Clara and Mr. Tiffany

Clara and Mr. Tiffany
Author: Susan Vreeland
Publisher: Random House Incorporated
Total Pages: 405
Release: 2011-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1400068169

Hoping to honor his father and the family business with innovative glass designs, Louis Comfort Tiffany launches the iconic Tiffany lamp as designed by women's division head Clara Driscoll, who struggles with the mass production of her creations and grieves the losses of two husbands. By the author of The Girl in Hyacinth Blue.

A New Light on Tiffany

A New Light on Tiffany
Author: Martin P. Eidelberg
Publisher:
Total Pages: 208
Release: 2007
Genre: Antiques & Collectibles
ISBN:

Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933) is celebrated today as one of the most influential creative designers of the late 19th- and early 20th-centuries. A New Light on Tiffany: Clara Driscoll and the Tiffany Girls presents the celebrated works of Tiffany Studios in an entirely new context, focusing on the "Tiffany Girls", the 27 women who laboured behind the scenes to create the masterpieces now inextricably linked to the Tiffany name. Recently discovered correspondence written by Ohio-born Clara Driscoll, head of the so-called "Women's Glass Cutting Department" at Tiffany Studios, reveals in convincing and vivid detail how it was in fact Driscoll who generated designs for such masterpieces as the famous Wisteria, Dragonfly and Peony goods. At the heart of the book are over 50 Tiffany lamps, windows, ceramics, enamels and mosaics, supplemented by a wide array of related documents and archival photographs.

What Love Sees

What Love Sees
Author: Susan Vreeland
Publisher: Rosetta Books
Total Pages: 440
Release: 2012-03-18
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0795323514

An uplifting novel inspired by a true story, by the New York Times–bestselling author of Lisette’s List and The Girl in Hyacinth Blue. Jean Treadway is a young, cultured New England woman whose every material need is supplied by wealthy, overprotective parents. Through an arranged correspondence, she meets Forrest Holly—a dirt-poor Southern California rancher whose spiritual foundation turns despair into purpose. As different as they are in background, they share two things: they are both blind, and they are both determined to live an active, normal life and raise a family. While Jean was among the first women to use a Seeing Eye dog on urban streets in the late 1930s, Forrest used a seeing-eye bull, and his horses, to guide him on the ranch in the 1940s. As they discover each other through letters that have to be read to them, his earnestness and folksy humor win her heart, leading to an extraordinary life together, shared by their four children.

Lisette's List

Lisette's List
Author: Susan Vreeland
Publisher: National Geographic Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2015-06-23
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0812980190

From Susan Vreeland, bestselling author of such acclaimed novels as Girl in Hyacinth Blue, Luncheon of the Boating Party, and Clara and Mr. Tiffany, comes a richly imagined story of a woman’s awakening in the south of Vichy France—to the power of art, to the beauty of provincial life, and to love in the midst of war. In 1937, young Lisette Roux and her husband, André, move from Paris to a village in Provence to care for André’s grandfather Pascal. Lisette regrets having to give up her dream of becoming a gallery apprentice and longs for the comforts and sophistication of Paris. But as she soon discovers, the hilltop town is rich with unexpected pleasures. Pascal once worked in the nearby ochre mines and later became a pigment salesman and frame maker; while selling his pigments in Paris, he befriended Pissarro and Cézanne, some of whose paintings he received in trade for his frames. Pascal begins to tutor Lisette in both art and life, allowing her to see his small collection of paintings and the Provençal landscape itself in a new light. Inspired by Pascal’s advice to “Do the important things first,” Lisette begins a list of vows to herself (#4. Learn what makes a painting great). When war breaks out, André goes off to the front, but not before hiding Pascal’s paintings to keep them from the Nazis’ reach. With German forces spreading across Europe, the sudden fall of Paris, and the rise of Vichy France, Lisette sets out to locate the paintings (#11. Find the paintings in my lifetime). Her search takes her through the stunning French countryside, where she befriends Marc and Bella Chagall, who are in hiding before their flight to America, and acquaints her with the land, her neighbors, and even herself in ways she never dreamed possible. Through joy and tragedy, occupation and liberation, small acts of kindness and great acts of courage, Lisette learns to forgive the past, to live robustly, and to love again. Praise for Lisette’s List “Vreeland’s love of painters and painting, her meticulous research and pitch-perfect descriptive talents . . . are abundantly evident in her new novel.”—The Washington Post “This historical novel’s . . . great strength is its lovingly detailed setting. . . . Readers will enjoy lingering in the sun-dappled, fruit-scented Provençal landscape that Vreeland brings to life.”—The Boston Globe

