Why read The Swan Thieves?

Book cover of The Swan Thieves

Book description

Psychiatrist Andrew Marlowe has a perfectly ordered life - solitary, perhaps, but full of devotion to his profession and the painting hobby he loves. This order is destroyed when renowned painter Robert Oliver attacks a canvas in the National Gallery of Art and becomes his patient. Desperate to understand the…

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Why read it?

2 authors picked The Swan Thieves as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

T.M. Blanchet

Author

I’m a bit late to the party with this one, but I’m so glad I finally got around to reading this strange, haunting tale.

Kostova manages to blend the past and the present, art and commerce, and logic and desire together into one beautiful narrative. You don’t have to know a thing about art (or care much about it) to appreciate the wonderful details and descriptions. The author makes it easy to just let yourself sink into the story and time travel back and forth into two very different, yet strangely similar, eras.

The book lingers, making you resent the…

From T.M.'s 3 favorite reads in 2023.

Anna M. Lewis

Author

When I first saw the previews of this book, I had to read it the first day it was published.

Though friends had highly recommended Kostova’s more popular book, The Historian, this book spoke to me.

With the point of view shifting from current time to 19th century France, it checked all my boxes: painting, art museum, impressionists - all tied together into a fabulous mystery bow.

While reading, I wanted to peacefully wander an art museum and dabble with a paintbrush on canvas.

To me, the best books evoke a unique artistic mist or glow that I can still…

From Anna's list on inspiring your inner artist.