Art Historians Books

The third book in the Vicky Bliss series, this book unites Vicky and John with her old flame, Tony, and her boss, Schmidt, in the search for the lost gold of Troy.

This novel is excellent- it brings back the character of Tony from the first Vicky novel, and adds to the mix other historians. The suspense is great, and the relationship between Vicky and John reaches a new level.

This is an awesome book!

This is the book that I pick up whenever I need comfort. It's such a treat - funny with fabulous characters that you'll wish were part of your life. I've read this book many times and for ages, every time I started it again, I'd forget who the villain was. The mystery is fascinating with history and art mixed in and enough action and intrigue to keep you going. As good as the mystery is, it's the wonderful characters and their friendships and humorous carryings on that makes the story sing. And there's a fabulous romance to boot. Get ready to fall in love with the mysterious John Smithe!

If you like to read fiction set in the places you vacation, this would be a great book to take with you on a trip to southern Germany at Christmas time.

Art historian Vicky Bliss has been sent an interesting photo, a photo that at first appears to be the famous shot of Frau Schliemann wearing the gold jewelry from Troy. A second look shows Vicky that this is not yet another copy of that photo but a much more recent shot. The problem with that is that the treasure had disappeared during WWII. Soon Vicky was on the trail, accompanied by her boss, Schmidt, several of her collegues (returning from a previous adventure) and the mysterious John Smith.

This is an light hearted action adventure. The characters are well done, particularly the principals (Vicky, John and Schmidt) much of the situations and dialogue is hilarious.

The only complaints that I have are there are many German terms used with little translation - frustrating for those of us who don't know the language. The other issue is that this is definitely one of those series that needs to be read in order not starting with this the 4th installment (as I did).

I've read all the Vicky Bliss novels, and I can only say I wish Elizabeth Peters would write more. She has such a humorous touch with these novels that the characters are not only believeable, they're a downright likeable bunch. I like the way Peters uses humor to propel the story along, and the exchanges between Vicky and her sometimes lover, John Smythe, are hilarious. But don't leave out her boss, Herr Doktor Schmidt, who is a remarkably innocent man for one of his advanced years, and a wonderful co-conspirator (even if he does have a tendency to view desperate situations as some sort of wonderful adventure). For fans of this series, I heartily recommend this book, since it's about time that Vicki and John come clean about their feelings for one another. The avalanche scene is a real nailbiter, and in keeping with the adventure! Don't miss this one!

and I believe the best of the Vicky Bliss series thus far; I have not read the fifth one yet, preferring to read them in order.

Vicky Bliss is a beautiful buxom art historian, located in Germany, who would prefer to be taken seriously for her brains rather than her looks. In this entry, she receives a photo of a woman wearing the golden jewels that had disappeared during the Nazi reign in Germany known as the Trojan Gold. To make it interesting, however, it is not a photograph of the original finder's wife, Frau Schliemann, as Vicky first supposes, but a modern photograph, meaning the gold has been found.

Vicky figures out who has the gold and races with her boss Schmidt to a small ski resort town, also in Germany, to find the gold. Meeting here there are several other art historians with whom she had attended an art conference the previous year as well as, of course, her sometimes boyfriend, Sir John Smythe.

The action is fast paced enough to keep the book interesting while the romance between Vicki and John reaches new levels. And, making this a perfect mystery read, there is plenty of humor as well. This is an excellently written mystery with suspects to choose from and clues to help along the way.

I have already purchased the fifth and, at least until now, last of the Vicky Bliss series. I certainly wish that Elizabeth Peters would write a new one!

This is the most fascinating collection of letters I've ever read: Lewis was not only a genius, but a wise and compassionate man as well. The other reviewers here go into more detail, but I did want to mention this: what struck me most was how creatively and wisely Lewis dealt with his own difficulties in life, his own sadness, his suffering. His deep and active faith helped him to see beyond himself; his kindness kept him caring for others; his lack of self-pity is a wonderful example. He enjoys life both in the many good times, and in the midst of hard times. These letters are not only fun and informative: they are inspiring as well.

This second volume of C.S. Lewis' letters was, I though, much better than the first. It is amazing to be able to read what c.S. Lewis was doing and what he was thinking. Reading these books of letters has gives me an entirely new perspective of C.S. Lewis. One thing that constantly amazed me was all of the books he read. It seemed that in every letter he was describing which books he had read since the last letter, and it inspired me to begin reading more regularly.

