28. Lovers at the Museum - a short story by Isabel Allende

listened on Audible
25 pgs.

2024
Adult Magical Realism
Finished 3/29/24
Goodreads rating: 3.45
My rating: 2.5
Setting: contemporary Bilbao

My comments: Very young man and woman were caught in the morning in one of the displays at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, tangled together...she in a wedding gown, he naked...in one of the displays.  Discovered by a jittery cleaner and interrogated by a no-nonsense cop, the couple insisted the museum had not been locked and that they had more-or-less floated through it during their evening of lovemaking/copulation.  A very strange short story.  Perhaps from some sort of dream Allende had recently?

Goodreads synopsis:  From the New York Times bestselling author of The Wind Knows My Name comes a mesmerizing tale of two passionate souls who share one magical night that defies all rational explanation.

Love, be it wild or tender, often defies logic. In fact, at times, the only rationale behind the instant connection of two souls is plain magic.

Bibiña Aranda, runaway bride, wakes up in the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao still wearing her wedding dress, draped in the loving arms of a naked man whose name she doesn’t know. She and the man with no clothes, Indar Zubieta, attempt to explain to the authorities how they got there. It’s a story of love at first sight and experience beyond compare, one that involves a dreamlike journey through the museum.

But the lovers’ transcendent night bears no resemblance to the crude one Detective Larramendi attempts to reconstruct. And no amount of fantastical descriptions can convince the irritated inspector of the truth.

Allende’s dreamy short story has the power to transport readers in any language, leaving them to ponder the wonders of love long after the story’s over.

Picture Book: Explorers by Mathew Cordell

A Wordless Picture Book
Illustrated by the author

2019 Feiwel and Friends

HC $18.99

40 pgs.

Goodreads rating:  3.75 - 177 ratings

My rating:  4
Endpapers: bright rust

1^st line/s:  None- it's a wordless book

My comments:  Fun story, lots to examine, with a great message and a little bit of "mysticism."  The young boy is given a flying airplane-type toy and he  plays with it throughout the museum, until it's caught by another boy.  At first he's upset, but when he "loses" his parents, upon finding them, both families make friends. 

Goodreads: From Caldecott Medalist Matthew Cordell, Explorers is a new picture book about an extraordinary trip to a museum.
          When a family goes to a local museum, a boy notices a homeless man sitting outside, making brightly colored origami birds. He convinces his dad to buy a bird the man makes just for him.
          Once inside the museum, his little sister takes the bird and launches it into the air. Is it lost? Soon another boy helps him look, and the paper bird brings two families―and two new friends―together.
          With the style he used in Wolf in the Snow, Matthew Cordell shows how an ordinary family outing can be both extraordinary and magical.

PICTURE BOOK - Library Mouse: A Museum Adventure by Daniel Kirk

Library Mouse #4
Illustrated by the author

2012, Abrams Books for Young Readers

32 pgs.

Goodreads rating:  3.57 - 190 ratings

My rating:  3

Endpapers:  red

1^st line/s:  "Late one night, Sam the Library Mouse was hard at work.  His friend Sarah dropped in and asked, "What are you doing, Sam?  Writing a new book?"

My comments:  I love Sam the library mouse, and the first book in this series is still one of my all-time favorites. In this, the fourth book about Sam - book writer and art lover extraordinaire, - he and his friend, Sarah venture next door to the museum.  Here they find that all their preconceived notions about cats being scary are wrong.  The museum cat has created a gallery of paintings depicting animals...like mice!  Sam insists that Sarah bring a journal, even though she doesn't want to, and discovers that it was an excellent idea.  Somehow, the whole journal thing felt a little flat, as did the meeting up of other animals in the museum.  It didn't touch me like the previous titles have. Still enjoyable, though!

Goodreads:  Sam the library mouse and his friend Sarah are off on a new adventure. This time they leave the library behind and go to a museum so Sam can make sketches in his explorer’s journal. Sarah isn’t so sure that explorers have the time or the interest to write in journals. But Sam shows her that a journal can contain anything, from a ticket stub to drawings of cool things like dinosaurs and ancient Egyptian mummies. As they explore the museum, they see all kinds of art and unexpectedly make friends with another artist. The latest book in this bestselling series is sure to entice readers to come along on the museum adventure.

51. The Art Forger - B. A. Shapiro

2012, Algonquin Books

355 pgs.

Adult mystery

Finished 8/13/2014

Goodreads rating:  3.67

My rating:    4 - Loved it

Acquired TPPL, Recommended by Fran

Contemporary BOSTON!

1st sentence/s: "I step back and scrutinize the paintings.  There are eleven, although I have hundreds, maybe thousands.  My plan is to show him only pieces from my window series.  Or not.  I pull my cell from my pocket, check the time.  I can still change my mind."

My comments:  I haven't read late into the night to see what was going to happen in a book in ages. This was an interesting book on many levels.  It was a clever mystery (at the end, the reader had some facts about some of the "whys" that even the protagonist did not have).  It was about art ... and artists ... and the art world ... which all seem totally fascinating to me.  It was based on a real-life art heist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum that i have followed for the last 20+ years.  The protagonist has many flaws, which makes her seem real.  She is sneaky and also brutally honest.  She is driven.  I also got to learn a lot about Edgar Degas in a really interesting way.  I only think of his ballet paintings when I hear his name, so now I want to look at much more.

