Chasing Beauty
The Life of Isabella Stewart Gardner
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo first 3 months
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $25.19
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Maggi-Meg Reed
-
By:
-
Natalie Dykstra
About this listen
The vivid and masterful story of Isabella Stewart Gardner—creator of one of America’s most stunning museums—an American original whose own life was remade by art.
Isabella Stewart Gardner’s museum, with its plain exterior enfolding an astonishing four-story Italian palazzo, rose from Boston’s Fens at the turn of the twentieth century. Its treasures encompassed not only masterwork paintings but tapestries, rare books, prints, porcelains, and fine furniture.
An extraordinary achievement of storytelling and scholarship, Chasing Beauty illuminates the fascinating ways the museum and its holdings can be seen as a kind of memoir, dazzling and haunting, created with objects instead of words and displayed per Isabella’s wishes in the exact placements she initially curated.
Born in 1840 to a privileged New York family, Isabella Stewart married Boston Brahmin Jack Gardner as she turned twenty. She was misunderstood by Boston’s insular society and suffered the death of her only child, a beloved boy, not yet two years old.
But in time came friendships, glittering and bohemian; awe-inspiring world travels; and collecting beautiful things with a keen eye and competitive pace—all these were balm for loss. Henry James and John Singer Sargent—whose portrait of Isabella was a masterpiece and a scandal—came to recognize her originality. Bernard Berenson, leading connoisseur of the Italian Renaissance, was her art dealer.
From award-winning author Natalie Dykstra, Chasing Beauty is the story of the complex and singular woman behind one of the most fascinating museums in the nation and the world—a tale of beauty and loss, grit and American self-invention.
Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2024 Natalie Dykstra and Zoe Pagnamenta (P)2024 HarperCollins PublishersListeners also enjoyed...
-
The Gardner Heist
- The True Story of the World's Largest Unsolved Art Theft
- By: Ulrich Boser
- Narrated by: Stephen Graybill
- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After the death of famed art detective Harold Smith, reporter Ulrich Boser decided to take up the case. Exploring Smith's unfinished leads, Boser travels deep into the art underworld and comes across a remarkable cast of characters, including a brilliant rock 'n' roll thief, a gangster who professes his innocence in rhyming verse, and the enigmatic late Boston heiress Isabella Stewart Gardner herself. Boser becomes increasingly obsessed with the case and eventually uncovers startling new evidence about the identities of the thieves.
-
-
Loved it!
- By Amanda D. on 05-21-19
By: Ulrich Boser
-
The Lioness of Boston
- A Novel
- By: Emily Franklin
- Narrated by: Nancy Peterson
- Length: 13 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Lioness of Boston is a portrait of what society expected a woman's life to be, shattered by a courageous soul who rebelled and was determined to live on her own terms.
-
-
So Boring
- By Cathy S on 10-10-23
By: Emily Franklin
-
All the Beauty in the World
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me
- By: Patrick Bringley
- Narrated by: Patrick Bringley
- Length: 6 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Millions of people climb the grand marble staircase to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art every year. But only a select few have unrestricted access to every nook and cranny. They’re the guards who roam unobtrusively in dark blue suits, keeping a watchful eye on the two million square foot treasure house. Caught up in his glamourous fledgling career at The New Yorker, Patrick Bringley never thought that he’d be one of them.
-
-
Gallery 771
- By Jonathan Hurst on 06-10-23
By: Patrick Bringley
-
The Upside-Down World
- Meetings with the Dutch Masters
- By: Benjamin Moser
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 11 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Beyond the sainted Rembrandt—who harbored a startling darkness—and the mysterious Vermeer, whose true subject, it turned out, was lurking in plain sight, Moser got to know a whole galaxy of geniuses: the doomed virtuoso Carel Fabritius, the anguished wunderkind Jan Lievens, the deaf prodigy Hendrik Avercamp. Year after year, as he tried to make a life for himself in the Netherlands, Moser found friends among these centuries-dead artists. And he found that they, too, were struggling with the same questions that he was.
-
-
Great Book
- By PaulB on 02-29-24
By: Benjamin Moser
-
Thunderclap
- A Memoir of Art and Life and Sudden Death
- By: Laura Cumming
- Narrated by: Laura Cumming
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1654, the Thunderclap—an enormous explosion at a gunpowder store—devasted the city of Delft, killing hundreds of people, including the extraordinary painter Carel Fabritius, and injuring thousands more. Framing the story around the life of Fabritius, Cumming illuminates this extraordinary moment in art history while also writing about her own father, a painter. Like Dutch art, the story gradually links country, city, town, street, house, interior—all the way to the bird on its perch, the blue and white tile, the smallest seed in a loaf of bread.
-
-
The deep dive into Dutch Art
- By toni on 08-06-23
By: Laura Cumming
-
The Art of Rivalry
- Four Friendships, Betrayals, and Breakthroughs in Modern Art
- By: Sebastian Smee
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 10 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Rivalry is at the heart of some of the most famous and fruitful relationships in history. The Art of Rivalry follows eight celebrated artists, each linked to a counterpart by friendship, admiration, envy, and ambition. All eight are household names today. But to achieve what they did, each needed the influence of a contemporary - one who was equally ambitious but who possessed sharply contrasting strengths and weaknesses.
