As to the second of our first two books, it’s another about an art monster of sorts, only this one is a woman. I first read The Florentine Papers when it was initially published, back in 1991, and it immediately became a favorite for its hilarity, its vocabulary, its dunderheaded narrator, and its pathos in spite of all the rest. I’m thrilled to bring it back into print, and to have such a great cover designed by the author himself, Thom Palmer. The novel is set in San Francisco and the nameless narrator is a figure out of Nabokov. You may not know his name, but you will surely feel his pain.