Suzanne Loebl's first book, Fighting The Unseen: The Story of Viruses, earned her a Sloan Science Writing Fellowship at the School of Journalism, Columbia University. Since then, she has written fourteen books. Her America's Art Museum's: A Travelers' Guide to Great Collections Large and Small prompted some people to tour America in search of art.Her new book is America's Medicis: The Rockefellers and Their Astonishing Cultural Legacy.
Recently I asked her what she was reading. She reported that she was currently reading four books:
Howard Jacobson’s The Finkler Question, my bookgroup’s monthly choice; Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate, because it came my way; Annie Cohen-Solal’s, Leo & HisVisit Suzanne Loebl's website.Circle: The Life of Leo Castelli, because it is about a man who was very influential in shaping the New York art market during a crucial period, and Isabel Allende’s Island Beneath the Sea, because she is one of my favorite authors.
Chocolate wins hands down. It has the magical element so typical of Latin American writers: a tsunami from nowhere wipes out a flock of chickens and doves, a vicious mother who insists that her second daughter marries her youngest daughter’s sweetheart, turning into a ghost, or an illicit pregnancy that is not. Recipes that ordinary cooks will never make accompany this delicious book.The Castelli biography starts out by being cumbersome, but picked up speed as Leo was the first to recognized the talents of the emerging artists of the New York School.
Islands Beneath the Sun once again demonstrated Allende’s poetic style, but so far I have not been captivated by the story. I am just at the beginning of The Finkler Question and as yet have no opinion. During the summer I also read: The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer and found it fascinating.
The Page 99 Test: America's Medicis.
--Marshal Zeringue
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