Museum researcher Zelda Richardson is swept into the mystery surrounding artwork hidden from the Nazis during World War II. But Zelda's not the only one searching for the missing paintings - and her rival would kill to find them first...

#ReadWithJenna Book Club Pick as Featured on Today Emma Roberts Belletrist Book Club Pick A New York Times Book Review’s Group Text Selection "I loved this book not just from the first chapter or the first page but from the first paragraph... The voice is just so honest and riveting and insightful about creativity and life." —Curtis Sittenfeld An extraordinary new novel of art, love, and ambition from Lily King, the New York Times bestselling author of Euphoria Following the breakout success of her critically acclaimed and award-winning novel Euphoria, Lily King returns with another instant New York Times bestseller: an unforgettable portrait of an artist as a young woman. Blindsided by her mother’s sudden death, and wrecked by a recent love affair, Casey Peabody has arrived in Massachusetts in the summer of 1997 without a plan. Her mail consists of wedding invitations and final notices from debt collectors. A former child golf prodigy, she now waits tables in Harvard Square and rents a tiny, moldy room at the side of a garage where she works on the novel she’s been writing for six years. At thirty-one, Casey is still clutching onto something nearly all her old friends have let go of: the determination to live a creative life. When she falls for two very different men at the same time, her world fractures even more. Casey’s fight to fulfill her creative ambitions and balance the conflicting demands of art and life is challenged in ways that push her to the brink. Writers & Lovers follows Casey—a smart and achingly vulnerable protagonist—in the last days of a long youth, a time when every element of her life comes to a crisis. Written with King’s trademark humor, heart, and intelligence, Writers & Lovers is a transfixing novel that explores the terrifying and exhilarating leap between the end of one phase of life and the beginning of another.

There are a surprising number of stories from antiquity about people who fall in love with statues or paintings, and about lovers who use such visual representations as substitutes for an absent beloved. In a charmingly conversational, witty meditation on this literary theme, Maurizio Bettini moves into a wide-ranging consideration of the relationship between self and image, the nature of love in the ancient world, the role of representation in culture, and more. Drawing on historical events and cultural practices as well as literary works, The Portrait of the Lover is a lucid excursion into the anthropology of the image. The majority of the stories and poems Bettini examines come from Greek and Roman classical antiquity, but he reaches as far as Petrarch, Da Ponte, and Poe. The stories themselves—ranging from the impassioned to the bizarre, and from the sublime to the hilarious—serve as touchstones for Bettini's evocative explorations of the role of representation in literature and in culture. Although he begins with a consideration of lovers' portraits, Bettini soon broadens his concerns to include the role of shadows, dreams, commemorative statues, statues brought to life, and vengeful statues—in short, an entire range of images that take on a life of their own. The chapters shift skillfully from one theme to another, touching on the nature of desire, loss, memory, and death. Bettini brings to the discussion of these tales not only a broad learning about cultures but also a delighted sense of wonder and admiration for the evocative power and endless variety of the stories themselves.