-
-
Death by bob souer
- By SKWAD on 01-18-18
By: Sebastian Smee
-
The Gardner Heist
- The True Story of the World's Largest Unsolved Art Theft
- By: Ulrich Boser
- Narrated by: Stephen Graybill
- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After the death of famed art detective Harold Smith, reporter Ulrich Boser decided to take up the case. Exploring Smith's unfinished leads, Boser travels deep into the art underworld and comes across a remarkable cast of characters, including a brilliant rock 'n' roll thief, a gangster who professes his innocence in rhyming verse, and the enigmatic late Boston heiress Isabella Stewart Gardner herself. Boser becomes increasingly obsessed with the case and eventually uncovers startling new evidence about the identities of the thieves.
-
-
Loved it!
- By Amanda D. on 05-21-19
By: Ulrich Boser
-
The Lioness of Boston
- A Novel
- By: Emily Franklin
- Narrated by: Nancy Peterson
- Length: 13 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Lioness of Boston is a portrait of what society expected a woman's life to be, shattered by a courageous soul who rebelled and was determined to live on her own terms.
-
-
So Boring
- By Cathy S on 10-10-23
By: Emily Franklin
-
All the Beauty in the World
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me
- By: Patrick Bringley
- Narrated by: Patrick Bringley
- Length: 6 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Millions of people climb the grand marble staircase to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art every year. But only a select few have unrestricted access to every nook and cranny. They’re the guards who roam unobtrusively in dark blue suits, keeping a watchful eye on the two million square foot treasure house. Caught up in his glamourous fledgling career at The New Yorker, Patrick Bringley never thought that he’d be one of them.
-
-
Gallery 771
- By Jonathan Hurst on 06-10-23
By: Patrick Bringley
-
The Upside-Down World
- Meetings with the Dutch Masters
- By: Benjamin Moser
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 11 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Beyond the sainted Rembrandt—who harbored a startling darkness—and the mysterious Vermeer, whose true subject, it turned out, was lurking in plain sight, Moser got to know a whole galaxy of geniuses: the doomed virtuoso Carel Fabritius, the anguished wunderkind Jan Lievens, the deaf prodigy Hendrik Avercamp. Year after year, as he tried to make a life for himself in the Netherlands, Moser found friends among these centuries-dead artists. And he found that they, too, were struggling with the same questions that he was.
-
-
Great Book
- By PaulB on 02-29-24
By: Benjamin Moser
-
Thunderclap
- A Memoir of Art and Life and Sudden Death
- By: Laura Cumming
- Narrated by: Laura Cumming
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1654, the Thunderclap—an enormous explosion at a gunpowder store—devasted the city of Delft, killing hundreds of people, including the extraordinary painter Carel Fabritius, and injuring thousands more. Framing the story around the life of Fabritius, Cumming illuminates this extraordinary moment in art history while also writing about her own father, a painter. Like Dutch art, the story gradually links country, city, town, street, house, interior—all the way to the bird on its perch, the blue and white tile, the smallest seed in a loaf of bread.
-
-
The deep dive into Dutch Art
- By toni on 08-06-23
By: Laura Cumming
-
The Art of Rivalry
- Four Friendships, Betrayals, and Breakthroughs in Modern Art
- By: Sebastian Smee
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 10 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Rivalry is at the heart of some of the most famous and fruitful relationships in history. The Art of Rivalry follows eight celebrated artists, each linked to a counterpart by friendship, admiration, envy, and ambition. All eight are household names today. But to achieve what they did, each needed the influence of a contemporary - one who was equally ambitious but who possessed sharply contrasting strengths and weaknesses.
-
-
Death by bob souer
- By SKWAD on 01-18-18
By: Sebastian Smee
-
The Grand Affair
- John Singer Sargent in His World
- By: Paul Fisher
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 17 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A great American artist, John Singer Sargent is an abiding enigma. He scandalized viewers with the frankness and sensuality of his work, while dressing like a businessman and crafting a highly respectable persona. In The Grand Affair, scholar Paul Fisher explores the enigmas of fin de siecle sexuality and art, fashioning a biography that grants the man and his paintings new and intense life.
-
-
Not what I expected.
- By Anonymous User on 04-19-23
By: Paul Fisher
-
Hilma af Klint
- A Biography
- By: Julia Voss, Anne Posten - translator
- Narrated by: Doria Bramante
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Swedish painter Hilma af Klint (1862-1944) was forty-four years old when she broke with the academic tradition in which she had been trained to produce a body of radical, abstract works the likes of which had never been seen before. Today, it is widely accepted that af Klint was one of the earliest abstract academic painters in Europe. But this is only part of her story. Not only was she a working female artist, she was also an avowed clairvoyant and mystic.
