The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (on Nook)

My past experience with, and my understanding of, Oscar Wilde leads me to think of his writing style as florid, satiric if not ironic, and above all archly humorous. This story is definitely the first two adjectives, but I'll be damned if I could find much humor at all. Still, I'm glad I read it--even if it took me nearly two months of reading five or ten pages a week and then putting it down for several more weeks. Aside from that purple prose he was so fond of, the story is amazingly well-told, although in the middle of it I just wished he'd get on with it already.

Guide to the Vatican : Museums and City

Honestly? I need to sit with a big book of pictures of the Vatican Museums, or go back and walk around with my nose buried in this book to actually get anything out of it. LOTS of info, much of which doesn't translate without the item in front of your eyeballs.

Now I have an excuse to go back, right?

No Rest for the Dead (ed. by Andrew F. Gulli and Lamia J. Gulli)

This is one of those serial novels that I'm such a sucker for: each chapter written by a different author, including some Big Names along with some folks I've never heard of. The story centers on the execution of a woman convicted of murdering her husband ten years ago by stuffing him into an Iron Maiden. And again we have the necessary suspension of belief, because there is no way a wealthy woman with no skeletons would lose every appeal on a case like this and be executed inside 2 years of her crime being committed.

BUT ANYWAY. Her husband was a skunk, a womanizer, a thief, a con-man...definitely deserved to die. But from the beginning you're sure she didn't, couldn't, do this. So, what really happened? Ah, that's what these 26 authors duke out in the pages. Pretty fun.

Santa Croce, by Emma Micheletti

Yep, another guidebook from our trip. I didn't read every word of this one, but it's got great photos, and lots of detail about the art world in Florence over the centuries. It's just hard keeping everyone straight. ;-)

Accademia Gallery, by Frances Falletti, Marcella Anglani and Gabriele Rossi Rognoni

A brief but clear overview of some of the highlights of the collections in the Accademia. Also includes a good history of the gallery itself and the collections it has housed over the years.

Michelangelo : David, by Laura Ciucetti

A short (30 page) book about the history of the David statue, in brief, with lots of photos.

Body Work, by Sara Paretsky

How to Read a Painting : Lessons from the Old Masters, by Patrick de Rynck

Checked this out at the local high school, and it's definitely age-appropriate. Pretty basic stuff, but fairly interesting. Would have been helpful to have slightly larger photos of some of the paintings, and by the way "judgement" isn't really the proper spelling of that word.

Making Mischief : A Maurice Sendak Appreciation, by Gregory Maguire

A lovely book of reproductions of Sendak's artwork arranged by topic and by which artists and artworks influenced him. Nice.

Breath and Bones, by Susann Cokal

Would make a good discussion novel.

The Hidden Life of Art, by Clare Gibson

Fun book. Lots of info here to help decipher the symbolism. It's like a secret code that most of us don't know anymore. The nice thing is that Gibson even covers a little bit of more modern art, rather than focusing strictly on old stuff.

Worth perusing before my next visit to an art museum.

Scandals, Vandals, and Da Vincis : A Gallery of Remarkable Art Tales, by Harvey Rachlin

Fun. Would have been MUCH better with color photos of the artwork in question!

Loot, by Aaron Elkins

Another new character, Benjamin Revere, is introduced in this book. I like this art guy better than Elkins' other art guy; he's just more real for some reason.

The hook here is that a friend of Ben's, a local pawnshop owner, asks him to come look at a painting someone just brought in to be pawned; he thinks it might be a 'real' painting. Next thing Ben knows, his friend is beaten up, dies as a result, and the painting has disappeared. In researching it, he finds that it disappeared during World War II, probably one of the many artworks the Nazis appropriated from their rightful owners.

Ben follows the trail to Austria, then to St. Petersburg, and eastern Europe...and also discovers himself falling for the niece of his friend who shows up to help him figure out why her uncle was killed.

Fun story, lots of history, and good characters