This is not an easy book to classify. In his introduction the author perhaps puts it best, "This book is meant as a kind of Wunderkammer, a cabinet of wonders about art, which, like the heart, can sometimes defy logic..." However you may need to read the book to learn just what a Wunderkammer is. At a more superficial level I might say that this book poses the eternal question, "What is art?" and reflects upon the answers to that question.

I was given this book as a present by a colleague and I thank him heartily for his thoughtful choice. Kimmelman has a very distinctive and agreable literary voice. His seemingly artless musings and oblique insights are a delight to read - his thoughts are deep and stimulating but are expressed in a conversational and confiding way. He is erudite but wears his scholarship lightly - there is something of a zen-like quality to this book with its numerous unexpected but illuminating juxtapositions of odd facts and reflections.

I am not someone who is a natural reader of art critics - I prefer to make my own mind up about art and usually find the evaluations of art critics and historians more irritating than informing. However, I do recommend this book - and I am moved to read more of Kimmelman's writings. ( )

The book is a series of essays each one taking a slightly different perspective on life as art. Although the material is substantive it reads smoothly and with a gentle ease often lost in this type of philosophical art critic. The content was entertaining and could lead to an extended lunch in order to complete the last few pages of a chapter. But in the end the overall book was not memorable. I can recall to you high level themes; art of collecting, simple pleasures or the art of making a world, but int he end the imprint this book made on me was shallow. Is was an entertaining but not a life changing read. http://nicolevlozano.blogspot.com/200... ( )

M. Kimmelman is a gifted writer with soft, yet determined voice that succinctly delivers his thoughts on the delicacy of art. ( )