nomadreader

narrated by Xe Sands and Simon Vance The backstory: The New York Times  named Euphoria a 2014  Notable Book, as well as one of the ten best books of the year . Euphoria  also won the 2014 Kirkus Prize . The basics: Set in 1933 New Guinea,  Euphoria  is the story of thee young anthropologists, Nell, Fen and Bankson. Nell and Fen, a married couple working together, seek the help of Bankson, an expert in the area, to identify a tribe worth studying. My thoughts:  Longtime readers of this blog know I'm a huge fan of fiction about real people, so when I heard  Euphoria  was inspired by the life of Margaret Mead, more specifically a 1933 New Guinea expedition Mead took with her second husband. On this expedition, they collaborated with the man who would become Mead's third husband. It's a trip that's ripe for fictional speculation, and King takes this tantalizing set up and explores its possibilities beautifully. I realized as I listene...

narrated by Xe Sands The backstory: The Art Forger  is one of my book club's picks for January (we meet every other month and read two books.) The basics: Claire Roth is an accomplished painter who creates and sells reproductions (legal) of famous paintings. Twenty-five years ago, there was an art heist at Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (the heist happened in real life). Now an art dealer brings one of the stolen paintings to Claire to ask her to forge (illegal) it. My thoughts:    The Art Forger  had been on my TBR since it came out, so when my book club picked it, I was excited to finally read it. I opted to listen to it on audio, and the experience was a great one. I know a fair amount about art history, so I particularly loved this exploration into the art world, both historically through the heist paintings and Claire's reproduction work, and into the contemporary art world, where she struggled to find fame. Shapiro goes in depth into the detai...