Illustration: Watercolor and ink by Black Elephant Blog author
Today begins a new month, a new fiscal year even, and fall is in the air. Since every now and then, someone asks what I am reading, I have turned my attention to the question myself. Some books on innovation have been covered earlier on this blog, particularly here. But, why begin with innovation if we are not sure where, when or why, it matters? Context can be helpful.
Upcoming on this blog, therefore, will be a few brief overviews of some important, and possibly even provocative, books which provide fresh optics on historical contexts, and which were published in the last year. Some of these books review how we got to now and make suggestions for how to move forward.
These include:
The Shape of the New: Four Ideas and How They Made the Modern World, by Scott L. Montgomery and Daniel Chirot.
Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence, by Karen Armstrong, an expert on comparative religion.
This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate, by Naomi Klein, who may be familiar to some for her investigation into “disaster capitalism.” This book is so sweeping “and of such consequence,” in the view of The New York Times, that it is “almost unreviewable.”
But, to lighten the load, some fun reading is also in order. I recommend:
Illustration: Painting of Madame Marthe de Florian by Giovanni Boldini (1888) – Wikipedia
A Paris Apartment, by Michelle Gable, a book which also came out last year. It is based on the true story of an apartment the contents of which came to light in 2010, 70 years after its tenant had hurriedly left Paris.
Illustration: Self-portrait of Giovanni Boldini (1892), from Wikipedia
In the apartment among antiques and other valuables, which had been untouched or unseen by anyone in all this time, was an original painting of a beautiful lady. Martha de Florian, by Giovanni Boldini. Boldini was a contemporary of Edgar Degas, whose life and works was discussed earlier on this blog, in mid- and late-19th century Parisian artistic circles.
The painting depicts Madame Marthe de Florian whose diaries also were in the apartment when it was opened in 2010.
The novel, A Paris Apartment, recreates this true story in a fictional modern context. The author has a fresh writing style which makes the most of her talents for creating realistic dialogue and alternating between periods of time separated by more than a century. Boldini himself–not to mention Madame de Florian–come alive here in a story that includes other better known figures of their time. All this…a true story…and a fictional story…because of one real-life dusty old apartment filled with stuff no one wanted for nearly a century.
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