LAST PAINTING OF SARA DE VOS. by Smith

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Wednesday, July 18, 12:30 pm
The Last Painting of Sara de Vos: A Novel By Dominic Smith Cover Image

The Last Painting of Sara de Vos: A Novel (Paperback)

By Dominic Smith

$18.00


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Politics and Prose at 5015 Connecticut Avenue NW
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April 2016 Indie Next List

“Smith's new novel unfolds slowly, and each moment of illumination offers a glimpse into the true heart of this quiet, captivating tale. Spanning more than three centuries, it is the story of three lives --a female master painter of the Dutch Golden Age, a moneyed New York patent attorney, and an art history student turned one-time art forger -- each changed by one haunting painting. Filled with hurt, grief, and deceit, but also layered with love, grace, and regret, The Last Painting of Sara de Vos is a wonderful read, beautifully written.”
— Heather Duncan (M), Tattered Cover Book Store, Denver, CO

Amsterdam, 1631: Sara de Vos becomes the first woman to be admitted as a master painter to the city’s Guild of St. Luke. Though women do not paint landscapes (they are generally restricted to indoor subjects), a wintry outdoor scene haunts Sara: She cannot shake the image of a young girl from a nearby village, standing alone beside a silver birch at dusk, staring out at a group of skaters on the frozen river below. Defying the expectations of her time, she decides to paint it.

New York City, 1957: The only known surviving work of Sara de Vos, At the Edge of a Wood, hangs in the bedroom of a wealthy Manhattan lawyer, Marty de Groot, a descendant of the original owner. It is a beautiful but comfortless landscape. The lawyer’s marriage is prominent but comfortless, too. When a struggling art history grad student, Ellie Shipley, agrees to forge the painting for a dubious art dealer, she finds herself entangled with its owner in ways no one could predict.

Sydney, 2000: Now a celebrated art historian and curator, Ellie Shipley is mounting an exhibition in her field of specialization: female painters of the Dutch Golden Age. When it becomes apparent that both the original At the Edge of a Wood and her forgery are en route to her museum, the life she has carefully constructed threatens to unravel entirely and irrevocably.

Dominic Smith is the author of six novels, including The Last Painting of Sara de Vos, which was a New York Times bestseller, a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, and a best book of the year at Amazon, Slate, the San Francisco Chronicle, and Kirkus Reviews. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Texas Monthly, the Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, and The Australian, among other publications. He grew up in Sydney, Australia, and now lives in Seattle, Washington.
Categories
Product Details ISBN: 9781250118325
ISBN-10: 1250118328
Publisher: Picador
Publication Date: April 4th, 2017
Pages: 304
Language: English

“An elegant page-turner.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Lustrous . . . skillful plotting and effortless prose . . . meticulously documents not only artists’ products but also their tools and labor.” —Chicago Tribune

“The genius of Smith’s book is not just the caper plot but also the interweaving of three alternating timelines and locations to tell a wider, suspenseful story of one painting’s rippling impact on three people over multiple centuries and locations.” —Ian Shapira, Washington Post

“Gorgeous storytelling: wry, playful, and utterly alive.” —The Boston Globe

“Rapturous . . . incandescent.” —San Francisco Chronicle

“This beautiful meditation on love, loss and art is as luminous as a Vermeer.” —People

“Equal parts suspense tale and exploration of beauty and loss, this vivid novel charts the journey of one 17th-century Dutch painting as it passes through time, nations, and the lives of all who touch it.” —O, The Oprah Magazine

“The Last Painting of Sara de Vos does what the best books can do: sweep the reader into unfamiliar worlds filled with intriguing characters . . . [a] true pleasure to read.” —Bookpage

“Audacious . . . absolutely transporting.” —Maureen Corrigan, NPR

“Art fans and historical fiction fans, this one’s for you . . . Get ready to be blown away.” —Bustle

“. . . a sublime tale of one woman’s lost art, another woman’s tragic mistake, and a privileged man’s link between the two . . . There’s a lovely, genteel beauty here.” —Dallas Morning News

