Murdered artists. Masterful forgeries. Art crime at its worst. As an insurance investigator and world renowned expert in nonverbal communication, Dr Genevieve Lenard faces the daily challenge of living a successful, independent life. Particularly because she has to deal with her high functioning Autism. Nothing - not her studies, her high IQ or her astounding analytical skills - prepared her for the changes about to take place in her life. It started as a favour to help her boss' acerbic friend look into the murder of a young artist, but soon it proves to be far more complex. Forced out of her predictable routines, safe environment and limited social interaction, Genevieve is thrown into exploring the meaning of friendship, expanding her social definitions, and for the first time in her life be part of a team in a race to stop more artists from being murdered. The Gauguin Connection is an art crime novel with an autistic main character who explores the mystery of political intrigue, art heists, white collar crime, kidnapping and so much more! Enjoy this FREE book.

A decades-old crime. A torment not forgiven. Ice-cold revenge. When a prolific international criminal takes one of Doctor Genevieve Lenard’s friends hostage in his own flat, she is hard pushed to believe his motivation. Calling on her expertise as a nonverbal communications specialist, she sees the genuine fear and desperation behind this thief’s blustering demand to help him stop the Collector. For almost a year, the Collector has evaded Genevieve and her team, leaving behind a trail of stolen artworks, burned-down museums and blown-up galleries. And innocent victims. Grudgingly cooperating with this thief and his associates, Genevieve and her team track the Collector to the cobbled alleyways of Lisbon, Portugal, where they have only one chance to stop this merciless killer from exacting revenge that took decades to plan—an action that would have an irreversible political and economic impact on a global scale.

Shortly before Gauguin made his first Tahitian journey in 1891, he spent nearly two years in the remote Breton fishing village of Le Pouldu. Seeking creative isolation in a "primitive" setting, he pursued his art accompanied by several followers. One of them was the Dutch painter Meyer de Haan, who was able to pay the living expenses in Le Pouldu and was also knowledgeable in literary and philosophical matters that fascinated Gauguin. Their association resulted in some of Gauguin's most remarkable works, including the Wadsworth Atheneum's symbolist portrait of de Haan inscribed "Nirvana." This and the rich variety of paintings and sculpture by Gauguin produced in 1889-90 are the focus of this beautiful book. Gauguin and de Haan settled into an inn at Le Pouldu run by an attractive unwed mother named Marie Henry, who began a liaison with de Haan despite the fact that he was a sickly hunchback. The intensity of relations between Gauguin and de Haan is reflected in many of the works, including frescoes, which they installed in the inn. Gauguin's time in Le Pouldu was crucial to the advancement of his art, and the vivid Breton subjects and personality of Meyer de Haan remained in his imagination to reappear even during his later Tahitian period. In this book several distinguished experts draw on previously unavailable sources to examine in depth the history of this period, Gauguin's relationship with de Haan, their interest in religion and exotic cultures, and the meaning of the many innovative symbolist works they produced.

An original account of the tortuous and revealing relationship between two seminal figures of modern painting, Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin.

A critical evaluation of Philip Roth—the first of its kind—that takes on the man, the myth, and the work Philip Roth is one of the most renowned writers of our time. From his debut, Goodbye, Columbus, which won the National Book Award in 1960, and the explosion of Portnoy's Complaint in 1969 to his haunting reimagining of Anne Frank's story in The Ghost Writer ten years later and the series of masterworks starting in the mid-eighties—The Counterlife, Patrimony, Operation Shylock, Sabbath's Theater, American Pastoral, The HumanStain—Roth has produced some of the great American literature of the modern era. And yet there has been no major critical work about him until now. Here, at last, is the story of Roth's creative life. Roth Unbound is not a biography—though it contains a wealth of previously undisclosed biographical details and unpublished material—but something ultimately more rewarding: the exploration of a great writer through his art. Claudia Roth Pierpont, a staff writer for The New Yorker, has known Roth for nearly a decade. Her carefully researched and gracefully written account is filled with remarks from Roth himself, drawn from their ongoing conversations. Here are insights and anecdotes that will change the way many readers perceive this most controversial and galvanizing writer: a young and unhappily married Roth struggling to write; a wildly successful Roth, after the uproar over Portnoy, working to help writers from Eastern Europe and to get their books known in the West; Roth responding to the early, Jewish—and the later, feminist—attacks on his work. Here are Roth's family, his inspirations, his critics, the full range of his fiction, and his friendships with such figures as Saul Bellow and John Updike. Here is Roth at work and at play. Roth Unbound is a major achievement—a highly readable story that helps us make sense of one of the most vital literary careers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Fashioned Texts and Painted Books examines the folding fan's multiple roles in fin-de-siecle and early twentieth-century French literature. Focusing on the fan's identity as a symbol of feminine sexuality, as a collectible art object, and, especially, as an alternative book form well suited to the reception of poetic texts, the study highlights the fan's suitability as a substrate for verse, deriving from its myriad associations with coquetry and sex, flight, air, and breath. Close readings of Stephane Mallarme's eventails of the 1880s and 1890s and Paul Claudel's Cent phrases pour eventails (1927) consider both text and paratext as they underscore the significant visual interest of this poetry. Works in prose and in verse by Octave Uzanne, Guy de Maupassant, and Marcel Proust, along with fan leaves by Edgar Degas, Edouard Manet, Berthe Morisot, and Paul Gauguin, serve as points of comparison that deepen our understanding of the complex interplay of text and image that characterizes this occasional subgenre. Through its interrogation of the correspondences between form and content in fan poetry, this study demonstrates that the fan was, in addition to being a ubiquitous fashion accessory, a significant literary and art historical object straddling the boundary between East and West, past and present, and high and low art.

