The Swan Thieves

In the interest of furthering my non-running interests, here's a review of the last book I finnished...

I wholeheartedly recommend this book. It held my interest from the first few pages. In broad strokes, the story revolves around a psychiatrist and his patient who is a talented painter. The painter is caught in an art museum about to "attack" a painting with a pocket knife. Needless to say, the dude has pretty significant psychiatric disease, so significant that he doesn't speak for the vast majority of the book. Basically, the psychiatrist becomes really interested in this guy's case from both a professional and a personal perspective and he goes way beyond the bounds of the usual patient-physician relationship to figure out what makes his patient tick. He ends up meeting his patient's former loves, visiting other countries, traveling to many art museums. Intermixed in the real time story is a love story from the early 1900s told through letters and journals. So, so good! That's all I'm going to say so I don't ruin anything for you. Let's just say that I was sooo glad that the book was so long because I got to enjoy it for many days!







Another excellent book by Elizabeth Kostova is The Historian. It's a few years old, but well worth picking up. I don't remember the details of the book- I think I may re-read it in Hawaii next week- but suffice it to say it's part historical fiction, part mystery, w/ a touch of vampire thrown in for good measure! Trust me, it's good!