“Lovely, quietly resonant . . . Smith [has a] singular gift for conjuring distant histories.” —Entertainment Weekly

“Laced with subtle tension and emotion . . . Smith’s novel illustrates why art remains a powerful force, both for those who create it and those who view it.” —Paste Magazine

“A beautiful, patient, and timeless book, one that builds upon centuries and shows how the smallest choices—like the chosen mix for yellow paint—can be the definitive markings of an entire life.” —Kirkus (starred review)

“Just as a painter may utilize thousands of fine brushstrokes, Smith slowly creates a masterly, multilayered story that will dazzle readers of fine historical fiction.” —Library Journal (starred review)

“An outstanding achievement, filled with flawed and fascinating characters.” —Booklist (starred review)

“. . . a deeply researched, beautifully written, intellectually absorbing novel that also has the qualities of a page-turner . . . From the opening pages you know you are in the hands of a writer at the top of his game.” —The Australian

“Gliding gracefully from grungy 1950s Brooklyn to the lucent interiors of Golden Age Holland and the sun-splashed streets of contemporary Sydney, the novel links the lives of two troubled, enigmatic, and hugely talented young women, one of them an artist, the other, her forger. A page-turning book with much to say about the pain and exhilaration of art and life.” —Geraldine Brooks, author of The Secret Chord

“The Last Painting of Sara de Vos is a story told in layers of light. From afar, this novel is so beautiful, the prose so clear and vivid, that it seems effortless; on closer examination, one sees the rich thematic palette Dominic Smith has used. This is a novel of love and longing, of authenticity and ethical shadows, and, most compelling, of art as alchemy, the way that it can turn grief to profound beauty.” —Lauren Groff, author of Fates and Furies and The New York Times-bestselling Arcadia

“As this story of art, beauty, deception, and the harshest kinds of loss ranged over continents and centuries, I was completely transfixed by the sense of unfolding revelation. The Last Painting of Sara de Vos is, quite simply, one of the best novels I have ever read, and as close to perfect as any book I’m likely to encounter in my reading life. One of those rare books I’ll return to again and again in the coming years.” —Ben Fountain, author of Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, a National Book Award finalist

“In The Last Painting of Sara de Vos, Dominic Smith moves effortlessly between his seventeenth century artist and those who fall under the spell of her work more than three hundred years later. Smith is a writer of huge gifts and his descriptions of the painting and of those who fall in love with it (and with each other) are rendered with wondrous intelligence and keen wit. The result is a novel of surprising beauty and piercing suspense. I couldn't stop turning the pages even while the last thing I wanted was to reach the end.” —Margot Livesey, author of The Flight of Gemma Hardy



EVICTED, by Desmond

Daytime
Wednesday, June 20, 12:30 pm
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City By Matthew Desmond Cover Image

Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City (Paperback)

By Matthew Desmond

$18.00


In Stock—Click for Locations
Politics and Prose at 5015 Connecticut Avenue NW
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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE • NAMED ONE OF TIME’S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE • One of the most acclaimed books of our time, this modern classic “has set a new standard for reporting on poverty” (Barbara Ehrenreich, The New York Times Book Review).

In Evicted, Princeton sociologist and MacArthur “Genius” Matthew Desmond follows eight families in Milwaukee as they each struggle to keep a roof over their heads. Hailed as “wrenching and revelatory” (The Nation), “vivid and unsettling” (New York Review of Books), Evicted transforms our understanding of poverty and economic exploitation while providing fresh ideas for solving one of twenty-first-century America’s most devastating problems. Its unforgettable scenes of hope and loss remind us of the centrality of home, without which nothing else is possible. 