-
-
Ruined by narration
- By Adeliese Baumann on 11-23-23
By: Julia Voss, and others
-
Radiant
- The Life and Line of Keith Haring
- By: Brad Gooch
- Narrated by: Graham Halstead
- Length: 18 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the 1980s, the subways of New York City were covered with art. In the stations, black matte sheets were pasted over outdated ads, and unsigned chalk drawings often popped up on these blank spaces. These temporary chalk drawings numbered in the thousands and became synonymous with a city as diverse as it was at war with itself, beset with poverty and crime but alive with art and creative energy. And every single one of these drawings was done by Keith Haring.
-
-
excellent!
- By Kristina Hammond on 05-22-24
By: Brad Gooch
-
When Women Ran Fifth Avenue
- Glamour and Power at the Dawn of American Fashion
- By: Julie Satow
- Narrated by: Karen Murray
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In When Women Ran Fifth Avenue, journalist Julie Satow draws back the curtain on three visionaries who took great risks, forging new paths for the women who followed in their footsteps. This stylish account, rich with personal drama and trade secrets, captures the department store in all its glitz, decadence, and fun, and showcases the women who made that beautifully curated world go round.
-
-
Read like a text book for fashion students.
- By JACKI on 06-24-24
By: Julie Satow
-
The Editor
- How Publishing Legend Judith Jones Shaped Culture in America
- By: Sara B. Franklin
- Narrated by: Eunice Wong
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When twenty-five-year-old Judith Jones began working as a secretary at Doubleday’s Paris office in 1949, she spent most of her time wading through manuscripts in the slush pile and passing on projects—until one day, a book caught her eye. She read it in one sitting, then begged her boss to consider publishing it. A year later, Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl became a bestseller. It was the start of a culture-defining career in publishing. Legendary editor Judith Jones finally gets her due in this intimate biography.
-
-
Gorgeous writing, perfect reader
- By Erin on 06-11-24
By: Sara B. Franklin
-
Table for Two
- Fictions
- By: Amor Towles
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini, J. Smith-Cameron
- Length: 13 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Millions of Amor Towles fans are in for a treat as he shares some of his shorter fiction: six stories based in New York City and a novella set in Golden Age Hollywood. The New York stories, most of which take place around the year 2000, consider the fateful consequences that can spring from brief encounters and the delicate mechanics of compromise that operate at the heart of modern marriages.
-
-
I wish I could give six stars on all fronts
- By Rocklin D. Alling on 04-13-24
By: Amor Towles
-
An Unfinished Love Story
- A Personal History of the 1960s
- By: Doris Kearns Goodwin
- Narrated by: Doris Kearns Goodwin, Bryan Cranston
- Length: 17 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s by Doris Kearns Goodwin, one of America’s most beloved historians, artfully weaves together biography, memoir, and history. She takes you along on the emotional journey she and her husband, Richard (Dick) Goodwin embarked upon in the last years of his life.
-
-
A Great Listen
- By Bill on 04-20-24
-
Paris in Ruins
- Love, War, and the Birth of Impressionism
- By: Sebastian Smee
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 12 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the summer of 1870 to the spring of 1871, famously dubbed the "Terrible Year" by Victor Hugo, Paris and its people were besieged, starved, and forced into surrender by Germans-then imperiled again as radical republicans established a breakaway Commune, ultimately crushed by the French Army after bloody street battles and the burning of central Paris.
-
-
Stunningly great narrator!
- By Julie Seavello on 12-26-24
By: Sebastian Smee
-
Get the Picture
- A Mind-Bending Journey Among the Inspired Artists and Obsessive Art Fiends Who Taught Me How to See
- By: Bianca Bosker
- Narrated by: Bianca Bosker
- Length: 10 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An award-winning journalist obsessed with obsession, Bianca Bosker’s existence was upended when she wandered into the art world—and couldn’t look away. Intrigued by artists who hyperventilate around their favorite colors and art fiends who max out credit cards to show hunks of metal they think can change the world, Bosker grew fixated on understanding why art matters and how she—or any of us—could engage with it more deeply.
-
-
I Don’t think I Got the Picture
- By Emily J. on 03-23-24
By: Bianca Bosker
-
Fierce Poise
- Helen Frankenthaler and 1950s New York
- By: Alexander Nemerov
- Narrated by: Alison Fraser
- Length: 8 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the dawn of the 1950s, a promising and dedicated young painter named Helen Frankenthaler, fresh out of college, moved back home to New York City to make her name. By the decade's end, she had succeeded in establishing herself as an important American artist of the postwar period. In the years in between, she made some of the most daring, head-turning paintings of her day and also came into her own as a woman: traveling the world, falling in and out of love, and engaging in an ongoing artistic education.
-
-
Fierce Poise
- By adnil on 06-16-21
-
Kingmaker
- Pamela Harriman's Astonishing Life of Power, Seduction, and Intrigue
- By: Sonia Purnell
- Narrated by: Louise Brealey
- Length: 16 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Pamela Churchill Harriman died in 1997, the obituaries that followed were predictably scathing–and many were downright sexist. Written off as a mere courtesan and social climber, her true legacy was overshadowed by a glamorous social life and her infamous erotic adventures. Much of what she did behind the scenes–on both sides of the Atlantic–remained invisible and secret. That is, until now: with a wealth of fresh research, interviews and newly discovered sources, Sonia Purnell unveils for the first time the full, spectacular story of how she left an indelible mark on the world today.
