Winter Reading

The love of learning,the sequestered nooks,

And all the sweet serenity of books.

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

As much as I love reading on the beach in the summer, there is really nothing better than snuggling up with a good book in the winter.  Yesterday, I stopped by the Strand Bookstore in the newly renovated Club Monaco store on lower Fifth Avenue, who is also having a big sale by the way, where I picked Speedboat by Renata Adler. It's a reprint of the original that was published 1971 with an afterword by Guy Trebay. Buying new books is probably the reason why I still haven't finished The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt which was my goal this holiday vacation. 

Very curious to hear what you all are reading this winter.

Bon weekend!

HC 

Photo by me via instagram.

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Fun at The Frick

If you're looking for something fun to do this weekend, I highly recommend making a trip to The Frick Collection to see Vermeer, Rembrandt, and Hals: Masterpieces of Dutch Painting from the Mauritshuis. Well, first you should order timed tickets online so you don't have to stand in the queue and then you should head over to Fifth Avenue.  On display is the famous Vermeer painting The Girl with the Pearl Earring and 14 other works that have not traveled in over 30 years.  The Dutch museum is undergoing renovations which makes this exhibition, on view until January 19, 2014, possible.  

Also on display is the beautiful painting The Goldfinch from 1654 which is where the new Donna Tartt book takes its name, The Goldfinch.  You should see the exhibition and read the book which both coincidentally made their debuts on the same day.  While you're at The Frick, make sure you walk through the permanent collections. The Boucher Room is my favorite and the Fragonard Room is just breathtaking. Bon weekend!

Rembrandt Paintings

Vermeer Paintings

The Goldfinch by Carel Fabritius from 1654

The flowers at The Frick perfectly compliment the Dutch paintings. 

The Garden Court designed by John Russell Pope.

The Boucher Room

Water liles in the garden.

Photos 1-3, and 5 by The Frick. Photos 4, 6-10 by Habitually Chic

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The Goldfinch

While I don't want summer to end just yet, I am eagerly anticipating all the goodies the autumn brings. One of them will be Donna Tartt's new novel The Goldfinch, which will be released until October 22nd.  Like many of you, I loved The Secret History but wasn't a huge fan of The Little Friend but The Goldfinch sounds very promising.  I contacted Little Brown for an advance review copy but haven't received one yet so below is the description from Amazon.com. 

"Composed with the skills of a master, The Goldfinch is a haunted odyssey through present day America and a drama of enthralling force and acuity.

It begins with a boy. Theo Decker, a thirteen-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. Abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. Bewildered by his strange new home on Park Avenue, disturbed by schoolmates who don't know how to talk to him, and tormented above all by his unbearable longing for his mother, he clings to one thing that reminds him of her: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into the underworld of art. 

As an adult, Theo moves silkily between the drawing rooms of the rich and the dusty labyrinth of an antiques store where he works. He is alienated and in love-and at the center of a narrowing, ever more dangerous circle. 

The Goldfinch is a novel of shocking narrative energy and power. It combines unforgettably vivid characters, mesmerizing language, and breathtaking suspense, while plumbing with a philosopher's calm the deepest mysteries of love, identity, and art. It is a beautiful, stay-up-all-night and tell-all-your-friends triumph, an old-fashioned story of loss and obsession, survival and self-invention, and the ruthless machinations of fate."

What are you looking forward to this fall?

HC

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