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY President Barack Obama • The New York Times Book Review • The Boston Globe • The Washington Post • NPR • Entertainment Weekly • The New Yorker • Bloomberg • Esquire • BuzzFeed • Fortune • San Francisco Chronicle • Milwaukee Journal Sentinel • St. Louis Post-Dispatch • Politico • The Week • Chicago Public Library • BookPage • Kirkus Reviews • Library Journal •  Publishers Weekly • Booklist • Shelf Awareness

WINNER OF: The National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction • The PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction • The Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction • The Hillman Prize for Book Journalism • The PEN/New England Award • The Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize

FINALIST FOR THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE AND THE KIRKUS PRIZE

“Evicted stands among the very best of the social justice books.”—Ann Patchett, author of Bel Canto and Commonwealth 

“Gripping and moving—tragic, too.”—Jesmyn Ward, author of Salvage the Bones

“Evicted is that rare work that has something genuinely new to say about poverty.”—San Francisco Chronicle
Matthew Desmond is a professor of sociology at Princeton University. After receiving his Ph.D. in 2010 from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, he joined the Harvard Society of Fellows as a Junior Fellow. He is the author of four books, including Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, which won the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Critics Circle Award, and Carnegie Medal, and PEN / John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction. The principal investigator of The Eviction Lab, Desmond’s research focuses on poverty in America, city life, housing insecurity, public policy, racial inequality, and ethnography. He is the recipient of a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship, the American Bar Association’s Silver Gavel Award, and the William Julius Wilson Early Career Award. A contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine, Desmond was listed in 2016 among the Politico 50 as one of “fifty people across the country who are most influencing the national political debate.”
Categories
Product Details ISBN: 9780553447453
ISBN-10: 0553447459
Publisher: Crown
Publication Date: February 28th, 2017
Pages: 448
Language: English
“Astonishing... Desmond has set a new standard for reporting on poverty.”—Barbara Ehrenreich, New York Times Book Review

“After reading Evicted, you’ll realize you cannot have a serious conversation about poverty without talking about housing. . . . The book is that good, and it’s that unignorable.”—Jennifer Senior, New York Times

“This book gave me a better sense of what it is like to be very poor in this country than anything else I have read. . . . It is beautifully written, thought-provoking, and unforgettable.”—Bill Gates

“Inside my copy of his book, Mr. Desmond scribbled a note: ‘home = life.’ Too many in Washington don’t understand that. We need a government that will partner with communities, from Appalachia to the suburbs to downtown Cleveland, to make hard work pay off for all these overlooked Americans.”—Senator Sherrod Brown, Wall Street Journal

“My God, what [Evicted] lays bare about American poverty. It is devastating and infuriating and a necessary read.”—Roxane Gay, author of Bad Feminist and Difficult Women

“Written with the vividness of a novel, [Evicted] offers a dark mirror of middle-class America’s obsession with real estate, laying bare the workings of the low end of the market, where evictions have become just another part of an often lucrative business model.”—Jennifer Schuessler, New York Times

“In spare and penetrating prose . . . Desmond has made it impossible to consider poverty without grappling with the role of housing. This pick [as best book of 2016] was not close.”—Carlos Lozada, Washington Post

“An essential piece of reportage about poverty and profit in urban America.”—Geoff Dyer, The Guardian

“It doesn't happen every week (or every month, or even year), but every once in a while a book comes along that changes the national conversation. . . . Evicted looks to be one of those books.”—Pamela Paul, editor of the New York Times Book Review

“Should be required reading in an election year, or any other.”—Entertainment Weekly

“Powerful, monstrously effective . . . The power of this book abides in the indelible impression left by its stories.”—Jill Leovy, The American Scholar

“Gripping and important . . . [Desmond's] portraits are vivid and unsettling.”—Jason DeParle, New York Review of Books

“An exquisitely crafted, meticulously researched exploration of life on the margins, providing a voice to people who have been shamefully ignored—or, worse, demonized—by opinion makers over the course of decades.”—The Boston Globe

“[An] impressive work of scholarship . . . As Mr. Desmond points out, eviction has been neglected by urban sociologists, so his account fills a gap. His methodology is scrupulous.”—Wall Street Journal

Coverage from NPR



PURGE, by Oksanen

Daytime
Wednesday, May 16, 12:30 pm
Purge By Sofi Oksanen Cover Image

Purge (Paperback)

