

The Center of the World
Author: Thomas Van Essen
Narrator: various readers
Unabridged: 9 hr 53 min
Format: Digital Audiobook Download
Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Published: 06/04/2013
Categories: Fiction
Author: Thomas Van Essen
Narrator: various readers
Unabridged: 9 hr 53 min
Format: Digital Audiobook Download
Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Published: 06/04/2013
Categories: Fiction
Thomas Van Essen graduated from Sarah Lawrence College and earned his PhD in English from Rutgers University. He lives in New Jersey with his family. The Center of the World is his first novel.
The Center of the World is the story of a painting that doesn't exist - but by the time I turned the last page, I wished it did. The painting in question bears the same title as the novel, and it is a work of both erotic power and remarkable beauty and detail. Thomas Van Essen leads us, deliberately......more
I'm a half-rabid Turner fan and ran across a mention of this book in the general info swirling around Mike Leigh's biopic coming to the US soon: Mr Turner. It won the Palme d'Or at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival. So I was expecting too much, something akin to standing in front of a Turner in a quiet......more
In preparation for seeing the JMW Turner paintings in the Tate in London I went to the library site to find a book about him. I found this. It is a nicely constructed story of a secret painting and its provenance from the time it was painted till now. An absorbing audiobook that was part historic fi......more
This week I read The Center of the World by Thomas Van Essen. When asked about his inspiration for writing the novel, Van Essen answered that while in a nineteenth century nonfiction graduate course, his professor related a story about Ruskin supposedly burning J.M.W. Turner's erotic sketches. Van E......more
The Center of the World is a sweeping tale about a fictional painting of the same name by J.M.W. Turner depicting an erotic scene of Helen of Troy. The story shifts back and forth from 19th century England where we witness the creation of the painting and present day New England where a married man......more