histories of Egyptology: The Zodiac of Paris and The Riddle of the Rosetta. She serves as managing editor of the Victorian Web, the internet’s oldest and largest website devoted to Victoriana. A graduate of Brown University, she holds a PhD in History of Science from MIT and an MFA in fiction from Columbia University. She lives in Providence, Rhode Island.
Josefowicz's new novel is The Great Houses of Pill Hill.
[Q&A with Diane Josefowicz]
At CrimeReads the author tagged six favorite mysteries featuring miniatures, effigies, and tiny scenes. One title on the list:
Jessie Burton, The MiniaturistRead about another mystery on the list.
Set in seventeenth-century Amsterdam, this novel focuses on eighteen-year-old Nella Oortman, manipulated into marriage to a neglectful (and perhaps worse)wealthy merchant who brings her to the sumptuous yet conflict-riven home he shares with his gloomy sister. After he gives Nella a miniature version of their house as a wedding present, only the miniaturist whom Nella engages to help her furnish the house really understands what’s going on inside the household—but it’s not clear whose side he’s on.
In lucid strokes, Burton evokes the opulent world of the painter Johannes Vermeer, whose intimate and detailed interior scenes opened a window onto seventeenth-century Amsterdam and its powerful merchants. A treat for art lovers who adore the luminous paintings of the Dutch Masters, it’s also a meditation on feeling like an outsider while also being part of a family.
The Miniaturist is among Simon Garfield's eight top reads about miniature worlds.
--Marshal Zeringue
Posts