By Sofi Oksanen

$18.00


Not On Our Shelves—Ships in 1-5 Days

April 2010 Indie Next List

“Translated from Finnish, this winner of Finland's top literary prizes is the story of Aliide, an Estonian peasant who survived the Soviet occupation, only to face the brutal realities of a post-occupation world when her sister's granddaughter shows up half-conscious in her yard. Powerful writing and exacting sense of place make this book stand out.”
— Claire Benedict, Bear Pond Books of Montpelier, Montpelier, VT

An international sensation, Sofi Oksanen's award-winning novel Purge is a breathtakingly suspenseful tale of two women dogged by their own shameful pasts and the dark, unspoken history that binds them.

When Aliide Truu, an older woman living alone in the Estonian countryside, finds a disheveled girl huddled in her front yard, she suppresses her misgivings and offers her shelter. Zara is a young sex-trafficking victim on the run from her captors, but a photo she carries with her soon makes it clear that her arrival at Aliide's home is no coincidence. Survivors both, Aliide and Zara engage in a complex arithmetic of suspicion and revelation to distill each other's motives; gradually, their stories emerge, the culmination of a tragic family drama of rivalry, lust, and loss that played out during the worst years of Estonia's Soviet occupation.

Sofi Oksanen establishes herself as one the most important voices of her generation with this intricately woven tale, whose stakes are almost unbearably high from the first page to the last. Purge is a fiercely compelling and damning novel about the corrosive effects of shame, and of life in a time and place where to survive is to be implicated.
Categories
Product Details ISBN: 9780802170774
ISBN-10: 0802170773
Publisher: Grove Press, Black Cat
Publication Date: April 6th, 2010
Pages: 320
Language: English

A bravura work, deeply engaged with [Estonia’s] knotted history, sparing but potent in its use of irony, and containing an empathic treatment of all the miserable choices Estonians faced during their periods of oppression. . . . Oksanen has crafted a stirring and humane work of art.”Jacob Silverman, The New Republic

A stunner . . . [Purge is] a compelling look at what we do to survive.”Karen R. Long, The Plain Dealer (Cleveland)

"Purge is that very rare thing, a sheer masterpiece . . . A marvel . . . I hope that everyone in the world who knows how to read, reads Purge."--Nancy Huston, author of Fault Lines

Oksanen’s fluid, unadorned prose gives shape to unspeakable violence and illuminates the process of remembering.”The L Magazine (Top 10 Books of 2010)

A captivating book about two women with dark secrets and an underlying connection. . . . Oksanen skillfully weaves histories together to form a rich, complex nove.”Shelf Awareness (Top 10 Books of 2010)

[A] bold combination of history, politics, and suspense.”Sunday Times (UK)

This is a novel of big issuesthe sex industry, the Soviet annexation of Estonia after World War II, the Chernobyl disaster, the tumultuous years immediately after the breakup of the USSR. It’s a lot to take on, but Oksanen manages to keep her focus tight . . . handling a complicated, tricky story with deftness and skill. Purge is a serious book, but not a dour one. It has a thriller’s air of suspense . . . but there is a tragic core to this story that will reward closer attention.”Bookslut

[A] taut, well-crafted tale of Europe’s still living post-war pain.”Booklist

Sofi Oksanen’s disturbing, riveting novel Purge . . . is a jolt. Set in 1992, only three years removed from the joyful optimism undammed by the demolition of the Berlin Wall, Purge burns through the mists to show how decades of debasement have twisted society in the former USSR into one characterized by crime and cruelty. Oksanen couches this larger theme within a tight, unconventional crime novel, one punctuated by dreadful silences, shameful revelations and repellent intimacies. By examining the toll of history on a close, personal level, Oksanen . . . makes the cost of mere survival sickeningly palpable. . . . Evoking both noir and fairy tales . . . Purge is an engrossing read.”NPR.org

