i'm asking: what books have directly led to an interest in other books/art?
an open thread!
Hi all. I don't think I've ever used the newsletter explicitly as a thread function, but I had a question for the group that I've been curious about. A couple of days ago I finished reading Orbital by Samantha Harvey (more on this on a different newsletter, possibly) and in it there's a character who, for reasons unimportant to the here and now, occasionally revisits Diego Velázquez's Las Meninas, which made me revisit the painting as soon as I turned the last page.
Then I remembered how a couple of years ago I read Elena Ferrante's In the Margins, in which the author frequently mentions Dante's Vita Nuova and Elsa Morante's Lies and Sorcery, because of which, in the months that followed, I ended up reading both. A few months before that, after sobbing my way through Gabrielle Zevin's Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, I went on YouTube because I needed to see someone deliver the titular soliloquy from Macbeth (here's Ian McKellen).
My question to you all is: has a book, by mentioning another work of art, ever prompted such interest in the latter that you ended up following that interest independently and outside of the former? If so, I want to know! Following advice from
’s literature-related threads, please use ALL CAPS for book titles so that they’re easily seen by others. The comments are open to everyone and I'm all ears! Be kind and polite, etc.(As a reminder and in case you missed it in my last post, I’m running a 20% off sale on annual subscriptions until the end of the year.)
I recently went down a nineteenth-century polar expedition rabbit hole thanks to THE MINISTRY OF TIME by Kaliane Bradley (no regrets though, they were fascinating, especially John Franklin's doomed mission).
This summer I read The Lioness of Boston, a fictionalized account of Isabella Stewart Gardner, whose museum is home to one of the greatest art heists in history. After reading the book, I immediately went to the museum with a friend, and then opted to renew my membership at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. I now have plans with a group of friends to see exhibits over Winter Break and all throughout 2025!