Luncheon of the Boating Party

Luncheon of the Boating Party
Author: Susan Vreeland
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 464
Release: 2007-05-03
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1101202289

From the bestelling author of GIRL IN HYACINTH BLUE, "A vivid exploration of one of the most beloved Renoir paintings in the world, done with a flourish worthy of Renoir himself" (USA Today) With her richly textured novels, Susan Vreeland has offered pioneering portraits of artists' lives. As she did in Girl in Hyacinth Blue, Vreeland focuses on a single painting, Auguste Renoir's instantly recognizable masterpiece, which depicts a gathering of Renoir's real friends enjoying a summer Sunday on a café terrace along the Seine. Narrated by Renoir and seven of the models, the novel illuminates the gusto, hedonism, and art of the era. With a gorgeous palette of vibrant, captivating characters, Vreeland paints their lives, loves, losses, and triumphs so vividly that "the painting literally comes alive" (The Boston Globe).

Girl in Hyacinth Blue

Girl in Hyacinth Blue
Author: Susan Vreeland
Publisher: RosettaBooks
Total Pages: 142
Release: 2012-03-18
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0795323549

This New York Times bestseller explores the life and many owners of an imaginary Vermeer painting in an “impressive debut collection” of linked stories (Publishers Weekly). A Dutch painting of a young girl survives three and a half centuries of loss, flood, anonymity, theft, secrecy, and even the Holocaust. This is the story of its owners whose lives are influenced by its beauty and mystery. Despite their many troubles and unsatisfied longings, the girl in hyacinth blue has the power to inspire love in all its human variety. This luminous story begins in the present day, when a professor invites a colleague to his home to see a painting that he has kept secret for decades. The professor swears it is a Vermeer—but why has he hidden this important work for so long? The reasons unfold in a series of events that trace the ownership of the painting back to World War II and Amsterdam, and still further back to the moment of the work’s inspiration. As the painting moves through each owner’s hands, what was long hidden quietly surfaces, illuminating poignant moments in multiple lives. Susan Vreeland’s characters remind us, through their love of this mysterious painting, how beauty transforms and why we reach for it, what lasts and what in our lives is singular and unforgettable. “Vreeland’s book is a work of art.” —New York Post

Tiffany Girl

Tiffany Girl
Author: Deeanne Gist
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 544
Release: 2015-05-05
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1451692471

From the bestselling author of It Happened at the Fair and Fair Play comes a compelling historical novel about a progressive “New Woman”—the girl behind Tiffany’s chapel—and the love that threatens it all. As preparations for the 1893 World’s Fair set Chicago and the nation on fire, Louis Tiffany—heir to the exclusive Fifth Avenue jewelry empire—seizes the opportunity to unveil his state-of-the-art, stained glass, mosaic chapel, the likes of which the world has never seen. But when Louis’s dream is threatened by a glassworkers’ strike months before the Fair opens, he turns to an unforeseen source for help: the female students at the Art Students League of New York. Eager for adventure, the young women pick up their skirts, move to boarding houses, take up steel cutters, and assume new identities as the “Tiffany Girls.” Tiffany Girl is the heartwarming story of the impetuous Flossie Jayne, a beautiful, budding artist who is handpicked by Louis to help complete the Tiffany chapel. Though excited to live in a boarding house when most women stayed home, she quickly finds the world is less welcoming than anticipated. From a Casanova male, to an unconventional married couple, and a condescending singing master, she takes on a colorful cast of characters to transform the boarding house into a home while racing to complete the Tiffany chapel and make a name for herself in the art world. As challenges mount, her ambitions become threatened from an unexpected quarter: her own heart. Who will claim victory? Her dreams or the captivating boarder next door?