Missing masterpieces, Nazi blackmailers and a pesky amateur sleuth. When a Dutch art dealer hides the stock from his gallery - rather than turn it over to his Nazi blackmailer - he pays with his life, leaving a treasure trove of modern masterpieces buried somewhere in Amsterdam, presumably lost forever. That is, until American art history student Zelda Richardson sticks her nose in. After studying for a year in the Netherlands, Zelda scores an internship at the prestigious Amsterdam Museum, where she works on an exhibition of paintings and sculptures once stolen by the Nazis, lying unclaimed in Dutch museum depots almost seventy years later. When two women claim the same portrait of a young girl entitled Irises, Zelda is tasked with investigating the painting's history and soon finds evidence that one of the two women must be lying about her past. Before she can figure out which one and why, Zelda learns about the Dutch art dealer's concealed collection. And that Irises is the key to finding it. Her discoveries make her a target of someone willing to steal - and even kill - to find the missing paintings. As the list of suspects grows, Zelda realizes she has to track down the lost collection and unmask a killer if she wants to survive. The Lover's Portrait was Chill With A Book's January 2018 Book of the Month, chosen as one of TripFiction's 10 Favorite Books set in Amsterdam, and won the Silver Cup in Rosie's Book Review Team 2017 Awards, Mystery category. The Lover's Portrait also won a Chill With A Book Readers' Award, Readers' Favorite 5 star medal, was one of The Displaced Nation magazine's Top 36 Expat Fiction Picks of 2016, and came in at 14 in BookLife's 2016 Prize for Fiction in the Mystery category. It was also one of Women Writers, Women's Books magazine's Recommended Reads for April 2017. Set in present day and wartime Amsterdam, this captivating mystery is not just about stolen paintings, but also the lives that were stolen. This amateur sleuth mystery describes the plight of homosexuals and Jewish artists in Europe during World War II, as well as the complexities inherent to the restitution of artwork stolen by the Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s. All four mysteries in the Adventures of Zelda Richardson series are stand-alone novels and can be read in any order.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Cat is a book of more than 20 influential artists reimagined as artistic felines. From Frida Catlo to Yayoi Catsama, Wassily Catdinski to Henri Catisse, each portrait of the artist as a young cat is accompanied by a clever tongue-in-cheek biography revealing the thrilling feline lives (all nine) behind their famed artwork. Loaded with clever cat puns, this playful romp through art history will twist the whiskers of any cat-loving creative, whether you're discovering the inspiration for Frida Catlo's renowned self-pawtraits to reflecting on the catmosphere that gave rise to Georgia O'Kitty's landscapes. • Features fantastic feline artists such as Mary Catsatt and Meow Weiwei • A cute and clever book that cat and art lovers alike will love • Packed with tons of real biographical info about each artist and plentiful cat puns For cat lovers with an artistic purr-suasion, this is the ultimate celebration of their favorite artists. • A purrfectly smart and sweet book for cat lovers, art lovers, pun enthusiasts, and those who love them • Great for those who loved Fat Cat Art by Svetlana Petrova, Cats Galore by Susan Herbert, Of Cats and Men: Profiles of History's Great Cat-Loving Artists, Writers, Thinkers and Statesmen by Sam Kalda

“Vendela Vida has written a riveting and suspenseful novel about an American woman’s voyage to self-discovery.” —Joyce Carol Oates “Stunning. A masterful meditation on grief and love. The Lovers is a sensational novel from one of our finest writers at the height of her craft.” —Stephen Elliott, author of The Adderall Diaries In 2007, Vendela Vida’s novel Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. With her new novel, The Lovers, former Kate Chopin Writing Award winner Vida tells a powerful and beautiful tale of a widow returning alone to the site of her honeymoon in Turkey, and her subsequent journeys through her past and her present.

A richly imagined and stunningly inventive literary masterpiece of love, art, and betrayal, exploring the genesis of evil, the unforeseen consequences of love, and the ultimate unreliability of storytelling itself. Paris in the 1920s shimmers with excitement, dissipation, and freedom. It is a place of intoxicating ambition, passion, art, and discontent, where louche jazz venues like the Chameleon Club draw expats, artists, libertines, and parvenus looking to indulge their true selves. It is at the Chameleon where the striking Lou Villars, an extraordinary athlete and scandalous cross-dressing lesbian, finds refuge among the club’s loyal denizens, including the rising Hungarian photographer Gabor Tsenyi, the socialite and art patron Baroness Lily de Rossignol; and the caustic American writer Lionel Maine. As the years pass, their fortunes—and the world itself—evolve. Lou falls desperately in love and finds success as a race car driver. Gabor builds his reputation with startlingly vivid and imaginative photographs, including a haunting portrait of Lou and her lover, which will resonate through all their lives. As the exuberant twenties give way to darker times, Lou experiences another metamorphosis—sparked by tumultuous events—that will warp her earnest desire for love and approval into something far more.