Hidden behind the Picassos and Vermeers, the Temple of Dendur and the American Wing, exists another world: the hallways and offices, conservation studios, storerooms, and cafeteria that are home to the museum's devoted and peculiar staff of 2,200 people-along with a few ghosts. A surreal love letter to this private side of the Met, Metropolitan Stories unfolds in a series of amusing and poignant vignettes in which we discover larger-than-life characters,...

Do they have a future together, or is their relationship ancient history? Anna Cohen, perpetual assistant at the Manhattan Museum of Jewish History, lands a golden chance to curate her own exhibit when her boss sends her to Rockliffe Manor, New York. She's to assist an influential Jewish family as they organize an exhibit of their own in time for the town's Summer Days Festival. While she's there, Anna just needs to convince them to part with some...

"It was supposed to be the happiest day of Jaslene Simmons’ life, the day she’d say “I do” to Marcus Clark. But when her sister dies in a tragic accident everything changes—including her once rosy future with Marcus. Jaslene instead pours all of her energy into caring for her now-motherless niece and running the wedding planning company she and her sister had built, wanting to honor her sister’s dream even if she has to sacrifice her own....

"Former best friends who built their careers writing about a single work of art meet after a decades-long falling-out. One of them, called to the other's deathbed for unknown reasons by way of a "relatively short" nine page email, spends his flight to Berlin reflecting on Dutch Renaissance painter Count Hugo Beckenbauer and his masterpiece, Saint Sebastian's Abyss, the work that established both men as important art critics and also destroyed their...

Ras, a Tamil exile working at London's National Gallery, is awaiting trial for the theft of a Renaissance masterpiece. Searching for the truth behind her client's act, Ras's lawyer, Elizabeth, must piece together his story and that of enigmatic British writer Alex Benson. The trail she follows leads from Sri Lanka to the hills of Italy where, despite the serenity of the landscape, war's shadow looms long and large."--Page 4 of cover.

"In "a strangely ageless world somewhere between Emily Dickinson and David Lynch" (Blake Butler), a cleaning woman at a museum of art nurtures aspirations to do more than simply dust the paintings around her. She dreams of having the liberty to explore them in writing, and so must find a way to win herself the time and security to use her mind. She escapes her lot by marrying a rich man, but having gained a husband, a house, high society, and a maid,...

Claudio Magris's searing new novel ruthlessly confronts the human obsession with war and its savagery in every age and every country. His tale centers on a man whose maniacal devotion to the creation of a Museum of War involves both a horrible secret and the hope of redemption. Luisa Brooks, his museum's curator, a descendant of victims of Jewish exile and of black slavery, has a complex dilemma: will the collections she exhibits save humanity from...

"Brenae Brazil is a rising star at Los Angeles Art College, the most prestigious art school in the country, and a pupil of the institution's equally famous and influential director, Hal Giroux. Brenae's path to art world stardom is all but assured, so why did she kill herself shortly after completing a provocative documentary about female bodies, violence, and self-defence? Maggie Richter's return to LA and her old job at the Rocque Museum was supposed...

"Still reeling from the sudden death of her mother, Jess is about to do the hardest thing she's ever done: empty her childhood home so that it can be sold. As she sorts through a lifetime of memories, everything comes to a halt when she comes across something she just can't part with: an old set of encyclopedias. To the world, the books are outdated and ready to be recycled. To Jess, they represent love and the future that her mother always wanted...