-
-
A detailed & sympathetic look at a singular, dazzling life.
- By KBB Boston, MA on 11-08-24
By: Sonia Purnell
-
Camille Pissarro
- The Audacity of Impressionism
- By: Anka Muhlstein, Adriana Hunter - translator
- Narrated by: Christine Rendel
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The celebrated painter Camille Pissarro (1830-1903) occupied a central place in the artistic scene of his time: a founding member of the new school of French painting, he was a close friend of Monet, a longtime associate in Degas's and Mary Cassatt's experimental work, a support to Cezanne and Gauguin, and a comfort to Van Gogh, and was backed by the great Parisian art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel throughout his career. Nevertheless, he felt a persistent sense of being set apart, different, and hard to classify.
-
-
a good education
- By VMXO L. on 10-26-24
By: Anka Muhlstein, and others
Related to this topic
-
The Art of War
- By: Sun Tzu
- Narrated by: Aidan Gillen
- Length: 1 hr and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The 13 chapters of The Art of War, each devoted to one aspect of warfare, were compiled by the high-ranking Chinese military general, strategist, and philosopher Sun-Tzu. In spite of its battlefield specificity, The Art of War has found new life in the modern age, with leaders in fields as wide and far-reaching as world politics, human psychology, and corporate strategy finding valuable insight in its timeworn words.
-
-
The actual book The Art of War, not a commentary
- By Nemo71 on 12-31-19
By: Sun Tzu
-
My Big TOE: Awakening
- Book One of a Trilogy Unifying Philosophy, Physics, and Metaphysics
- By: Thomas Campbell
- Narrated by: Thomas Campbell
- Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
My Big TOE: Awakening, written by a nuclear physicist in the language of contemporary culture, unifies science and philosophy, physics and metaphysics, mind and matter, purpose and meaning, the normal and the paranormal. The entirety of human experience (mind, body, and spirit) including both our objective and subjective worlds is brought together under one seamless scientific understanding.
-
-
What a Trip (but to where?)
- By Michael on 11-26-13
By: Thomas Campbell
-
The Mastery of Self
- A Toltec Guide to Personal Freedom
- By: Don Miguel Ruiz Jr.
- Narrated by: Charlie Varon
- Length: 3 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The ancient Toltecs believed that life, as we perceive it, is a dream. We each live in our own personal dream, and these come together to form the dream of the planet, or the world in which we live. Problems arise when our perception of the dream becomes clouded with negativity, drama, and judgment (of ourselves and others), because it's in these moments of suffering that we have forgotten that we are the architects of our own reality and we have the power to change our dream if we choose.
-
-
listen.. .then listen again
- By Casiano on 12-22-16
-
The Daily Stoic
- 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living
- By: Ryan Holiday, Stephen Hanselman
- Narrated by: Brian Holsopple
- Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Why have history's greatest minds - from George Washington to Frederick the Great to Ralph Waldo Emerson along with today's top performers, from Super Bowl-winning football coaches to CEOs and celebrities - embraced the wisdom of the ancient Stoics? Because they realize that the most valuable wisdom is timeless and that philosophy is for living a better life, not a classroom exercise. The Daily Stoic offers a daily devotional of Stoic insights and exercises, featuring all-new translations.
-
-
Not well made as audio
- By Andreas on 12-27-16
By: Ryan Holiday, and others
-
The Thin Line
- Hope vs. Reality in the Era of Weight-Loss Drugs
- By: Scaachi Koul
- Narrated by: Scaachi Koul
- Length: 4 hrs and 31 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Over the next five years, millions of more Americans are expected to take Ozempic and other GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, which are rapidly being recognized as the miracle drugs of this century. If you’re not on them, you’ll probably know someone who is. What are the implications of the widespread use of these drugs, both on our bodies and our society? In this show, you’ll meet people across America who are either taking the jab or thinking about it, and the shocking intentional and unintentional results they are seeing.
-
-
More balanced than expected and very comprehensive
- By Summer Rodriguez on 01-03-25
By: Scaachi Koul
-
The Parole Room
- By: Ben Austen
- Narrated by: Ben Austen
- Length: 4 hrs and 25 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Will Johnnie Veal—convicted of the murder of two police officers in 1970—be granted parole after 50 years in prison? How can he convince the parole board he’s reformed when he insists he’s innocent? What is prison time even supposed to accomplish? These are the questions that propel The Parole Room forward as it builds toward Johnnie’s 20th parole hearing—after 19 rejections.
-
-
Well done
- By Cynthia Duncan on 10-13-24
By: Ben Austen
-
The Art of War
- By: Sun Tzu
- Narrated by: Aidan Gillen
- Length: 1 hr and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The 13 chapters of The Art of War, each devoted to one aspect of warfare, were compiled by the high-ranking Chinese military general, strategist, and philosopher Sun-Tzu. In spite of its battlefield specificity, The Art of War has found new life in the modern age, with leaders in fields as wide and far-reaching as world politics, human psychology, and corporate strategy finding valuable insight in its timeworn words.
