Description

**THE SUNDAY TIMES ART BOOK OF THE YEAR**
**A Sunday Times and Financial Times Best Book of 2023**

A revelatory portrait of life in a great museum and the moving story of one guard’s quest to find solace and meaning in art

‘Who would have thought that the outstanding art book of you would have been written not by a curator or an art historian or even an artist – but by a museum guard?’ Sunday Times

Millions of people climb the grand marble staircase into New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art every year. Patrick Bringley never thought he’d be one of them. But when his brother was diagnosed with fatal cancer he quit his journalism job, and sought peace in the most beautiful place he knew.

To his surprise, this temporary refuge becomes his home away from home for a decade. Bringley enters the museum as a ghost, silent and almost invisible, but soon finds his voice and place among the lively subculture of museum guards. As his bonds with colleagues and the art grow, he learns how fortunate he is to be walled off in this little world and how much it resembles the best aspects of the larger world to which he gradually, gratefully returns.

‘A work as luminous as the old masters’ paintings’ Daily Mail
‘Outstanding’ Sunday Times
‘Consoling and beautiful’ Guardian
‘Marvellous’ Daily Telegraph

Publisher Review

Consoling and beautiful * Guardian, *Nonfiction to look out for in 2023* * This absorbing memoir is also a beautifully written manual on how to appreciate art, and life. It's a must read for art lovers * Tracy Chevalier, author of Girl with a Pearl Earring * Wonderful. If you have ever been to a museum and stood motionless before an exhibit, if you've ever looked at a painting and found yourself crying, if you have ever wondered how a sculptor could find a human body inside a block of stone, this book is for you * Natalie Haynes, author of A Thousand Ships * This book makes me yearn to have Patrick Bringley at my side in every museum I will visit for the rest of my life. Having a copy of All the Beauty in the World in my purse will be the next best thing * Hope Jahren, author of Lab Girl * An astounding book about an astounding place * Alex Ross, author of The Rest is Noise * An intimate perspective on one of the world's greatest institutions. But All the Beauty in the World is about much more: the strange human impulse to make art, the mystery of experiencing art, and what role art can play in our lives. What a gift * Rumaan Alam, author of Leave the World Behind * This book will change your experience of museums, connecting you with the stories of those who make them possible and revealing the layers of wonder that gather in the quiet halls where art meets modern life. Bringley's keen, warm-hearted dispatches remind us - as art itself should - of our common humanity * Mark Vanhoenacker, author of Imagine a City * Perhaps most importantly, though, All the Beauty in the World is a story about grief and about beauty, and about how inextricably the two are linked * Vox * Hauntingly beautiful ... Elegant in its simplicity and dedicated to his brother, Tom, Bringley explores the way that great works of art can function as a balm for the soul. ... In some respects, Bringley's debut is a classic workplace memoir, [but] Bringley's primary interest is in the miracle of art, whether painting, sculpture or his own vocation, writing. His intuition that the Met - a place of 'soundless beauty' - would be a better place than a trendy magazine to pursue his craft turned out to be right. The humble union job gave him the time and space he needed to produce a work of art as luminous as the old masters' paintings that comforted him in his grief * Daily Mail Online * Illuminating and transformative * Kerry James Marshall, Artist * A profound homage to the marvels of a world-class museum and a radiant chronicle of grief, perception, and a renewed embrace of life * Booklist * Intimate and fascinating * Town and Country * Prepare to be wooed by this memoir, which doubles as a loving memoir of the Met from one of its most inside insiders: Patrick Bringliey, who worked at the museum as a guard for a decade. * LitHub * A beautiful tale about beauty. It is also a tale about grief, balancing solitude and comradeship, and finding joy in both the exalted and the mundane * Washington Post * Bringley's memoir abounds with small details ... but it also has grander subjects to address - namely, solitude, the staying power of art, and grief. ... In the end, All the Beauty in the World is an empathetic chronicle of one museum, the works collected there and the people who keep it running - all recounted by an especially patient observer * New York Times Book Review * Simply wonderful. This funny, moving, beautifully written book takes the reader on a journey that unfolds as epiphanies. It is a testament to the capacity of art to illuminate life * Keith Christiansen, Curator Emeritus, the Metropolitan Museum of Art * Few know the secrets of the Metropolitan Museum of Art like the guards who roam its two million square feet treasure, keeping an eye on its treasures. For a decade, Patrick Bringley was one of them, and in this moving memoir, he recounts bonding with his colleagues and marveling at the beautiful works of art he is entrusted to protect * New York Post * A unique workplace memoir that tells the tale of the museum and the people who keep it running * Book Riot *