Hi Everyone-

Please pardon me for taking a week off last week. We're at the height of new book buying season and I'm up to my eyeballs in catalogues. There are a lot of great books coming this summer, but let me use this space to talk about something more current: Ross King's new book The Judgment of Paris.

Last week I mentioned how much I loved Jed Perl's New Art City, an intriguing study of the enormous promise and creativity that circulated through the Manhattan art world of the 1950's and 60's. Well, this book is also about an artistic revolution in the 60's: the 1860's.

Just as de Kooning, Pollock, and Rothko shocked the art world of their time, so did Edouard Manet cause a sensation in 1863 as his painting Le Bain (later retitled Dejeuner sur l'herbe) scandalized Paris at the first Salon des Refuses (an exhibit of paintings rejected by the official biannual Salon). King, who was also responsible for the longtime Olsson's favorite Brunelleschi's Dome, wonderfully contrasts the avant-garde firebrand Manet with the very talented, detail-oriented popular favorite Ernest Meissonier. Despite considering himself a progressive painter, Meissonier, at the time of the 1863 Salon, was about to face the slow-starting but ultimately unstoppable challenge to his greatness brought about by the rise of Impressionism. I'm about a third of the way through the book, but I'm finding it an irresistable portrait (if you will) of these two great artists and of France in the 1860's. It's incredibly entertaining. We're also featuring it as a Buyer's Choice at 20% off. So come in and give it a try. I know the weather hasn't exactly been consistently cold, but it's still the perfect sort of book with which to settle in at this time of year.

Have a Great Week!

-Joe Murphy
Head Book Buyer