-
-
The actual book The Art of War, not a commentary
- By Nemo71 on 12-31-19
By: Sun Tzu
-
My Big TOE: Awakening
- Book One of a Trilogy Unifying Philosophy, Physics, and Metaphysics
- By: Thomas Campbell
- Narrated by: Thomas Campbell
- Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
My Big TOE: Awakening, written by a nuclear physicist in the language of contemporary culture, unifies science and philosophy, physics and metaphysics, mind and matter, purpose and meaning, the normal and the paranormal. The entirety of human experience (mind, body, and spirit) including both our objective and subjective worlds is brought together under one seamless scientific understanding.
-
-
What a Trip (but to where?)
- By Michael on 11-26-13
By: Thomas Campbell
-
The Mastery of Self
- A Toltec Guide to Personal Freedom
- By: Don Miguel Ruiz Jr.
- Narrated by: Charlie Varon
- Length: 3 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The ancient Toltecs believed that life, as we perceive it, is a dream. We each live in our own personal dream, and these come together to form the dream of the planet, or the world in which we live. Problems arise when our perception of the dream becomes clouded with negativity, drama, and judgment (of ourselves and others), because it's in these moments of suffering that we have forgotten that we are the architects of our own reality and we have the power to change our dream if we choose.
-
-
listen.. .then listen again
- By Casiano on 12-22-16
-
The Daily Stoic
- 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living
- By: Ryan Holiday, Stephen Hanselman
- Narrated by: Brian Holsopple
- Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Why have history's greatest minds - from George Washington to Frederick the Great to Ralph Waldo Emerson along with today's top performers, from Super Bowl-winning football coaches to CEOs and celebrities - embraced the wisdom of the ancient Stoics? Because they realize that the most valuable wisdom is timeless and that philosophy is for living a better life, not a classroom exercise. The Daily Stoic offers a daily devotional of Stoic insights and exercises, featuring all-new translations.
-
-
Not well made as audio
- By Andreas on 12-27-16
By: Ryan Holiday, and others
-
The Thin Line
- Hope vs. Reality in the Era of Weight-Loss Drugs
- By: Scaachi Koul
- Narrated by: Scaachi Koul
- Length: 4 hrs and 31 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Over the next five years, millions of more Americans are expected to take Ozempic and other GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, which are rapidly being recognized as the miracle drugs of this century. If you’re not on them, you’ll probably know someone who is. What are the implications of the widespread use of these drugs, both on our bodies and our society? In this show, you’ll meet people across America who are either taking the jab or thinking about it, and the shocking intentional and unintentional results they are seeing.
-
-
More balanced than expected and very comprehensive
- By Summer Rodriguez on 01-03-25
By: Scaachi Koul
-
The Parole Room
- By: Ben Austen
- Narrated by: Ben Austen
- Length: 4 hrs and 25 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Will Johnnie Veal—convicted of the murder of two police officers in 1970—be granted parole after 50 years in prison? How can he convince the parole board he’s reformed when he insists he’s innocent? What is prison time even supposed to accomplish? These are the questions that propel The Parole Room forward as it builds toward Johnnie’s 20th parole hearing—after 19 rejections.
-
-
Well done
- By Cynthia Duncan on 10-13-24
By: Ben Austen
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Last Light
- How Six Great Artists Made Old Age a Time of Triumph
- By: Richard Lacayo
- Narrated by: Mack Sanderson
- Length: 13 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of the nation’s top art critics shows how six great artists made old age a time of triumph by producing some of the greatest work of their long careers—and, in some cases, changing the course of art history. Though these six artists differed in many respects, they shared one thing: a determination to go on creating, driven not by the bounding energies of youth but by the ticking clock that would inspire them to produce some of their greatest masterpieces.
-
-
An art history course in one slim book
- By LC on 02-19-23
By: Richard Lacayo
-
The Lioness of Boston
- A Novel
- By: Emily Franklin
- Narrated by: Nancy Peterson
- Length: 13 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Lioness of Boston is a portrait of what society expected a woman's life to be, shattered by a courageous soul who rebelled and was determined to live on her own terms.
-
-
So Boring
- By Cathy S on 10-10-23
By: Emily Franklin
-
The Grand Affair
- John Singer Sargent in His World
- By: Paul Fisher
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 17 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A great American artist, John Singer Sargent is an abiding enigma. He scandalized viewers with the frankness and sensuality of his work, while dressing like a businessman and crafting a highly respectable persona. In The Grand Affair, scholar Paul Fisher explores the enigmas of fin de siecle sexuality and art, fashioning a biography that grants the man and his paintings new and intense life.
-
-
Not what I expected.
- By Anonymous User on 04-19-23
By: Paul Fisher
-
The Upside-Down World
- Meetings with the Dutch Masters
- By: Benjamin Moser
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 11 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Beyond the sainted Rembrandt—who harbored a startling darkness—and the mysterious Vermeer, whose true subject, it turned out, was lurking in plain sight, Moser got to know a whole galaxy of geniuses: the doomed virtuoso Carel Fabritius, the anguished wunderkind Jan Lievens, the deaf prodigy Hendrik Avercamp. Year after year, as he tried to make a life for himself in the Netherlands, Moser found friends among these centuries-dead artists. And he found that they, too, were struggling with the same questions that he was.