Also, and more importantly, in the latter part of this book C.S. Lewis begins answering fan mail, and in these he talks a lot about theology. These letters are especially interesting and worthwhile to read. In this volume one can also find a letter in which Lewis clearly states his inclusivistic beliefs (I don't remember which one off hand, but it was towards the beginning somwhere).

If you enjoy reading C.S. Lewis material, or if you want to see into the life of a giant of the Christian faith, this is an amazing opportunity for you.

The second volume of letters from C.S. Lewis is more varied and consistently interesting than the first, I think. For one thing, Lewis is writing to a wider group of people. While in the first volume most letters are addressed to father, brother, or friend Arthur Reeves, now he is ensconced in Oxford, mildly famous and cursed with more correspondents than he wishes (though he is always polite, and usually thoughtful). His father has passed away, his brother does some ghost-lettering, and Arthur still gets a few epistles. But this volume also contains leaves to Dorothy Sayers (an excellent match), Owen Barfield, Charles Williams, John Betjeman, poet and painter Ruth Ritter, the Catholic student of Hinduism, Dom Bede Griffiths (whom he warns, "I now believe that refined, philosophical eastern Pantheism is far further from the true Faith than the semi barbarous pagan religions"), and a few short letters to T. S. Elliot, interesting for their terseness and studied politeness. (Besides not liking his poetry, Lewis was mad at Elliot for not contributing to a book for the widow of Charles Williams.) Possibly the most common topic of discussion is literature, much of it by one or the other correspondant. But lots more gets touched on.

Some letters are also written to help people with spiritual questions, "plot good" of some sort, or pray with people like his Italian priest friend, with whom he corresponded in Latin. (Given here in English and Latin.) You can also find many interesting observations on a variety of topics sprinkled about. ("Poetry I take to be the continual effort to bring language back to the actual.")

But the adjective that may best describe Lewis in many of these letters is "fun-loving." To Barfield: "Did I ever mention that Weston, Divine, Frost, Wither, Curry and Miss Hardcastle" (the villains in That Hideous Strength) were all portraits of you?" To Sayers: "Mr. Bultitude (the lazy bear in the same book)is described by Tolkien as a portrait of the author, but I feel that is too high a compliment." I especially enjoyed the faux quarrel between Lewis, pretending to be the middleman for a medieval prince who seduced his king's wife (one letter goes out in Old English), and Barfield, representing himself as agent of the king, demanding reparation. Lewis understood that a person makes a bad bargain in growing up if he forgets along the way how to play.

Lewis' letters to Laurence Harwood, his godson, mark a change of style: now he writes with Narnian simplicity, not "talking down" to children but talking about things both still find interesting. (And I did, too.) "Yesterday the man who lives next door to us came into our garden when we weren't looking and cut down one of our trees . . . He is an old man with a white beard who eats nothing but raw vegetables. He keeps goats who also have white beards and eat nothing but raw vegetables. If I knew magic I should like to turn him into a goat himself; it wouldn't be so very wicked because he is so like a goat already!"

Much less interesting are the many "thank you" notes Lewis sends to Americans for "CARE" packages. Some of these are repetitious; Lewis seems uncomfortable, experimenting with new ways of saying "thank you." Later some of these correspondences develop into something more interesting. But since Hooper or Harper cut some, this would have been a good place to chop more more deeply. The best stuff needs to be quarried a bit. But like gemstones in a bedrock of fine granite, most of the other material is moderately interesting, though some is merely utilitarian.

Walter Hooper has done a phenomenal job with this series and this book in particular. His notes are useful and often enlightening -- especially when he explains what Lewis' correspondent said, as he often does. At the end of the book he gives graceful biographical sketches of about three dozen people who corresponded with Lewis. (Very interesting people.) He has done a first-rate job with these first two volumes, and I'm looking forward to seeing the third.

author, Jesus and the Religions of Man

This is a review of The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume II: Books, Broadcasts, and the War, 1931 - 1939. ISBN 0060727640; HarperCollins, 2004.

Walter Hooper, in the preface to this volume, mentions that Owen Barfield divided Lewis into three different men: the popular theologian, the literary critic, and the writer of popular fiction. Being a fan of Lewis the literary critic doesn't mean you know Lewis the popular theologian exists, and being a fan of Lewis the writer of popular fiction doesn't necessarily mean you like Lewis the literary critic. But fans of all three Lewises owe Walter Hooper a great debt of thanks for editing three thousand-page volumes of the man's letters.

