Overbooked Book Lists

Art Booklist

Page Modified: June 19, 2009

Novels and Nonfiction about art, the art world and artists - all genres.

• Waking Raphael
  Author: Forbes, Leslie
  Publisher: Bantam $ 25 ISBN: 0553382810 Date: 2004
  LJ PW
  The restoration of an enigmatic painting unlocks unspeakable secrets and drives a mute woman to commit a shocking act of violence--which sparks an investigation into a nearly forgotten war crime and a series of events that will shatter the silence gripping this community.
  Updated 6.7.04
• Blue Place
  Author: Griffith, Nicola
  Publisher: Avon List Price: $ 24 ISBN: 0380974460 Date: 1998
  PW
  Ex-undercover police lieutenant Aud Tovingen collides with an alluring young woman in Atlanta, and soon finds herself drawn into a deadly international game of art forgery, drugs, sex, and murder.
  
• In a True Light
  Author: Harvey, John
  Publisher: Carroll & Graf $ 26 ISBN: 0786710535 Date: 2002
  PW Booklist
  A master at the top of his form redefines the crime novel with a gripping neo-noir thriller that revisits the bohemian art scene of 1950s New York.
  Suggested Reading: Noir | Thrillers
  Updated 8.13.02
• Brilliant
  Author: Kellogg, Marne Davis
  Publisher: St Martins $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312303475 Date: 2003
  LJ
  Set in the art world of London and Provence, Brilliant is a novel of taut suspense, masterful revenge, and glittering secrets.
  Updated 5.19.03
• Spiral
  Author: Geary, Joseph
  Publisher: Pantheon $ 24.95 ISBN: 0375422234 Date: 2003
  PW Booklist
  Somewhere along the road, writer Nick Greer lost himself in the life and rumored painting of his subject, artist Frank Spira. Moving briskly between London, New York, and Tangier, intricately plotted and deeply atmospheric, Spiral is relentlessly suspenseful from first to last.
  Updated 5.14.03
• Circles & Squares: Tim Simpson
  Author: Malcolm, John
  Publisher: Alsion & Busby $ 24.95 ISBN: 074900584x Date: 2003
  Booklist
  What is the connection between abstract painter Ben Nicolson and an obscure piece of film? - Publisher Marketing.
  Updated 5.14.03
• The Pieces from Berlin
  Author: Pye, Michael
  Publisher: Knopf $ 24 ISBN: 0375414363 Date: 2003
  Kirkus
  From the author of Taking Lives comes a riveting new novel, inspired by an actual historical figure, about a woman who made a fortune trafficking stolen art in wartime Berlin, and the terrible emotional consequences of her crimes.
  Updated 12.02.02
• The Gravity of Shadows
  Author: Ramus, David
  Price: $ 24 ISBN: 006187794 Date: 1998
  BL
  When New York Art Dealer Wil Sumner is brought to reclusive millionaire Andrew Stevenson's ocean-front mansion in Palm Beach to appraise a cache of priceless art treasures, he finds himself drowning in a rising tide of deadly intrigue, political machinations, and murder.
  

