Credit: Reid Murray | Managing Editor for Design
“The Art Thief” by Michael Finkel, “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society” by Annie Barrows and Mary Ann Shaffer and “The Swan’s Nest” by Laura McNeal
Lucy’s Little Library is a monthly book column that recommends three must-reads to Ohio State’s literature lovers.
Dear reader, romance is a fulfilling but fickle mistress.
Across decades, centuries and even millennia, the pursuit of love has evolved into a complex and endearing human trait. Considering romance titles are a dime a dozen in today’s book market, this pint-sized collection of unconventional love stories should serve overwhelmed readers well.
Please note featured books are arranged in ascending order from lowest to highest page number. Students who are Ohio residents can apply for a free Columbus Metropolitan Library card online or at Thompson Library’s Circulation Desk, according to the University Libraries’ website.
“The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession” (2023)
Genre(s): nonfiction, true crime
Page count: 209
Core qualities: bizarre, exhilarating and journalistic
If the name Stéphane Breitwieser doesn’t sound familiar, prepare for an eccentric foray into the high-stakes realm of art crime.
Alongside his then-girlfriend Anne-Catherine Kleinklaus, Stéphane took advantage of the limited security measures at European museums throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s, stealing enough precious artifacts to amass a collection worth roughly $2 billion. For years, Stéphane and Anne-Catherine shared an attic bedroom brimming with vibrant oil paintings, delicate sculptures and shimmering silverworks — until their hoard and relationship burned to ashes.
Picking up “The Art Thief” is like purchasing a ticket to the convoluted exhibition of Stéphane’s criminal mind. His insatiable desire for aesthetic beauty, which Anne-Catherine both indulges and resents, will surely keep readers riveted from cover to cover.
Standout quote: “Art is the result of facing almost no survival pressure at all. It’s the product of leisure time. Our big brains, the most complex instruments known in the universe, have been released from the vigilance of evading predators and seeking sustenance, permitting our imagination to gambol and explore, to dream while awake, to share visions of God.”
(Left to right) “The Art Thief” by Michael Finkel, “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society” by Annie Barrows and Mary Ann Shaffer and “The Swan’s Nest” by Laura McNeal. Credit: Lucy Lawler | Managing Editor for Content
“The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society” (2008)
Genre(s): historical fiction, historical romance
Page count: 288
Core qualities: charming, powerful and tender
Adapted into a 2018 film starring Lily James and Michiel Huisman, this collaborative novel serves as a whimsically poignant dagger to the heart.
The plot follows an empathetic author named Juliet Ashton, who visits the island of Guernsey — located in the English Channel — in 1946, after receiving a written inquiry from farmer Dawsey Adams. A fan of Juliet’s writing, Dawsey is also an original member of “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society,” a local book club formed during the German occupation of the island in World War II.
As Juliet forms life-altering bonds with Dawsey and his loved ones, the organization works to obtain closure regarding its founder, Elizabeth McKenna, who was previously deported to France for helping a young Polish boy. Tangled mysteries unravel with every chapter, revealing the satisfying yet sorrowful invisible thread that ties the characters together. This spring, don’t let that thread go unnoticed.
Standout quote: “That’s what I love about reading: One tiny thing will interest you in a book, and that tiny thing will lead you onto another book, and another bit there will lead you onto a third book. It’s geometrically progressive — all with no end in sight, and for no other reason than sheer enjoyment.”
“The Swan’s Nest” (2024)
Genre(s): historical fiction, biographical fiction
Page count: 298
Core qualities: enriching, multilayered and subtly mesmerizing
For much of her early life, Elizabeth Barrett — one of Victorian England’s most prominent poets — was confined to her bedroom due to poor health and an authoritarian father.
By and large, cultivating romance should have been impossible in these restrictive circumstances. But when fellow poet Robert Browning begins writing Elizabeth letters, enchanted by her command of the art form they both live and breathe, she cannot help falling in love.
McNeal’s reconstruction of this famously improbable marriage, underscored by the Barrett family’s dysfunctional trauma and immoral ties to sugar plantations in Jamaica, is as elegant and sleek as the bird for which it’s named. The ensemble cast also has no weak links, with each character adding a distinct and melancholic flavor to the overall narrative.
Standout quote: “It was ten thousand times better to read Mr. Browning and write Mr. Browning than to be a woman in a body, in a dress, in a hot, crowded, noisy room. At a dinner party, you never stopped thinking of your face or the face of the person you were talking to. Horrifying impediments: faces.”
Check back in next month for another entry of “Lucy’s Little Library,” the column that recommends three must-reads to Ohio State’s literature lovers. Credit: Lucy Lawler | Managing Editor for Content