Power and loss are the themes of Sofi Oksanen's gripping novel, Purge. . . . This is not a book to read last thing at night. It reminds us of things that we would rather forget, that happened while the world looked away. It is the story of millions of people forced to make impossible choices, who had their lives and happiness stolen, and then survived only to find new bullies and cheats taking the place of the old ones. . . . Bears comparison with the excellent novels of Marina Lewycka, A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian and the semi-sequel Two Caravans.”The Economist online (Essential Reading”)

A dark, harrowing, and at times difficult read that wrings every ounce of emotion from the reader.”The Bookseller

This wonderfully subtle thriller . . . captures both the tragic consequences of one of Europe’s biggest conflicts and the universal horrors that war inflicts on women. With a tone somewhere between Ian McEwan’s Atonement and the best of the current crop of European crime novelists, this bitter gem promises great things from the talented Oksanen.”Kirkus Reviews

"Purge is a truly stunning novel, both heartbreaking and optimistic. Through the stories of two women, Sofi Oksanen shows us the history of a country that has been repeatedly violated by the Russians, by the West, by history itself, yet managed to stand strong."Lara Vapnyar, author of There Are Jews in my House

A riveting tale . . . Oksanen adeptly handles dual story lines and multiple points of view as she keeps us turning pages to reach the dramatic conclusion. Highly recommended for fans of classic Russian writers like Tolstoy and Pasternak, as well as those who enjoy a contemporary tale of lust and betrayal."Library Journal

Vivid . . . Life in Estonia under Soviet rule is dramatically portrayed in this award-winning Finnish novel. . . . Oksanen paints a vivid picture of the landscape and people of Estonia. She deftly interweaves universal themes of love, isolation, political instability and human trafficking, involving the reader from the beginning to the surprising ending. She does not shrink from depicting rape, torture or murder. But she includes tender moments as well, giving a human face to historical facts. . . . Her frank, short sentences bore to the truth’ in a direct style that her characters are unable to use.”Carol Hussa Harvey, Winnipeg Free Press

Purge is a breathtaking novel dense with emotion that snares the reader from the very first pages. . . . Moving and horrifying, it leaves you shuddering and gasping for breath.”Ilkka (Finland)

Cruel, compelling, and nuanced, Purge vibrates with suspense: unspoken secrets and deeply shameful deeds . . . spread like a web over the book, forcing the reader to go on turning the pages. . . . Vivid, precise, and beautiful.”Hufvudstadsbladet (Finland)

A stinging account of a chapter of Eastern European history that we are on the verge of forgettingor denying . . . Sofi Oksanen is an eminently skilled novelist, intricately unraveling her fascinating story bit by bit. She has a sense for the subtle inner drama of a distorted mind and love’s self-deceptive logic. Finland can be proud of its brilliant new star.”
Jyllands-Posten (6 out of 6 stars) (Denmark)

The multidimensionality of Purge is startling. . . . [The novel] encompasses the grand themes . . . [of] shame, betrayal, guilt, atonement . . . with the complexity and seriousness worthy of them.”Turun Sanomat (Finland)

Now and then I read books that are so good that I can’t quite understand how the author does it. . . . Purge is a fantastic novel, as well as a declaration of love to Estonia.”Dagbladet (Norway)

The first chapter of Purge displays the most condensed, metaphorically effective language I have read in a long time. . . . Oksanen’s beautiful prose breaks the silence of the shame and guilt of oppression, and does so with a determination that provides popular storytelling with a legitimacy and weight that one doesn’t often experience.”Aftonbladet (Sweden)

Oksanen is a tightrope walker. . . . Piercingly and mercilessly she reveals the human cost of brutal political regimes, and even manages to tie the abuses of the past to the heartbreaking story of young Zara and her destiny. . . . An overwhelming reading experience.”Dagsavisen (Norway)

Oksanen is unusually skilled when it comes to building suspense, and this is a brutal novelit is brutally physical, it exposes the brutality in the greater and smaller games we play, and it is brutally suspenseful to read. . . . Extraordinary.”NRK (Norway)

Vibrant . . . Absolutely convincing . . . A compelling document of the eternally humane and the eternally inhumane.”Dag og Tid (Norway)



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