In the first volume, Lewis's correspondence was divided between his father, his brother, and his "First Friend" Arthur Greeves; with a few letters to people such as Cecil Harwood, Owen Barfield, and Leo Baker thrown in for good measure. Here, he writes to many, many people, and is much more interesting: former pupils (Dom Bede Griffiths, Mary Neylan), Sister Penelope, Dorothy Sayers, Americans . . . The years covered by this volume (1931 - 1949) cover some of Lewis's best work: The Screwtape Letters, Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, That Hideous Strenght, The Problem of Pain, Miracles, and his talks for the BBC that eventually became Mere Christianity. (This period also included more scholarly work such as his Preface to Paradise Lost and The Abolition of Man; also his editing of the Essays Presented to Charles Williams.) He talks about the etymology of Old Solar, the proper pronunciation of double vowels in Old English (palely v. paley), and how to properly read Milton, among other things.

What I found interesting (and rather disappointing) is that Lewis doesn't talk very much about some of his books in his letters. For instance, there's more about the Screwtape Letters in his preface than in his letters. I have to occasionally remind myself that the Lewis writing letters in 1945 was the Lewis who was writing That Hideous Strength at the same time. But there's nothing better than reading a brilliant man talk about books you've both read; and so I enjoyed Lewis's offhand comments on Macdonald, Trollope, and others. Lewis on Cervantes: "I tried to read Don Quixote and failed: it seems to me a wretched affair. I suppose I must be wrong" (page 250).

Though it's true that Volume II is more interesting than Volume I, readers of the first volume already know what a Pigiebotie is, the significance of a P'daytism, and who the Witch of Endor was. I wasn't sorry I read the first volume before the second.

Those who want an introduction to Lewis should try Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, or even the Narnia books; the Letters would probably be too much. But those who already know and love Lewis should buy Volumes I and II of the Letters now, and Volume III when it comes out in October.

GREAT BOOK FOR COLLECTORS, MANY GREAT PICTURES AS WELL AS INFORMATION. I HAVE 1ST EDITION AND UPGRADED TO NEW EDITION. OUTSTANDING BOOK

As a historian and teacher, I often find original articles and photographs as the best teaching aids possible. Although traveling photographers often staged photos, they also used items of clothing and props associated with the times, thus providing a visual study of articles. Oral history is also at times incorrect since memories & viewpoints often aren't completely correct. But, once again the visual item helps determining truth from fiction. This book is an excellect and colorfull collection of garments, photos, postcards, etc. spanding many years of the cowgirl. Items are stated to be unknown if the author is in question of its actual origin. The photos are very clear and are an easy study and the information is very informative.

I have just finished reading Alessandra Comini's autobiography, "In Passionate Pursuit", which was recommended to me through your "personal recommendations" list on your Amazon.com site. This memoir which covers six decades of the author's life and career as an art historian was a delight to read. There were many sections where I had to actually put the book down and wipe my eyes, as I found myself tearing up with emotions of both joy and sadness. As a mental health counselor, professional musician, and patron of the arts myself, I was touched by how Comini so beautifully integrated her love for art history and musicology with equal passion and pursuit! Life can become such a balancing act for all of us and how many of us truly follow our heart's calling as Comini does? Equally, how many of us, especially when we age, look back and wish we had pursued those dreams much differently?
Comini's book rejuvenates the human spirit. Her colorful descriptions of each site she visited makes readers feel as if they are standing there beside her. Intertwined with her journeys and discoveries are those very reflective moments such as having to say goodbye to life-long friends she has made along the way. Heart wrenching was the moment when she opened a letter mailed to her after her own mother's death, a letter in her mother's handwriting compassionately consoling others who had had a loved one die. Poignantly, she describes another period in her life when she dropped out of graduate school in order to assist Hungarian Refugees as they fled to Vienna during the Hungarian Revolution. Subsequently, she so bravely, and honestly describes her own battle with breast cancer which gives hope to women everywhere who are going through similar experiences. Alessandra Comini's introductory description of discovering Schiele's prison cell leads the reader into an exuberant, 233 pages of the author's adventures, travels, and personal memoirs. Comini's book is "real" and can reach audiences from those in the arts' world, students, and especially those who have ever had a slight tug in their heart to follow their own dreams.

Any student of the liberal arts - and, for that matter, anyone who has ever been inspired by a book, a painting, or a fragment of a song - should run out and buy this book immediately! Comini's rich, hypnotic prose brings her world alive and takes one on a journey of the senses through her brilliant career. Making deft use of language, Comini's writing is both deeply personal and introspective, tracing her growth as a person and as a scholar. At the same time, the narrative provides a warm, refreshing look at how art is "pursued," with the indomitable Comini and her trusty camera on the forefront of some of modern art's greatest re-discoveries. A cult icon amongst young intellectuals, Comini's articles and public lectures are the stuff of academic legend, so this book written in Comini's own words is a treat for her readers. This book takes up Goethe's call to arms: "Strive! Strive! Strive!"

