I, Mona Lisa, Natasha Solomons
I, Mona Lisa, Natasha Solomons
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I, Mona Lisa

Author: Natasha Solomons

Narrator: Amelia Donkor

Unabridged: 11 hr 15 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 02/10/2022


Synopsis

Brought to you by Penguin.

Listen to my history. My adventures are worth hearing. I have lived many lifetimes and been loved by emperors, kings and thieves. I have survived kidnap and assault. Revolution and two world wars. But this is also a love story. And the story of what we will do for those we love.

For five hundred years we've been looking at the Mona Lisa and it turns out that she's been looking right back at us. Over the centuries, few could hear her voice, but now we are let into the secret, as she tells us her story in her own words - a tale of rivalry, murder and heartbreak. And a mystery of Leonardo's greatest lost painting. Weaving through the years she takes us from the dazzling world of da Vinci's Florentine studio to the French courts at Fontainebleau and Versailles, and into the Twentieth Century.

But, always Mona Lisa returns to Leonardo himself. Most of all, this is a love story between painting and painter. Sometimes it takes an immortal to show us what it is to be human.

'A treat of a book' The Guardian on Mr Rosenblum's List

'Brims with passion and skillfully evokes a bygone era... a beautifully written tale' The Times on Mr Rosenblum's List

© Natasha Solomons 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022

About Natasha Solomons

Natasha Solomons is the author of the internationally bestselling Mr Rosenblum's List, The Novel in the Viola, which was chosen for the Richard & Judy Book Club, and The Gallery of Vanished Husbands. Natasha lives in Dorset with her son and her husband with whom she also writes screenplays. Her novels have been translated into 17 languages.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Beth, BooksNest on January 29, 2023

To personify a painting and make the story gripping for 400 pages is a feat Natasha Solomon has achieved. I can see this wouldn't be a book for everyone with its slow pacing and how it goes back and forth in time, but wow, what a fantastic and unique read! To observe history through the eyes of the......more

Goodreads review by Helen on January 14, 2022

Many of us will, on a trip to Paris, have stood in the Louvre in front of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. We may also know some of the details of the painting’s history – its creation in Renaissance Italy, its theft from the Louvre in 1911. However, this new novel by Natasha Solomons adds a whole new......more

Goodreads review by Thebooktrail on November 12, 2021

ooh I enjoyed this one! Find out who was the woman behind THAT enigmatic painting of the Mona Lisa? Go to France and Florence to discover her story? You will never look at the painting in the same way again. Brilliant! Discover the locations in I Mona Lisa here......more

Goodreads review by bookishcharli on December 03, 2021

Listen to my history. My adventures are worth hearing. I have lived many lifetimes and been loved by emperors, kings and thieves. I have survived kidnap and assault. Revolution and two world wars. But this is also a love story. And the story of what we will do for those we love. I think most people a......more

Goodreads review by Kirkirvarpa on December 28, 2024

Istoriją pasakoja pati garsiausia pasaulyje nutapyta moteris Mona Liza. Su skaitytoju kalbasi ne istorinė asmenybė, o ta Mona Liza iš paveikslo. Ir pasakoja ji tai, ką mato ir jaučia paveikslinė asmenybė. Neįprastas rakursas, ar ne? Dabar įsivaizduokim, kad drobė nutapyta 1503-1506 metais. Paveiksla......more


Quotes

[A] lively, tender tale . . . In her zingy new novel [Solomons] gives the Mona Lisa . . . power, casting her as the fanciful narrator of her own story The Times

Solomons' prose is lyrical and her detail immense. No longer can I look at the Mona Lisa without hearing her. But more, now I know her Press Association

A wonderfully written story of art, but also of obsession, friendship and love - I absolutely adored this novel

Oh, my god, I love this book! Extraordinarily inventive, a beautifully written, literary tour-de-force - a delicious historical and artistic feast

A vividly beautiful tribute Woman's Own Magazine

History buffs will find much to enjoy... moreover her writing is melodic, as precise as the brushstrokes on a Renaissance painting Jewish Chronicle