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How to Fall in Love with the World's Greatest Museum
A former New York Times Paris bureau chief explores the Louvre, offering an intimate journey of discovery and revelation.
The Louvre is the most famous museum in the world, attracting millions of visitors every year with its masterpieces. In Adventures in the Louvre, Elaine Sciolino immerses herself in this magical space and helps us fall in love with what was once a forbidding fortress.
Exploring galleries, basements, rooftops, and gardens, Sciolino demystifies the Louvre, introducing us to her favorite artworks, both legendary and overlooked, and to the people who are the museum's lifeblood: the curators, the artisans producing frames and engravings, the builders overseeing restorations, the firefighters protecting the aging structure.
Blending investigative journalism, travelogue, history, and memoir, Sciolino walks her readers through the museum's front gates and immerses them in its irresistible, engrossing world of beauty and culture. Adventures in the Louvre reveals the secrets of this grand monument of Paris and basks in its timeless, seductive power.
"An intimate visit with a generous, genial guide." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Sciolino (The Only Street in Paris) takes readers on an affectionate and expressive tour…A charmingly effusive love letter sure to delight art history buffs." ―Publishers Weekly
"People are always asking the best way to 'do' the Louvre, and I've finally found it: with Elaine Sciolino's Adventures in the Louvre by your side. An indispensable, enchanting companion reminding us that the art world's most intimidating institution is also a lot of fun." ―Lauren Collins, author of When In French
"Sciolino is the Louvre whisperer. With wit, charm and a scholar's bent, she walks us through the galleries, shining her light on beloved masterpieces as well as on treasures tucked deep into gallery corners, the ones that are easy to miss but that can be revelations even to those who know the museum well. Habitués will make discoveries in these pages and first-timers will count themselves lucky to have this book as a companion. And if food is your passion―it's mine!―you'll revel in Sciolino's tour of the Louvre as a sumptuous feast." ―Dorie Greenspan, New York Times bestselling author
"In its manifold splendors, the Louvre gave Henry James something of a panic attack. He did not have Elaine Sciolino, but we do: She has written a rich, rewarding introduction to the greatest collection of art in the world, from its trio of celebrated grandes dames to its hidden treasures, from its rooftop and tunnels to its dedicated fire brigade and three rooms of empty frames. A spirited, sumptuous book that makes the Louvre feel welcoming―even if you arrive on a Tuesday, when it's closed." ―Stacy Schiff, author of The Revolutionary
This information about Adventures in the Louvre was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Elaine Sciolino, contributing writer and former Paris bureau chief for the New York Times, is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Only Street in Paris, as well as The Seine and La Seduction. She lives in Paris.
Link to Elaine Sciolino's Website
Name Pronunciation
Elaine Sciolino: shill-EE-no
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