This book provides a glimpse into one of the most esoteric, but interesting of fields--art history. Some of the greats in the field were interviewed and their work analyzed. It is fascinating reading for anyone who loves art. It also shows what a challenge it is to do this work well. It is an excellent, informative read.

I couldn't put this book down once I started to read it. It reveals how art historians do their work in a highly readable and insightful format with wonderful images. The book is beautifully designed. It is the result of interviews with a number of the most prominent art historians in the world. For students of art it is essential. For anyone interested in art, it is wonderful reading. The authors have protected the anonymity of their interviewees (darn it!) but the quotes will keep anyone knowledgable in the field guessing.

Pie In The Sky: A Memoir About Writing And Publishing is Patricia Condon Johnson's personal testimony on the joys and hardships of writing for magazines, writing books, self-publishing books, and the tragedy of losing her daughter to murder. Black-and-white photographs illustrate this thoughtful and deeply engaging accounting which is hallmarked by the author's tenacity and insight. Pie In The Sky is highly recommended reading, especially by those who aspire to have their own writings published, regardless of the pressures and challenges life puts in their way.

In Pie In The Sky: A Memoir About Writing And Publishing, Patricia Johnston shares her personal journey as a writer and self-publisher. Along the way Patricia also shares her views regarding the 1993 murder of her daughter, Jane Ellen Neuman, the subject of a CBS "48 Hours" television program and Patricia's ultimately successful crusade to bring her daughter's killer to justice. As a publisher, Patricia's Afton Historical Society Press has produced 37 titles (many of them award winners) and has pursued partnerships to produce and sponsor television documentaries and art exhibitions. Pie In The Sky will prove of intense interest to anyone who aspires to have their writings published, to become a small press publisher, or who has an interest in the small press phenomena and trends in today's highly competitive and rapidly evolving publishing community.

It is a wonder to me that more people have not discovered translations such as this one, Vegetius's seminal work "Epitome of Military Science". Compare Vegetius to such works as the Sun Tzu's "Art of War", but put it in the perspective of Ancient Rome and you'll be spot on.

I liked this work because it gave an excellent insight into all aspects of managing military groups. It covered not only things such as troup placement and tactics, but also much baser aspects of military life, such as the logistics of training, what or how to feed large numbers of troops, and how to deal with troop morale.

For the historian (and members of re-enactment groups similar to the SCA) this is an excellent book for research if you're willing to ignore the fact that the text is only the English translation and not a side-by-side comparison of the original and the modern.

I read this book for a graduate course in Roman history.

It is important to understand that the army of the Republic was by no means a second rate militia force. "Discipline and training were its hallmarks; the care with which the camp was laid out reveals no ordinary grouping of amateur warriors. The Romans adopted professional attitudes to warfare long before the army had professional institutions." The army's professionalism is proven by reading the one military training manual still extant, Vegetiu's fourth century CE Epitome of Military Science. Most experts agree that Vegetius' Epitome was certainly a compilation of earlier Roman military training and doctrine manuals that have not survived. This manual is replete with information for the commander on how to recruit, train, supply, billet, and employ his legion in combat.

Rome had an army from its earliest beginnings as a small city-state. There is little known of the structure of the military in early Roman history. "At first, military service in the Roman Army entailed a man being away from his home...for a few weeks or months over the summer. The campaign season opened in March and closed in October, as official festivals in the Roman calendar make clear." Servius Tullius was the sixth king of Rome who reigned from about 580-530 BCE. Servius instituted many reforms in both the political and military structures of Rome which were codified in the Sevian Constitution. He conducted the first census of the citizenry and used this information to divide the population into classes based on wealth. The class structure was then used both politically for voting classification and militarily to determine in what portion of the legion a man would serve in to defend Rome. The men were organized into centuries (hundreds) within the class structure. Militarily, the class ranking was based on wealth, which determined where a man would serve in the legion based on his ability to provide his own weapons and equipment. The wealthiest class in Roman society served in the equites or the Roman cavalry, of which there were eighteen centuries. Obviously, these men had the financial ability to provide their own horses. The majority of the population was divided into five classes who served in the infantry. Men who had no property had no military obligation. The military tactics used were similar to the Greek hoplite formation.

