Friday's Notes
David Grann,"The Mark of a Masterpiece," New Yorker, 12 July, features Peter Paul Biro, who finds Leonardo's finger print on an obscure painting.
James Meek,"Some Wild Creature," LRB, 22 July, reviews The Diaries of Sofia Tolstoy, trans. by Cathy Porter, Leo Tolstoy's A Confession, trans. by Anthony Briggs, William Nickell's The Death of Tolstoy: Russia on the Eve, Astapovo Station, 1910, and Donna Tussing Orwin's Anniversary Essays on Tolstoy.
Roberta Smith,"Matisse at MoMA: Carving With Color," NYT, 15 July, reviews"Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913-1917," an exhibit at Manhattan's Museum of Modern Art.
Crystal N. Feimster reviews Sharon Davies's Rising Road: A True Tale of Love, Race, and Religion in America for THE, 15 July. A Methodist minister murders a Roman Catholic priest and is defended by a future member of the Supreme Court.
Aaron Thier,"Known Unknowns," The Book, 16 July, reviews Hans Magnus Enzensberger's The Silences of Hammerstein. Thier argues that it is Enzensberger's silences that raise his important questions about the writing of history.