-
-
Great Book
- By PaulB on 02-29-24
By: Benjamin Moser
-
Camille Pissarro
- The Audacity of Impressionism
- By: Anka Muhlstein, Adriana Hunter - translator
- Narrated by: Christine Rendel
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The celebrated painter Camille Pissarro (1830-1903) occupied a central place in the artistic scene of his time: a founding member of the new school of French painting, he was a close friend of Monet, a longtime associate in Degas's and Mary Cassatt's experimental work, a support to Cezanne and Gauguin, and a comfort to Van Gogh, and was backed by the great Parisian art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel throughout his career. Nevertheless, he felt a persistent sense of being set apart, different, and hard to classify.
-
-
a good education
- By VMXO L. on 10-26-24
By: Anka Muhlstein, and others
-
Empresses of Seventh Avenue
- World War II, New York City, and the Birth of American Fashion
- By: Nancy MacDonell
- Narrated by: Gail Shalan
- Length: 10 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Empresses of Seventh Avenue will tell the story of how these extraordinary women put American fashion on the world stage and created the template for modern style—and how the nearly $500 billion American fashion industry, the largest in the world, could not have accrued its power and wealth without their farsightedness and determination.
-
-
The wonderful historical perspective.
- By george elliot "sandy" on 09-16-24
By: Nancy MacDonell
-
Last Light
- How Six Great Artists Made Old Age a Time of Triumph
- By: Richard Lacayo
- Narrated by: Mack Sanderson
- Length: 13 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of the nation’s top art critics shows how six great artists made old age a time of triumph by producing some of the greatest work of their long careers—and, in some cases, changing the course of art history. Though these six artists differed in many respects, they shared one thing: a determination to go on creating, driven not by the bounding energies of youth but by the ticking clock that would inspire them to produce some of their greatest masterpieces.
-
-
An art history course in one slim book
- By LC on 02-19-23
By: Richard Lacayo
-
The Lioness of Boston
- A Novel
- By: Emily Franklin
- Narrated by: Nancy Peterson
- Length: 13 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Lioness of Boston is a portrait of what society expected a woman's life to be, shattered by a courageous soul who rebelled and was determined to live on her own terms.
-
-
So Boring
- By Cathy S on 10-10-23
By: Emily Franklin
-
The Grand Affair
- John Singer Sargent in His World
- By: Paul Fisher
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 17 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A great American artist, John Singer Sargent is an abiding enigma. He scandalized viewers with the frankness and sensuality of his work, while dressing like a businessman and crafting a highly respectable persona. In The Grand Affair, scholar Paul Fisher explores the enigmas of fin de siecle sexuality and art, fashioning a biography that grants the man and his paintings new and intense life.
-
-
Not what I expected.
- By Anonymous User on 04-19-23
By: Paul Fisher
-
The Upside-Down World
- Meetings with the Dutch Masters
- By: Benjamin Moser
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 11 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Beyond the sainted Rembrandt—who harbored a startling darkness—and the mysterious Vermeer, whose true subject, it turned out, was lurking in plain sight, Moser got to know a whole galaxy of geniuses: the doomed virtuoso Carel Fabritius, the anguished wunderkind Jan Lievens, the deaf prodigy Hendrik Avercamp. Year after year, as he tried to make a life for himself in the Netherlands, Moser found friends among these centuries-dead artists. And he found that they, too, were struggling with the same questions that he was.
-
-
Great Book
- By PaulB on 02-29-24
By: Benjamin Moser
-
Camille Pissarro
- The Audacity of Impressionism
- By: Anka Muhlstein, Adriana Hunter - translator
- Narrated by: Christine Rendel
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The celebrated painter Camille Pissarro (1830-1903) occupied a central place in the artistic scene of his time: a founding member of the new school of French painting, he was a close friend of Monet, a longtime associate in Degas's and Mary Cassatt's experimental work, a support to Cezanne and Gauguin, and a comfort to Van Gogh, and was backed by the great Parisian art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel throughout his career. Nevertheless, he felt a persistent sense of being set apart, different, and hard to classify.
-
-
a good education
- By VMXO L. on 10-26-24
By: Anka Muhlstein, and others
-
Empresses of Seventh Avenue
- World War II, New York City, and the Birth of American Fashion
- By: Nancy MacDonell
- Narrated by: Gail Shalan
- Length: 10 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Empresses of Seventh Avenue will tell the story of how these extraordinary women put American fashion on the world stage and created the template for modern style—and how the nearly $500 billion American fashion industry, the largest in the world, could not have accrued its power and wealth without their farsightedness and determination.
-
-
The wonderful historical perspective.
