studio around the corner from the Tokyo asylum that she calls home. She snoops in Cindy Sherman’s closet, hears about Andrea Fraser’s psychotherapist, and spends quality time with Laurie Simmons, Carroll Dunham, and their daughters Lena and Grace. Through these intimate scenes, 33 Artists in 3 Acts explores what it means to be a real artist in the real world. Divided into three cinematic "acts"—politics, kinship, and craft—it investigates artists' psyches, personas, politics, and social networks. Witnessing their crises and triumphs, Thornton turns a wry, analytical eye on their different answers to the question "What is an artist?" 33 Artists in 3 Acts reveals the habits and attributes of successful artists, offering insight into the way these driven and inventive people play their game. In a time when more and more artists oversee the production of their work, rather than make it themselves, Thornton shows how an artist’s radical vision and personal confidence can create audiences for their work, and examines the elevated role that artists occupy as essential figures in our culture.