Page Turners

Read any good books lately? Share your book recommendations with other Brunonians by sending e-mail to Events@brown.edu. Be sure to include your name, your title and department, the name of the book and author, and your brief critique.

This week's page turners are:

• Nan Sumner-Mack, project administrator, John Carter Brown Library

"Lazarus, Arise" by Nicholas Kilmer: Art sleuthing at its best, combining pungent commentary on modern art and business with political intrigue. Touching and deft repartee, as usual.

• Kathleen Nelson, administrative assistant, Music

"Degas in New Orleans: Encounters in the Creole World of Kate Chopin and George Washington Cable" by Christopher Benfey

I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys history, art, literature, and a few good scandals! Set during a little-known five-month period Edgar Degas spent in New Orleans during the winter of 1872, Benfey reveals the painter's New Orleans roots, including a French colonialist grandfather, a Creole mother, and a scandal-ridden younger brother. Degas' impressionistic view of New Orleans is carefully entwined with the literary landscape of local authors Chopin and Cable, all of whom captured the wistful decay of Creole gentility brought about by post-War Reconstruction. (Illustrated with numerous photographs of Degas' family, their properties in New Orleans, and the sketches and paintings he produced while there.)