Fiction

• The Incantation of Frida K.
  Author: Braverman, Kate
  Publisher: Conari $ 23.95 ISBN: 1583224696 Date: 2002
  Library Journal
  Braverman's imagined life of Frida Kahlo begins and ends within the hallucinatory mind of the painter, at 46, on her deathbed. Reflecting on people, places, and events in her past, Frida talks of men, art, and philosophy.
  Suggested Reading: Biographical Fiction
  Updated 3/19/02
• Lydia Cassatt Reading the Morning Paper
  Author: Chessman, Harriet Scott
  Publisher: Seven Stories $ 24 ISBN: 15832222723 Date: 2001
  Kirkus
  Set in the Parisian art world of the 1880s, this novel imagines a poignant time in the lives of the American impressionist Mary Cassatt and her sister, Lydia. Fatally ill and conscious of impending death, Lydia contemplates her narrowing world.
  Suggested Reading: Paris Stars
  Updated 10/8/01
• In the Company of the Courtesan
  Author: Dunant, Sarah
  Publisher: Random $ 23.95 ISBN: 1400063817 Date: 2006
  PW Booklist Kirkus LJ
  Set in Renaissance Italy, this follow-up to Dunant's The Birth of Venus recounts the fantastic escapades of Bucino Teodoldo, a wily dwarf, and his mistress, celebrated courtesan Fiammetta Bianchini, who escape to Venice where intrigue awaits.
  Street Date: 2.14.06
  Suggested Reading: All Stars | Historical Fiction
  Updated 1.18.06
• The Portrait of Mrs Charbuque
  Author: Ford, Jeffrey
  Publisher: Morrow $ 24.95 ISBN: 0066211263 Date: 2002
  PW
  New York, 1893. Society portraitist Piambo receives a commission he cannot refuse. A mysterious woman offers Piambo a fortune to paint her portrait. As Piambo's masterpiece takes shape, his relationship with the woman grows more tangled and her deranged--almost certainly murderous--husband becomes bent on revenge.
  Updated 4/12/02
• Frida
  Author: Mujica, Barbara
  Publisher: Overlook $ 26.95 ISBN: 158567074x Date: 2001
  LJ
  Based on the life of artist and icon Frida Kahlo, this historical novel is told from the point of view of Frida's sister, Christine. What unfolds is both an intense tale of sibling rivalry, as both sisters vie for muralist Diego Rivera's affection, and a fascinating history of Mexico at the first half of the 20th century.
  Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars | Biographical Fiction
  Updated 11/29/00
• The Museum Guard
  Author: Norman, Howard
  Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux List Price: $ 23 ISBN: 0374216495 Date: 1998
  Kirkus
  When the famous Dutch painting Jewess on a Street in Amsterdam arrives at a museum in Halifax, a disturbed young woman abandons her life in favor of the one she imagines for the painting's subject --even as being a Jew in Amsterdam becomes more perilous as the clouds of World War II gather in Europe.
  Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars
• As Above, So Below: A Novel of Peter Bruegel
  Author: Rucker, Rudy
  Publisher: Forge $ 23.95 ISBN: 0765304031 Date: 2002
  Booklist
  In 16 chapters, each headed by one of the artist's famous works, Rucker brings the painter's progress and his colorful world to vibrant life, doing for Bruegel what the bestselling Girl With a Pearl Earring did for Vermeer.
  Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars | Biographical Fiction
  Updated 12.2.02
• The Underpainter
  Urquhart, Jane
  Publisher: Viking List Price: $ 22.95 ISBN: 0670877263 Date: 1997
  PW Kirkus Booklist
  A masterful novel by the highly praised author of Away, The Underpainter tells the story of a 75-year-old American minimalist painter who creates a new series of paintings as he remembers the details of his life and the lives of those individuals who have affected him.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
• The Passion of Artemesia
  Author: Vreeland, Susan
  Publisher: Viking $ 24.95 ISBN: 0670894494 Date: 2002
  Booklist Library Journal
  From the bestselling author of Girl in Hyacinth Blue comes an exquisite portrait of the life of one of the most remarkable female painters in history.
  Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars | Biographical Fiction | Reading Group Stars
  Updated 12/18/01

Nonfiction

• Virtue and Beauty: Leonardo's Ginevra De Benci and Renaissance Portraits of Women
  Author: Brown, David Alan
  Publisher: Princeton $ 55 ISBN: 0691090572 Date: 2001
  Library Journal
  Published in conjunction with the exhibit at the National Gallery
  Updated 11/20/01
• Art Lover: A Biography of Peggy Guggenheim
  Author: Gill, Anton
  Publisher: HarperCollins $ 29.95 ISBN: 0060196971 Date: 2002
  Kirkus Booklist Library Journal
  Insightful and comprehensive, Anton Gill's work reveals Peggy Guggenheim as never before, including new information about her relationship with her daughter. It is a book that will appeal to serious art lovers, art history buffs, and anyone who wants to read an engrossing tell-all biography of a fascinating woman.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
  Peggy Guggenheim collection
  Updated 3.14.02
• Van Gogh and Gaugin: The Search for Sacredart
  by Silverman, Deborah
  Publisher: Farrar Straus and Giroux $ 60 ISBN: 0374282439 Date: 2000
  LJ BL
  A leading scholar offers fresh insight into one of the key moments of modern art history: the fall of 1888 when Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin lived and worked together in Provence. In a yellow house at Arles they changed the course of modern art.
  
• Leap
  by Williams, Terry Tempest
  Publisher: Pantheon $ 25 ISBN: 0679432922 Date: 2000
  Booklist
  In her first book-length work since Refuge, Williams explores the landscape of Hieronymus Bosch's enigmatic 15th century Flemish masterpiece, The Garden of Delights.