All the Beauty in the World cover art

All the Beauty in the World

A Museum Guard’s Adventures in Life, Loss and Art

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All the Beauty in the World

By: Patrick Bringley
Narrated by: Patrick Bringley
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About this listen

Brought 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.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2023 Patrick Bringley (P)2023 Penguin Audio
Art Cultural & Regional Library & Museum Studies Social Sciences
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What a phenomenal voice, the works of art come to life and the mind meanders through the ages listening to Patrick's calm and expert narration. Bravo. More please and thank you.

giving a voice to art

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I LOVED this book. Thankyou for the recommendation Sophie. The dissertation about the art in the Met and life is beautiful. As soon as I finished I wanted to start again . It is that good. Run don’t walk.

An absolutely beautiful book

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Enjoyable journey. Good to hear positive Reflections on solitude and some great insights from a non-artist.

Enjoyable journey and some great insights

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Beautifully written and narrated by the author. A fascinating insight into the mind of a former security guard at MET.
PDF is not useful. Just go to his website, all images are not just listed but hyper-linked to online images for you to see.

Highly recommend

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This is one of the most interesting books I’ve listened to / read in the last few years. It’s a very moving story and fascinating insight into the met and the authors life. Highly recommend

Excellent

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Gorgeous contemplation on grief and the restorative power of beauty, art, and community.


"Much of the greatest art, I find, seeks to remind us of the obvious. 'This is real,' is all it says."

A gentle and loving memoir

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When Patrick Bringley’s older brother died at age 26, he left his job at the New Yorker and started work as a museum guard at the Metropolitan Museum, where he remained for ten years.

This is an account of his time there. Bringley writes about his grief, the museum itself - its vastness, how it is administered, his fellow guards, a veritable United Nations, what it is like to walk on marble for hours (not easy), and how time slows when guarding works of art.

Most wondrously, he writes about the art around him. And the pieces described are varied - from Fran Angelico’s Cruxifiction (his favourite), to the Greek Kouros, to the quilts made in Gee’s Bend in Alabama. Patrick Bringley is not trained in art history nor art, but he writes beautifully. His style is gentle, his insights honest and humble, and when he describes great art, you understand how and why it moved him, and hence, why it would move you.

I’ve enjoyed some great books about art and artists, both in fiction and non-fiction, and this elegant, moving book is amongst the best.

Beautifully written, moving

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