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Start giftingAll the Beauty in the World
This audiobook uses AI narration.
We’re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.
Learn moreBrought to you by Penguin.
Millions of people climb the grand marble staircase into New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art every year. But only a select few have unrestricted access to every nook and cranny.
They're the guards in dark blue suits, keeping careful watch over this vast treasure house. Caught up in the early days of a glamorous journalism career, Patrick Bringley never thought he'd be one of them. Then his brother was diagnosed with fatal cancer and he needed to escape the mundane clamour of daily life. So he quit, and sought solace in the most beautiful place he knew.
To his surprise, this temporary refuge becomes his home away from home for a decade. We follow him as he guards delicate treasures from Egypt to Rome, strolls the labyrinths beneath the galleries, and discovers how restorative art can be.
Bringley enters the museum as a ghost, silent and almost invisible, but soon finds his voice and place amongst the lively subculture of museum guards. As his bonds with colleagues and the artwork 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.
All the Beauty in the World is a moving, revelatory portrait of one of the world's great museums and its treasures by someone whose value is often overlooked: the museum guard.
©2023 Patrick Bringley (P)2023 Penguin Audio
Patrick Bringley (Author, Reader)
Patrick Bringley worked for ten years as a guard in the galleries of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Previously, he worked in the editorial events office at the New Yorker magazine. He lectures widely at museums and leads public and private tours of the Met (more information can be found at patrickbringley.com). He lives with his wife and children in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. All the Beauty in the World is his first book.
Patrick Bringley (Author, Reader)
Patrick Bringley worked for ten years as a guard in the galleries of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Previously, he worked in the editorial events office at the New Yorker magazine. He lectures widely at museums and leads public and private tours of the Met (more information can be found at patrickbringley.com). He lives with his wife and children in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. All the Beauty in the World is his first book.
Reviews
Hauntingly beautiful ... elegant ... a work of art as luminous as the old masters' paintings that comforted [Bringley] in his grief Consoling and beautiful Bringley is a marvellous guide ... All the Beauty in the World succeeds joyously Who would have thought that the outstanding art book of the year would be written not by a curator or an art historian or even an artist – but by a museum guard? Greek vases, an Iroquois turtle rattle, Picassos. His every word about them is illuminating. The big picture is art’s power to console and unite Expand reviewsSlow Burn Books is proud to partner with Libro.fm to give you a great audiobook experience.