Twenty-two-year-old Karla is thrilled to be hired as an entertainer on the Sound of Music cruise ship—where the rum punch is 80 percent Kool-Aid, the ice sculp- tures are plastic, and her "fake it till you make it" M.O. seems adventuresome. Karla is less thrilled when her new boyfriend, Jack, suggests that they form a singing duo on land, but by now faking enthusiasm has become a way of life. She and Jack buy backing tracks, crib lyrics from the radio, and embark on a not-as-glamorous-as-it-should-be career performing in the luxury hotel bars of the Middle East and China. But after a thousand and one nights on the road, Karla and Jack find themselves struggling to keep their act—both personal and professional—together. Funny, fast-paced, and incisive, A Thousand and One Nights captures the performances, large and small, we use to make it through life.

Isabelle d’Este, daughter of the Duke of Ferrara, born into privilege and the political and artistic turbulence of Renaissance Italy, is a stunning black-eyed blond and an art lover and collector. Worldly and ambitious, she has never envied her less attractive sister, the spirited but naïve Beatrice, until, by a quirk of fate, Beatrice is betrothed to the future Duke of Milan. Although he is more than twice their age, openly lives with his mistress, and is reputedly trying to eliminate the current duke by nefarious means, Ludovico Sforza is Isabella’s match in intellect and passion for all things of beauty. Only he would allow her to fulfill her destiny: to reign over one of the world’s most powerful and enlightened realms and be immortalized in oil by the genius Leonardo da Vinci. Isabella vows that she will not rest until she wins her true fate, and the two sisters compete for supremacy in the illustrious courts of Europe. A haunting novel of rivalry, love, and betrayal that transports you back to Renaissance Italy, Leonardo’s Swans will have you dashing to the works of the great master—not for clues to a mystery but to contemplate the secrets of the human heart.

The first book in a hilarious chapter book series that tackles anxiety in a fun, kid-friendly way. Perfect for both beginning and reluctant readers, and fans of Diary of a Wimpy Kid! A humorous and touching series about facing your fears and embracing new experiences—with a truly unforgettable character—from author Lenore Look and New York Times bestselling and Caldecott Honor winning illustrator LeUyen Pham. Alvin, an Asian American second grader, is afraid of everything—elevators, tunnels, girls, and, most of all, school. He’s so afraid of school that, while he’ s there, he never, ever, says a word. But at home, Alvin is a very loud superhero named Firecracker Man, a brother to Calvin and Anibelly, and a gentleman-in-training, just like his dad. With the help of his family, can Alvin take on the outside world without letting his fears get the best of him? “Alvin’s a winner.” —New York Post

Art theft. Coded messages. A high-level threat. Despite her initial disbelief, Doctor Genevieve Lenard discovers that she is the key that connects stolen works of art, ciphers and sinister threats. Betrayed by the people who called themselves her friends, Genevieve throws herself into her insurance investigation job with autistic single-mindedness. When hacker Francine appears beaten and bloodied on her doorstep, begging for her help, Genevieve is forced to get past the hurt of her friends' abandonment and team up with them to find the perpetrators. Little does she know that it will take her on a journey through not one, but two twisted minds to discover the true target of their mysterious messages. It will take all her personal strength and knowledge as a nonverbal communications expert to overcome fears that could cost not only her life, but the lives of many others.