Goodreads book summary:  On March 18, 1990, thirteen works of art today worth over $500 million were stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. It remains the largest unsolved art heist in history, and Claire Roth, a struggling young artist, is about to discover that there’s more to this crime than meets the eye.

Making a living reproducing famous artworks for a popular online retailer and desperate to improve her situation, Claire is lured into a Faustian bargain with Aiden Markel, a powerful gallery owner. She agrees to forge a painting—a Degas masterpiece stolen from the Gardner Museum—in exchange for a one-woman show in his renowned gallery. But when that very same long-missing Degas painting is delivered to Claire’s studio, she begins to suspect that it may itself be a forgery.

Her desperate search for the truth leads Claire into a labyrinth of deceit where secrets hidden since the late nineteenth century may be the only evidence that can now save her life.

Sunday Wanderings

Well, I've been a hermit, an old stick-in-the-mud, for far too long.  Last weekend was really beautiful, so I decided to embark on a long-awaited Sunday drive.  I might as well take advantage while the weather is beautiful and I'm still living in the Old Pueblo....

I headed down Houghton Road to Sahuarita Road, west to Green Valley, then hit 19 towards Tubac.  I pulled off at the Amado cut-off, but deicided that I'd wait to drive the 40-or-so miles to Arivaca until a Saturday, when there's something to see (like the farmer's market) since you have to turn around and retrace the road back...it's the only way out of there.  So I got back onto 19 and headed to one of my favorite places in the world, Tubac, Arizona.

I wandered around the cemetery for the umpteenth time, sat on a bench, took some pictures.  Wandered around the shops, taking the time to go into Tumacookery and La Paloma.  Then I headed north, again, on 19, going through the Border Patrol stop just north of Tubac, and turned off into San Xavier, another favorite place.  I sat in a pew for awhile, taking it all in.  Of course it was a Sunday, shortly after a mass, so the place was packed.  Ah, well, not as bad as it was last March...

When I got back onto 19 I decided to continue west on 10 and turned off onto Congress in downtown Tucson.  I swung over to the Tucson Museum of Art.  They were setting up outside for an evening wedding.  What a cool venue!  I wandered around the gift shop, where Arizona craftspeople are fetured, and then had a good yack with the women tending to the entrance.  Wonderful lady let me in for free, since I am a teacher that loves her kids (that's what she said!) Made me feel like a million bucks.

The place wasn't crowded, but the main attraction, wildlife paintings by*** , although wonderful, didn't strike my fancy.  A very small exhibit entitled was quite cool *** as was another, slightly larger exhibit, that was all about hands.

Before I left I ventured up to the second floor to see the museum's own collection of Latin American artifacts.  This was particularly interesting to me because I'm in the middle of teaching about the history and background of Mexcio, primarily the Olmec and Maya so far.  And there were some great artifacts!  Imagine my delight when I discovered that some of the pieces in this exhibit are on loan to the museum by the grandparents of one of my students!

I ended my day by strolling around the Downtown Artisans galleries, which used to be wonderful but is almost gone and not very exciting.  The huge fake marigold encrusted Dia de los Muertos altar in one of the shops always interests me, though.

A nice day, and nice ride.  I hope to keep it up!

Who Stole Mona Lisa? - Ruthie Knapp

Illustrated by Jill McElmurry
Bloomsbury, 2010
HC $17.99
32 pgs.
Rating:  4, cool book
Endpapers:  Blue, red, green folksy "yoyos" (not sure of their significance...)

This story is told by the famous painting, the Mona Lisa, by Leonardo daVinci.  She begins in the Louvre, where she's hung for many years...but then she goes back to her beginnings.  She tells of daVinci painting her and tells about about Lisa Gheradini, who was the model for the painting.  She tells of the different palaces where she hung and how Napoleon, the last French ruler to "own" her gave her to the Louvre Museum in Paris.

Then the story changes.  She tells of the man who stole her from the wall, and what happened to her in the two years (1911 on) that she was lost to the world. 

So interesting!  I'd  love to do a one or two day lesson about daVinci, his inventions, the Mona Lisa, and various other cool things that are attributed to his genius.

There's an Author's Note that gives more information.  The illustrations are wonderful, folky, with a number of great borders.

Rocks in His Head - Carol Otis Hurst

Illustrated by James Stevenson
Greenwillow/Harcourt
2001
Rating: 4
Endpapers: Creamy pink

"Some people collect stamps. Some people collect coins or dolls or bottle caps. When he was a boy, my father collected rocks. When he wasn't doing chores at home or learning at school, he'd walk along stone walls and around old quarries, looking for rocks. People said he had rocks n his pockets and rocks in his head. He didn't mind. It was usually true."

This wonderfully told memoir includes a little history about the Depression, a little information about collecting, and the story of a man whose passion turns into a living - the true story of how a man with no college education - but a huge love of learning - can become a curator at a museum. Super.