Around the Year in 52 Books discussion

This week, we are celebrating our creative brains with books centered around the arts. The arts include, but is not limited to, music, dance, drama, folk art, creative writing, architecture and allied fields, painting, sculpture, photography, graphic and craft arts, industrial design, costume and fashion design, motion pictures, television, radio, film, video, and tape and sound recording. While technically any book would fit for this prompt (since it's "related to the arts"), challenge yourself to find a book centered around the arts. Maybe it's Station Eleven and their traveling Shakespearean company, or The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry and his bookshop, or Still Lives and stolen art. Whichever way you take it, enjoy the creativity of this prompt!

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Suggestions:

Music
50 Great Novels about Music
YA Books about Music
5 Sci-Fi Books that Feature Music
Books that Take Classical Music as Inspiration
Fiction and Nonfiction about Music
Listopia: Nonfiction about Music
Listopia: Fiction Involving Rock/Pop Music

Visual Art
Books about Art that Aren't "Art Books"
5 Books about Art and Artists
Books Featuring Female Artists
9 Historical Fiction Books about Artists
Books about Art to Read on the Beach
NYTimes Best Art Books
Books about Art History
Listopia: Art and Artists in Fiction
Listopia: Best Coffee Table Books
Listopia: Art Fraud and Theft
Listopia: YA Books about Art

Performing Arts
50 Fiction and Nonfiction Books about Actors
Fiction Written by Famous Actors
Actors that You Didn't Know Wrote Fiction
10 Books that Inspired Plays
Best Books about Dance and Dancers
3 YA Dance Books Featuring People of Color
12 Books about the Dark Side of Dance
Listopia: YA Books about Performing Arts
Listopia: YA Dance Books
Listopia: Best Plays Ever

Books/Creative Writing
Books about Bookstores
Books with Author Protagonists
100 Books about Books
Listopia: Stories for Book Lovers
Listopia: Books about Bookstores
Listopia: Books about Books and Bookstores

ATY Group Listopia

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Optional Questions
1. What are you reading for this category?
2. How does it connect to the arts?

I just read a book that would be perfect for this:

The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick

I have three candidates on my list right now:
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
Cat's Eye
The Birth of Venus (there are a bunch of books by that title, so I should check that I've linked the right one!)

However, I am interested in finding something highly recommended and written by a POC.

So far I’ve found a couple of possibilities on my TBR - The Binding and City of Flickering Light.

Chrissy wrote: "I have three candidates on my list right now:
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
Cat's Eye
The Birth of Venus (there are a bunch of books by ..."

Chrissy, Old in Art School: A Memoir of Starting Over is a memoir by a woman of color that went to art school at age 64. I don't know if I highly recommend it, but it was certainly interesting.

I just dove into some of the suggestion lists and found some more possibilities, although these are all music and dance rather than visual arts:
A Time to Dance
Swing Time
Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall
An Equal Music

I love books about ballet. I don’t know why, I am not nor have ever been a ballet dancer but I am fascinated by the athleticism of the dancers and their dedication to their art. So I am on the hunt for a book featuring ballet (that I have not read yet).

I'm very excited about this category and have lots of options. The front runners thus far are:

Brunelleschi's Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture by Ross King
My Name Is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok (this has been on my read list for so long)
Duma Key by Stephen King
The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro
Country Music: An Illustrated History by Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan
If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

On my TBR, I found: Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier.
It has been there forever.

I would like to read The Bookshop for this one.

I highly recommend The Museum of Modern Love.

Milena wrote: "Chrissy wrote: "I have three candidates on my list right now:
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
Cat's Eye
The Birth of Venus (there are a bu..."

Milena- I have had that book Old in Art School checked out for 3 weeks but haven't started it yet! It sounds interesting.

I like Angie's idea of reading Country Music: An Illustrated History. I'm still watching the TV series, which I love. I didn't realize there was an accompanying book. This is a great prompt! I'm excited to see what others select for it.