- By george elliot "sandy" on 09-16-24
By: Nancy MacDonell
-
The Gardner Heist
- The True Story of the World's Largest Unsolved Art Theft
- By: Ulrich Boser
- Narrated by: Stephen Graybill
- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After the death of famed art detective Harold Smith, reporter Ulrich Boser decided to take up the case. Exploring Smith's unfinished leads, Boser travels deep into the art underworld and comes across a remarkable cast of characters, including a brilliant rock 'n' roll thief, a gangster who professes his innocence in rhyming verse, and the enigmatic late Boston heiress Isabella Stewart Gardner herself. Boser becomes increasingly obsessed with the case and eventually uncovers startling new evidence about the identities of the thieves.
-
-
Loved it!
- By Amanda D. on 05-21-19
By: Ulrich Boser
-
Loved and Missed
- By: Susie Boyt
- Narrated by: Polly Lee
- Length: 7 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ruth is a woman who believes in and despairs of the curative power of love. Her daughter, Eleanor, who is addicted to drugs, has just had a baby, Lily. Ruth adjusts herself in ways large and small to give to Eleanor what she thinks she may need—nourishment, distance, affection—but all her gifts fall short. After someone dies of an overdose in Eleanor's apartment, Ruth hands her daughter an envelope of cash and takes Lily home with her, and Lily, as she grows, proves a compensation for all of Ruth's past defeats and disappointment. Love without fear is a new feeling for her.
-
-
Well written memoir that pulls at your heart strings.
- By Anonymous User on 01-03-25
By: Susie Boyt
-
The Art of Rivalry
- Four Friendships, Betrayals, and Breakthroughs in Modern Art
- By: Sebastian Smee
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 10 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Rivalry is at the heart of some of the most famous and fruitful relationships in history. The Art of Rivalry follows eight celebrated artists, each linked to a counterpart by friendship, admiration, envy, and ambition. All eight are household names today. But to achieve what they did, each needed the influence of a contemporary - one who was equally ambitious but who possessed sharply contrasting strengths and weaknesses.
-
-
Death by bob souer
- By SKWAD on 01-18-18
By: Sebastian Smee
-
All the Beauty in the World
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me
- By: Patrick Bringley
- Narrated by: Patrick Bringley
- Length: 6 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Millions of people climb the grand marble staircase to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art every year. But only a select few have unrestricted access to every nook and cranny. They’re the guards who roam unobtrusively in dark blue suits, keeping a watchful eye on the two million square foot treasure house. Caught up in his glamourous fledgling career at The New Yorker, Patrick Bringley never thought that he’d be one of them.
-
-
Gallery 771
- By Jonathan Hurst on 06-10-23
By: Patrick Bringley
-
The Vegan
- By: Andrew Lipstein
- Narrated by: Adam Sims
- Length: 7 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Herschel Caine is a soon-to-be master of the universe. His hedge fund, built on the miracle of machine learning, is inches away from systematically extracting obscene profits from the market. His SoHo offices (shoes optional, therapy required) have been fine-tuned to reel in curious investors. But on the night of May 12, at his elegant Cobble Hill townhouse, he has something else on his mind—the dinner party he and his wife have devised to woo their new A-list neighbors. When the evening fizzles, Herschel indulges in a devilish prank that goes horrifically awry.
-
-
Loved this, from first word to last
- By Amazon Customer on 08-16-23
By: Andrew Lipstein
-
Sargent's Women
- Four Lives Behind the Canvas
- By: Donna M. Lucey
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Wiley
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With unprecedented access to newly discovered sources, Donna M. Lucey illuminates the lives of four extraordinary women painted by the iconic high-society portraitist John Singer Sargent. With uncanny clairvoyance, Sargent's portraits hint at the mysteries, passions, and tragedies that unfolded in his subjects' lives.
-
-
Bust for a big Sargent fan!
- By Jennifer on 11-26-17
By: Donna M. Lucey
-
Hilma af Klint
- A Biography
- By: Julia Voss, Anne Posten - translator
- Narrated by: Doria Bramante
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Swedish painter Hilma af Klint (1862-1944) was forty-four years old when she broke with the academic tradition in which she had been trained to produce a body of radical, abstract works the likes of which had never been seen before. Today, it is widely accepted that af Klint was one of the earliest abstract academic painters in Europe. But this is only part of her story. Not only was she a working female artist, she was also an avowed clairvoyant and mystic.
-
-
Ruined by narration
- By Adeliese Baumann on 11-23-23
By: Julia Voss, and others
-
Modern
- Genius, Madness, and One Tumultuous Decade That Changed Art Forever
- By: Philip Hook
- Narrated by: David Vickery
- Length: 11 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Modern begins on a specific day—March 22, 1905—at a specific place: the Salon des Indépendants in Paris, where works of art we recognize as modern were first exhibited. Philip Hook illuminates how this new art came to be—and how truly shocking it was. We witness movement upon movement that burst forth in dizzying succession: Fauvism, Expressionism, Primitivism, Symbolism, Cubism, Futurism, and Abstract. His vivid accounts breathe new life into the work and times of nearly two hundred artists, and whose collective genius was understood and appreciated by few at the time.
