An exquisite ( The Washington Post ) hauntingly beautiful (Associated Press) portrait of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and its treasures by a former New Yorker staff who spent a decade as a Museum guard.
In the tradition of classic workplace memoirs like Lab Girl and Working Stiff , All the Beauty in the World is an empathic ( The New York Times Book Review ), moving (NPR), consoling, and beautiful ( The Guardian ) portrait of a great museum, its hidden treasures, and the people who make it tick, by one of its most intimate observers..
As his bonds with his colleagues and the art grow, he comes to understand 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.
Bringley enters the Museum as a ghost, silent and almost invisible, but soon finds his voice and his tribe: the artworks and their creators and the lively subculture of Museum guards--a gorgeous mosaic of artists, musicians, blue-collar stalwarts, immigrants, cutups, and dreamers.
We follow him as he guards delicate treasures from Egypt to Rome, strolls the labyrinths beneath the galleries, wears out nine pairs of company shoes, and marvels at the beautiful works in his care.
To his surprise and your delight, this temporary refuge becomes Bringley\'s home away from home for a decade.
So he quit The New Yorker and sought solace in the most beautiful place he knew.
Then his older brother was diagnosed with fatal cancer and he found himself needing to escape the mundane clamor of daily life.
Caught up in his glamourous fledgling career at The New Yorker , Patrick Bringley never thought that he\'d be one of them.
They\'re the guards who roam unobtrusively in dark blue suits, keeping a watchful eye on the two million square foot treasure house.
But only a select few have unrestricted access to every nook and cranny.
Millions of people climb the grand marble staircase to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art every year.
An exquisite ( The Washington Post ) hauntingly beautiful (Associated Press) portrait of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and its treasures by a former New Yorker staff who spent a decade as a Museum guard
