Short Life in a Strange World: Birth to Death in 42 Panels
Written by Toby Ferris
Narrated by Jot Davies
4/5
()
Unavailable in your country
Unavailable in your country
About this audiobook
Sure to be hailed alongside H is for Hawk and The Hare with Amber Eyes, an exceptional work that is at once an astonishing journey across countries and continents, an immersive examination of a great artist’s work, and a moving and intimate memoir.
At the age of 42, his father not long dead and his young sons growing fast, Toby Ferris set off on a seemingly quixotic mission to track down each of the 42 surviving paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, who, at the age of 42, had been approaching the end of his own short life.
Over the next five years Ferris would travel to 22 galleries in 19 cities in 12 countries across 2 continents: Budapest to San Diego, Detroit to Naples, Berlin to Madrid, ticking off his Bruegels as he went.
The results of his journeying are a revelation: Bruegel’s panels, their landscapes teeming with robust life, become a lens through which Ferris takes stock of the world, informing everything from mortality, fatherhood, and contemporary life, to the bombing of Rotterdam, the extinction of North American megafauna, and how to ward off bears in the forest.
Short Life in a Strange World is a dazzlingly original hybrid of art criticism, philosophical reflection and poignant memoir, a book about one man’s obsession with Bruegel’s short life in a strange if familiar world, and the precisely-detailed yet cosmos-encompassing works in ink and oil which sprang from it.
And it begins with the story of a boy who fell from the sky.
Toby Ferris
Toby Ferris is the creator of “Anatomy of Norbiton,” a web-based series of essays on suburban life and universal failure, as seen through the lens of the art of the Renaissance. He lives and works in Cambridge. Short Life in a Strange World is his first book. http://anatomyofnorbiton.org/
Related to Short Life in a Strange World
Related audiobooks
The Draw of the Sea Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Brief Space Between Color and Shade Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDaunderlust: Dispatches from Unreported Scotland Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLovers Dreamers Fighters Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMr Bones: Twenty Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Fenland Garden: Creating a haven for people, plants and wildlife in the Lincolnshire Fens Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIce Diaries (Booktrack Edition): An Antarctic Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Finding True North: The Healing Power of Place Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Without Stopping Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFigures in a Landscape Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Muscle Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5My Other Life Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Old Patagonian Express Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Vampire Movies Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Time Come: Selected Prose Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Performer's Tale: The Nine Lives of Patience Collier Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAll Cheeses Great and Small: A Life Less Blurry Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wild Isles Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Sloth Lemur’s Song: Madagascar from the Deep Past to the Uncertain Present Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Curlew Moon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Chasing the Devil Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stealing the Mystic Lamb: The True Story of the World's Most Coveted Masterpiece Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Traveller: Observations from an American in Exile Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Alexanderplatz, Berlin Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Vidal in Venice Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Distant Episode Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMurder in Mount Holly Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Year of the End: A Memoir of Marriage, Truth and Fiction Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5About This Life: Journeys on the Threshold of Memory Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Art For You
Ikigai: The Japanese Life Philosophy to Finding Happiness and Peacefulness Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Art & Fear: Observations On the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Summary: The Creative Act: A Way of Being By Rick Rubin: Key Takeaways, Summary and Analysis Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Van Gogh: The Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Giving Tree Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Meditations Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unlocking Your Creativity Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Summary: The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron: Key Takeaways, Summary & Analysis Included Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAnatomy of a Song: The Oral History of 45 Iconic Hits That Changed Rock, R&B and Pop Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Culture: The Story of Us, From Cave Art to K-Pop Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cinema Speculation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Art, Inc.: The Essential Guide for Building Your Career as an Artist Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5World Travel: An Irreverent Guide Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Adversity for Sale: Ya Gotta Believe Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5All The Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Create: Tools from Seriously Talented People to Unleash Your Creative Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Place of My Own: The Architecture of Daydreams Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Wok: Recipes and Techniques Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Faith, Hope and Carnage Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Exotic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Recessional: The Death of Free Speech and the Cost of a Free Lunch Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Story of Art Without Men Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Craft of Writing Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Heroin Diaries: Ten Year Anniversary Edition: A Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unearthing: A Story of Tangled Love and Family Secrets Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Heart: Frida Kahlo in Paris Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Short Life in a Strange World
2 ratings0 reviews