The Passion of Artemisia

The Passion of Artemisia
Author: Susan Vreeland
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 358
Release: 2002-12-31
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780142001820

"Susan Vreeland set a high standard with Girl in Hyacinth Blue.... The Passion of Artemisia is even better.... Vreeland's unsentimental prose turns the factual Artemisia into a fictional heroine you won't soon forget." —People A true-to-life novel of one of the few female post-Renaissance painters to achieve fame during her own era against great struggle. Artemisia Gentileschi led a remarkably "modern" life. Vreeland tells Artemisia's captivating story, beginning with her public humiliation in a rape trial at the age of eighteen, and continuing through her father's betrayal, her marriage of convenience, motherhood, and growing fame as an artist. Set against the glorious backdrops of Rome, Florence, Genoa, and Naples, inhabited by historical characters such as Galileo and Cosimo de' Medici II, and filled with rich details about life as a seventeenth-century painter, Vreeland creates an inspiring story about one woman's lifelong struggle to reconcile career and family, passion and genius.

Juliet

Juliet
Author: Anne Fortier
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Total Pages: 466
Release: 2010-08-24
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0345519779

A sweeping novel of intrigue and identity, of love and legacy, as a young woman discovers that her own fate is irrevocably tied—for better or worse—to literature’s greatest star-crossed lovers. Twenty-five-year-old Julie Jacobs is heartbroken over the death of her beloved aunt Rose. But the shock goes even deeper when she learns that the woman who has been like a mother to her has left her entire estate to Julie’s twin sister. The only thing Julie receives is a key—one carried by her mother on the day she herself died—to a safety-deposit box in Siena, Italy. This key sends Julie on a journey that will change her life forever—a journey into the troubled past of her ancestor Giulietta Tolomei. In 1340, still reeling from the slaughter of her parents, Giulietta was smuggled into Siena, where she met a young man named Romeo. Their ill-fated love turned medieval Siena upside-down and went on to inspire generations of poets and artists, the story reaching its pinnacle in Shakespeare’s famous tragedy. But six centuries have a way of catching up to the present, and Julie gradually begins to discover that here, in this ancient city, the past and present are hard to tell apart. The deeper she delves into the history of Romeo and Giulietta, and the closer she gets to the treasure they allegedly left behind, the greater the danger surrounding her—superstitions, ancient hostilities, and personal vendettas. As Julie crosses paths with the descendants of the families involved in the unforgettable blood feud, she begins to fear that the notorious curse—“A plague on both your houses!”—is still at work, and that she is destined to be its next target. Only someone like Romeo, it seems, could save her from this dreaded fate, but his story ended long ago. Or did it? Praise for Juliet “One of those rare novels that have it all . . . I was swept away”—Sara Gruen, author of Water for Elephants “Juliet leads us on a thrilling treasure hunt through present-day Italy that makes the classic tragedy itself spellbinding all over again.”—Elle “Boldly imagined, brilliantly plotted, beautifully described, Juliet will carry you spellbound until the gripping end.”—Susan Vreeland, author of Clara and Mr. Tiffany “The Shakespearean scholarship on display is both impressive and well-handled.”—The Washington Post

The Helpline

The Helpline
Author: Katherine Collette
Publisher: Atria Books
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2019-07-23
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 198211133X

An eccentric woman who is great with numbers—but not so great with people—realizes it’s up to her to pull a community together in this charming, big-hearted debut perfect for fans of Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine and The Rosie Project. Germaine Johnson doesn’t need friends. She has her work and her Sudoku puzzles. Until, that is, an incident at her insurance company leaves her jobless—and it turns out that there are very few openings these days for senior mathematicians with zero people skills. Soon enough though, Germaine manages to secure a position at City Hall answering calls on the Senior Citizens Helpline. But it turns out that the mayor has something else in mind for Germaine: a secret project involving the troublemakers at the senior citizens center and their feud with the neighboring golf club—which happens to be run by the dashing yet disgraced national Sudoku champion, Don Thomas, a celebrity of the highest order to Germaine. Don and the mayor want the senior center closed down and at first, Germaine is dedicated to helping them out—it makes sense mathematically, after all. But when Germaine actually gets to know the group of elderly rebels at the senior center, they open her eyes to a life outside of boxes and numbers and for the first time ever, Germaine realizes she may have miscalculated. Filled with an eccentric, totally unique, and (occasionally) cranky cast of characters you can’t help but love, The Helpline is a feel-good page-turner that will make you reexamine what it means to lead a happy life—and is bound to capture your heart along the way.