I'm taking creative license on this prompt and I'm going to read The Mermaid. The protagonist is a part of P.T. Barnum's (live) American Museum :)

Novels I'm considering include: The Goldfinch, Girl with a Pearl Earring, To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, and My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk.
I have one non-fiction on my list I've Seen the Future and I'm Not Going: The Art Scene and Downtown New York in the 1980s by Peter McGough. This one also works for prompt #23 LGBTQIA+ character or author. It is my first choice, if I can find it at the library.

So many choices on my physical/Kindle TBR shelves!

A Visit from the Goon Squad
Amsterdam
Cat's Eye
How to Be Both
Margrave of the Marshes
Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall
Outside the Limelight
Scottish Women's Fiction, 1920s to 1960s: Journey into Being
The Art of Asking; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help
The Diary of a Bookseller
The Lost for Words Bookshop
The Miniaturist
The Woman Upstairs
This Is Just My Face: Try Not to Stare
This is Not About Me
Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald

The Strings of Murder is about violins and violinists, also music in general.
The third book in the series, A Mask of Shadows, seems to be about drama, so I will read this one for the prompt.

I'm upset with myself for having read If We Were Villains in 2019 because it would have been absolutely perfect for this category and was such a good read.

I have a couple of options but these three are my "short list"
Tiny Pretty Things
Failing Up: How to Take Risks, Aim Higher, and Never Stop Learning
On the Come Up

Finished the graphic novel Drama, by Raina Telgemeier for this prompt. It was my first book of 2020. I love her stories, and buy them for my daughter and then steal them, haha.

This one was really cute, although not my favorite book by this author. It's about a group of middle school characters working on their school play, from try-outs, to making the stage set and then finally the opening day of the production. And the rest of the "drama" centers around crushes and first kisses. There are simple LGBTQ themes here too, which was a pleasant surprise.

Cant wait to share this one with my kiddo :-)

I just checked the Listopia and saw The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle on there, can someone who's read it tell me how it is related to the arts? Thanks !

Sophie wrote: "I just checked the Listopia and saw The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle on there, can someone who's read it tell me how it is related to the arts? Thanks !"

I'm honestly not sure how I would tie it to the arts...anybody else have any ideas? Because I think that might have been in error. I mean, there's an artist character, but he's not one of the main ones.

I would also say that this does not work for the art prompt. good for the mystery one though.

Sophie wrote: "I just checked the Listopia and saw The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle on there, can someone who's read it tell me how it is related to the arts? Thanks !"

One of the lives is lived through a portrait painter.

For this prompt I read Station Eleven and loved it! Knew nothing about it going into it except for the fact that it was about a traveling Shakespeare company. Thought it fit the prompt very nicely.

MaryAnn (EmilyD1037) wrote: "On my TBR, I found: Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier.
It has been there forever."

The book I facilitate read this and everyone loved it! Enjoy!

1. What are you reading for this category?
The Only Woman in the Room

2. How does it connect to the arts?
It's a fictionalized account of Hedy Lamarr, her time in Hollywood (how she got there), and her impact on the scientific community.

1. What are you reading for this category? Home Safe by Elizabeth Berg
2. How does it connect to the arts? The main character is a writer who has lost her mojo, and gets it back while teaching a creative writing class to a diverse group of people at a writing workshop.

Pamela wrote: "Sophie wrote: "I just checked the Listopia and saw The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle on there, can someone who's read it tell me how it is related to the arts? Thanks !"

One of th..."

I am using this here too then! I couldn't remember where it was supposed to fit but I was super excited to find a new copy at a discount price!

I just realized Vincent and Theo: The Van Gogh Brothers would work for this prompt! :)

1. What are you reading for this category? Blood Water Paint
2. How does it connect to the arts? The main character is a painter.

This book is incredible; I absolutely inhaled it in just a few hours. It's a novel in verse (which I love even though I'm not generally a huge fan of poetry) about real-life 17th century Italian artist Artemisia Gentileschi and her struggle to be a woman with her own passion.
(CW: rape)

What are you reading for this prompt? Mostly Dead Things by Kristen Arnett.
How does it connect to this prompt? A major theme is taxidermy. The protagonist definitely feels this is an art form. Also the mother in the novel uses art to express grief & feelings of repression.