By: Philip Hook
-
Paris in Ruins
- Love, War, and the Birth of Impressionism
- By: Sebastian Smee
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 12 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the summer of 1870 to the spring of 1871, famously dubbed the "Terrible Year" by Victor Hugo, Paris and its people were besieged, starved, and forced into surrender by Germans-then imperiled again as radical republicans established a breakaway Commune, ultimately crushed by the French Army after bloody street battles and the burning of central Paris.
-
-
Stunningly great narrator!
- By Julie Seavello on 12-26-24
By: Sebastian Smee
-
When Women Ran Fifth Avenue
- Glamour and Power at the Dawn of American Fashion
- By: Julie Satow
- Narrated by: Karen Murray
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In When Women Ran Fifth Avenue, journalist Julie Satow draws back the curtain on three visionaries who took great risks, forging new paths for the women who followed in their footsteps. This stylish account, rich with personal drama and trade secrets, captures the department store in all its glitz, decadence, and fun, and showcases the women who made that beautifully curated world go round.
-
-
Read like a text book for fashion students.
- By JACKI on 06-24-24
By: Julie Satow
-
All That Glitters
- A Story of Friendship, Fraud, and Fine Art
- By: Orlando Whitfield
- Narrated by: Orlando Whitfield
- Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Orlando Whitfield and Inigo Philbrick met in 2006 at London’s Goldsmiths University where they became best friends. By 2007 they had started I&O Fine Art. Orlando would eventually set up his own gallery and watch as Inigo quickly immersed himself in a world of private jets and multimillion-dollar deals for major clients. Inigo seemed brilliant, but underneath the extravagant façade, his complicated financial schemes were unraveling. With debt, lawsuits, and court summonses piling up, Inigo went into a tailspin of lies and subterfuge.
-
-
Gripping
- By Anonymous User on 09-01-24
-
See What You're Missing
- New Ways of Looking at the World Through Art
- By: Will Gompertz
- Narrated by: Matt Addis
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Artists are expert lookers: they have learned to pay attention. The rest of us spend most of our time on autopilot, rushing from place to place, our overfamiliarity blinding us to the marvelous, life-affirming phenomena of our world. But that doesn't have to be the case. In his inimitable engaging style, Will Gompertz takes us into the minds of artists—from contemporary stars to old masters, the well-known to the lesser-so, and from around the world—to show us how to look and experience the world with their heightened awareness.
By: Will Gompertz
What listeners say about Chasing Beauty
Highly rated for:
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anka Z
- 10-15-24
Mrs Jack , America's greatest art collector .
dull reading of fascinating story of gilded age excess, social whirl of artists and artworld
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Kathleen Mccord
- 06-13-24
A Very Strong Woman
This book is filled with information: names, dates, travel itineraries and gossip. It gets a bit chatty and there is MUCH name-dropping, which does get tiresome, as it is not relevant. What IS interesting is her drive to collect beautiful art and display it as it has never been displayed before. The tragedies she suffered would have destroyed anyone else but she just kept going, and going, and going. I will visit the museum again with a whole new appreciation for it and the art Isabella so generously offered to her public to see. One simply has to be grateful that she was already deceased when her beloved museum was robbed.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- addictedknitter
- 04-02-24
The details of the portraits
I enjoyed the entire book the reader did an excellent job describing the paintings and other objects in the museum
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Joan
- 06-28-24
Sensory delight for fine art lovers
Sumptuous book outlining the life of Isabella Stewart Gardner that inspired me to enjoy the beauty of the everyday, people, art and experiences.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- John
- 05-11-24
A chronology
I liked this book very much. It is a long timeline well told. Essentially an exhaustive list of who’s who, where they are, and what they did, principally Mrs Jack, as she was called. It is completely factual, with pages of references and citations in the back. Skillfully recounted by the narrator.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 08-24-24
Great story about Isabella Stewart Gardner the art collector and human
As an undergraduate student in the Boston area, I would often visit her museum in the Harvard campus. Top notch and Beautiful collection that she left for various generations. This book is engaging and provides great background on how she built her legacy.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 04-21-24
Her life
Interesting life she led for sure told in a different way than usual biography very well done
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Charles
- 08-04-24
Chasing beauty is a great title
She did not have the massive wealth of JP Morgan. She did acquire great art, and had a unique way of displaying these treasures. She obtained one painting by showing the owner how she planned to display his painting. These displays were often accompanied by surrounding textiles. The descriptions of her overseas journeys that lasted for two or three months are unique compared to the short one or two week trips typical today. Traveling the Nile in Egypt on two houseboats for today’s cost of $115,000 was one of many unique excursions. The extended trips to Venice with palatial accommodations were some of her treasured memories.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- VM
- 08-29-24
Loved this book!
Isabella Stewart Gardener’s extraordinary vision and individuality. I can’t wait to go to visit her museum again now that I know more about her life and character.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Matt
- 04-09-24
The Penultimate ISG Biography
If you enjoy biography, this book knocks it out of the park. Dykstra brings to us a beautifully written book about the captivating woman, who was, Isabella Stewart Gardner.
It is extremely well researched and accomplishes the difficult task of emoting the thoughts, feelings, and experiences of its subject. It is so much more than facts and figures.
The narrator was fantastic, too…perfectly suited for this book. Highly recommend.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!