Last Christmas my big sis’ bought me a lovely hardback called What Writers Read: 35 Writers on their Favourite Book. Virginia Woolf’s Orlando was chosen Turkish-British novelist Elif Shafak (the most widely read female author in Turkey, I’m told). I’d read Woolf before. With an English degree it’d be remarkable if I hadn’t, given her … More Orlando by Virginia Woolf
Mona Lisa Sunflowers The Scream Even if you know nothing much about art (like me) and you hear the name Leonardo de Vinci, Van Gogh, and Munch, then I bet you’ll immediately think of the paintings just listed. If you think a bit longer and harder, of course, you might come up with some others, … More A Life of Picasso Volume 1: 1881 – 1906 by John Richardson
You might remember Matisse (and others) hitting the headlines in November with the discovery of a hoard of Nazi-confiscated artworks. At the time I was already reading this biography, which won the Whitbread Book of the Year award in 2005. It was a difficult book to settle into and not because eight years and several … More Matisse the Master – A Life of Henri Matisse: Volume 2, 1909-1954 by Hilary Spurling
whatcathyread 