"Members of the `first class' were to be armed with a bronze cuirass, spear, sword, shield and greaves to protect the legs; the `second class' with much the same panoply minus the cuirass; the `third', the
same but lacking the greaves; the `fourth; the shield and spear only, and the `fifth' was armed only with slings or stones.

During the period of the Republic, the structure of the army went through some changes after the enactment of the Servian Constitution. When a Roman citizen volunteered or was drafted, it was to fight in a specific campaign rather than for a specific length of time. Since Rome's empire was expanding in the second century BCE, it might not be uncommon for soldiers to serve in successive campaigns with a length of service reaching six years--the usual maximum length of service. In some very rare instances a soldier could volunteer to serve longer terms of service, mainly for the booty reward available to soldiers. Normally, a soldier would be maintained in a citizen reserve for sixteen years after his initial term of service. If a soldier was mobilized later, it was unlikely he would retain his former rank. This fact made it difficult for a man to make the army a lucrative profession in the Republic era. Even if a citizen showed exceptional aptitude and bravery in combat and rose to the rank of centurion, he would only have received double the pay of an ordinary soldier until Julius Caesar changed the pay and reward structure for his legions.

Recommended reading for those interested in Roman history, military history.

"Conspiracy of Silence" represents historical writing at its very best. Focusing on the life and career of Anthony Blunt, the eminent British art historian and Soviet spy (who was unmasked by Margaret Thatcher in 1979, despite an official promise of immunity), Barrie Penrose and Simon Freeman have written an account that is both entertaining and well-researched. Based upon interviews with sundry friends, associates, and enemies of Blunt and his Cambridge spy colleagues (Philby, Burgess, Maclean and Cairncross), the book presents the facts, which are never dull, and at the same time maintains an objectivity that allows the reader make up his mind about the case (There is none of the gratuitous moralizing in which some of the other authors indulge in order to condemn the Cambridge Spies in the minds of the reading public.).

The book is especially valuable in elucidating the political climate of the 1930s (the era of the hunger marches in Britain) and the reasons why so many privileged young undergraduates of Oxford and Cambridge eagerly embraced Communism as what they believed was the only means to combat the inexorable rise of Fascism on the European continent.

The book, written in 1987, four years after the deaths of Blunt and Maclean (and one year before the demise of Philby), also focuses on the official British propensity for silence about its secret services, the existence of which was not even acknowledged publicly until recently. It is the Conspiracy of Silence of the title that allowed for the eruption of one spy scandal after another since the 1950 defection of Burgess and Maclean.

Remarkably, the silence was broken, in the case of Penrose and Freeman, by members of the secret services who were willing to be interviewed by the authors, despite the Official Secrets Act. It was furthermore shattered once and for all by the persistence of ex-MI5 officer Peter Wright, who, in his effort to publish his memoir "Spycatcher," took his case to court in Australia. Since the authors' own book was also placed in jeopardy, they present a fascinating account of Wright's case, which succeeded despite the bullying efforts of MI5, which, they recount, wanted to maintain secrecy merely for the sake of secrecy. In the end, Penrose and Freeman leave their readers with a devastating condemnation of the climate of official secrecy, under which treason was able to flourish (p. 570): "It had taken an Australian judge to cut through the hypocrisies and lies of Whitehall. Perhaps it was not so surprising, after all, that Britain had produced Anthony Blunt. Indeed, it might be said that Britain deserved Anthony Blunt."

Awarded the National Humanities Medal for his contributions to American public life, "David C. Driskell: Artist And Scholar" surveys nearly fifty years of Driskell's artistry, scholarship, humanitarianism, creativity and vision, as well as his work as an artist, teacher, curator, collector, and diplomat. Simply stated, there is no one who has done more to establish the study of African American art within the canon of American art scholarship that David Driskell. Now teacher, researcher and art historian Julie L. McGree (specializing in modern and contemporary visual culture of Africa and the African diaspora and who has spent more than a decade teaching art history at Bowdoin College, Bunswick, Maine) has created a showcase of more than 200 full-color and b/w images featuring Driskell's work and life - including personal photographs of Driskell, his family, friends, and associates. More than 50 years of Driskell's paintings, drawings, prints, and collages are represented, along with an insightfully informative text providing background and biography. "David C. Driskell: Artist And Scholar" is an enthusiastically recommended and substantive addition to academic library African American Studies and American Art History reference collections.

This well-illustrated little book, shorter than many New Yorker profiles, offers some very exciting insights into the nature of Warburg's mature thought through the lens of his earliest scholarly and personal experiences. Exquisite, granular detail about his daily life in Strasbourg and Florence. An essential companion to Roeck's later volume on the Warburg circle in Florence around 1900.