1. What are you reading for this category? Daisy Jones & The Six
2. How does it connect to the arts? Rock 'n Roll in the '70s

1. What are you reading for this category?
Well Met by Jen DeLuca

2. How does it connect to the arts? Performing arts

I read The Silent Patient. The patient is an artist.

Death of a Dreamer
The mystery takes place among a group of artists. It was okay, but definitely not M.C. Beaton's best. BTW, I found out while reading this that Beaton passed away at the end of December, so it was a sad read for me. RIP

1)Ophelia by Lisa Klein
2)Its a story told by Ophelia's pov, a character from William Shakespeare's play, Hamlet

I was kind of stuck on this one but am now listening to The Authenticity Project, which I chose for a light read after all the serious news. It turns out a big part of it is about an artist and his art class.

I just read Still Lives by Maria Hummel, which has been sitting on my bookshelf for at least two years. It's about an artist who goes missing on the night of her gallery opening, but it's told from the point of view of an employee of the museum that's opening the show.

I really enjoyed it! More than I expected (given how long it's been on my shelf)! It was a pretty straightforward whodunit, but there was a bit of thrill in there, and some turns I wasn't expecting. And it was definitely, definitely related to the arts.

I’ve just finished Anne Enright’s Actress. The audiobook was excellent. The narrator’s mother was (surprise, surprise) an actress on stage and then in films.

1. What are you reading for this category?
Nothing is Real: The Beatles Were Underrated And Other Sweeping Statements About Pop

2. How does it connect to the arts?

its about music

i read it for another challenge its not a genre i would pick normally and it hasn't changed my mind about the genre

1. What are you reading for this category?
I read Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
2. How does it connect to the arts?
As well as being a brilliant dystopian novel (set during and in the aftermath of a global pandemic), it has a running frame of Shakespeare (King Lear, Midsommer's Night Dream) and the uses of the arts (theatre in particular, and the author has a theatre background) in making life meaningful and bearable - especially as other aspects of civilization are systematically removed. It is a powerful book.

I've read The Last Painting of Sara de Vos by Dominic Smith. Based on 17th century women painters, this tells the story of the fictional Sara de Vos who paints in the 1630s.

I read Brunelleschi's Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture. It was a great combination of history, engineering, and art. I need to get to Florence now.

1. What are you reading for this category? Artful Dodger by Nageeba Davis
2. How does it connect to the arts? Protagonist is a sculptor

Surprising how many books I read just because they looked interesting for some reason turned out to have the arts in them but I didn't know it beforehand. Classical music in Charles Jessold, Considered As A Murderer, movies in Virgil Wander, painting in The Authenticity Project, photography in Lessons in French.

I'm reading Linnea in Monet's Garden by Christina Björk. A little girl named Linnea learns about the artist, his masterpieces and what it means to be an Impressionist. This children's book is a work of art itself, featuring reprints of Monet's famous paintings, as well as lovely, original illustrations.

Stacey wrote: "I'm reading Linnea in Monet's Garden by Christina Björk. A little girl named Linnea learns about the artist, his masterpieces and what it means to be an Impressionist...."

I love this book, Stacey! I used to talk with kids about it when I was a school librarian and they liked it too.

Kathy wrote: "Stacey wrote: "I'm reading Linnea in Monet's Garden by Christina Björk. A little girl named Linnea learns about the artist, his masterpieces and what it means to be an..."

Thanks for reminding me, Kathy. I tutor a couple of little ones in reading, writing and expression - I'm looking forward to sharing the book with them.

For this prompt, I read Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland. It is a series of stories rooted in a fictional piece of art painted by Johannes Vermeer of his daughter, Magdalena.

I read four books for this category:

Painting: How to Be Both

Music: A Visit from the Goon Squad

Dance: Swing Time

Writing: Becoming Dr. Seuss: Theodor Geisel and the Making of an American Imagination

Of these, I really loved the book about Dr. Seuss and I was fascinated by the book How to Be Both which is written in two halves and you can choose to read either half first.

1. What are you reading for this category? Daisy Jones & The Six
2. How does it connect to the arts? It is fiction but written as a oral history of about the members of a famous 70's band.