A suspenseful tale of Borgesian circularity, Shadowing Botticelli's Beauty features an unusual cast drawn from three distinct spheres: C.I.A. operatives running sensitive operations during the Cold War; players from the art world among them a painter-architect based in Buenos Aires, and from ages past, the Renaissance master, Sandro Botticelli; and colorful inhabitants of an elite, New England prep school. But throughout this sinuous tale of intrigue, there is the constancy of "Abel Baaker Charlie:" devoted husband; journeyman case officer; apprentice school master; autodidactic painter; and, last but not least, self-appointed art detective. While weathering the chaos of revolutions, personal tragedies, identity crises, a treacherous colleague, and radical career shifts, the novel's dauntless protagonist tenaciously stalks a lost masterpiece looted by a Nazi war criminal in the closing days of World War II. Baaker's story, which has a basis in fact, is told with the assuredness of a veteran insider privy to the clandestine realm of spies, the arcane province of art historians, and the twisted turf of private boarding schools. While making for a fine read, with its rewarding resolution, Shadowing Botticelli's Beauty ponders the opposing roles of chance and grand design in the destiny of its memorable characters.

During the Cold War, Abel Baaker, a CIA officer in Montevideo, Uruguay, finds a remarkable Renaissance painting in the possession of a Nazi war criminal who was relocated to Uruguay after World War II. When the painting disappears, Baaker uses his agency's resources to discover the provenance of the painting and information about the life of Renaissance painter, Sandro Botticelli to whom the painting is attributed.

Colorists of all ages are invited to create their own versions of 60 great paintings. From masterpieces by Michelangelo and Raphael to striking creations by Paul Gauguin and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, this ready-to-color collection includes excellent renderings of Grant Wood's American Gothic, Winslow Homer's Snap the Whip, and Edward Hopper's Hotel Room, as well as compositions by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Mary Cassatt, Paul Cézanne, Edward Burne-Jones, Claude Monet, John Singer Sargent, Vincent van Gogh, and 45 other great artists. Printed on one side only, the illustrations can be colored with a variety of media, including watercolors. All paintings are shown in original colors on the inside covers and notes provide information on each artist.

What would you do if you had an appointment with death? This philosophical novella follows an unnamed protagonist who makes an appointment with Death—personified as a hipster living in an apartment in West Vancouver—and the weeks that follow as she awaits their next meeting, which she knows will be their last. A woman in her mid-sixties, this unnamed “I” has spent her life running from the trauma of her childhood in India. Her father abandoned her mother, who was forced into a second marriage with a man who made her life miserable. As she awaits her turn to get answers from Death, the protagonist flies to Italy, recreating her last vacation with her deceased partner, Joe. Through stream-of-consciousness prose, the author guides the reader through the protagonist’s last days, as she grapples with existential questions that are at once personal and universal. Following in the footsteps of Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist, this inspirational new work deftly combines existential absurdism, philosophy, and spirituality, encouraging readers to reframe their thinking about life and death.

In this exhilarating cross between The Da Vinci Code and The Birth of Venus, an irrepressible young woman in 15th-century Italy must flee for her life after stumbling upon a deadly secret when she serves as a model for Botticelli... When part-time model and full-time prostitute Luciana Vetra is asked by one of her most exalted clients to pose for a painter friend, she doesn't mind serving as the model for the central figure of Flora in Sandro Botticelli's masterpiece "Primavera." But when the artist dismisses her without payment, Luciana impulsively steals an unfinished version of the painting--only to find that somone is ready to kill her to get it back. What could possibly be so valuable about the picture? As friends and clients are slaughtered around her, Luciana turns to the one man who has never desired her beauty, novice librarian Brother Guido. Fleeing Venice together, Luciana and Guido race through the nine cities of Renaissance Italy, pursued by ruthless foes who are determined to keep them from decoding the painting's secrets. Gloriously fresh and vivid, with a deliciously irreverent heroine, The Botticelli Secret is an irresistible blend of history, wit, and suspense.

Sandro Botticelli, painter and draughtsman, was one of the most esteemed painters in Italy in his lifetime, enjoying the patronage of the leading families of Florence, summoned to take part in the decoration of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, and commended by the great diplomatic, scholarly, and artistic leaders of his time. Lauded for his superb technique as a draughtsman and colorist and for his skilled use of the new tempera grassa medium, his art represented the maturation of the humanist conception of painting. By his death, however, Botticelli's reputation was already waning - overshadowed by the advent of the High Renaissance style - and his name virtually disappeared from the art historical canon. This fully illustrated Grove Art Essentials title delves into Sandro Botticelli's life and working methods and explores the artist's career from early training and the production of his mythological and religious masterpieces to the eventual reassessment of his reputation that gathered momentum at the close of the 19th century.