Volume 1
Part 1
Chapter 1: The Boy with the Skull
Chapter 2 Anatomy Lecture
Chapter 3 Park
Chapter 4 Morphine Lollipops
Part 2
Chapter 5 Badr al-Din
Chapter 6: Wind, Sand, and Stars
Part 3
Chapter 7: The Shop Behind the Shop
Chapter 8: The Shop Behind the Shop, continued

A new work from genius author Donna Tartt, her first in 11 years.

Donna Tartt captivated critics and readers alike with her beautiful, classically inspired prose, sophisticated narrative structure, and expansive intellectual playfulness when she published her debut, The Secret Season, in 1992, eight years in the making.
Following this work, which earned him the title of "genius writer," his next work, "Little Friend," published 10 years later, also won the WH Smith Award and was shortlisted for the Orange Award, solidifying the author's reputation.
This was followed by a 'prediction' that Donna Tartt would, after a long silence, produce another overwhelming work proportional to the time.
And “The Goldfinch,” which was released after 11 years, was enough to satisfy those expectations.


A dangerous longing that begins at the moment of loss,
And the odyssey towards the origin

[The Goldfinch] is a real painting by 17th-century painter Carel Fabritius, who died in an explosion. The main character, a boy named Sio, loses his mother in the art museum explosion and escapes the scene with this painting.
With his father having already abandoned him and his mother, the boy is left in the care of a wealthy friend, and the world begins to search for the missing [Goldfinch].
The boy, who missed the chance to return the painting amidst a sense of loss, now thinks of the painting as 'his' and embarks on a difficult path.
Like the bird in the painting tied to a tree, the boy struggles and makes foolish choices, only to return to the fateful day when he lost his mother.
Will the boy be able to regain his full life and return his painting to its rightful place?

Through the story of a boy's growth, thrown off track by a single tragedy, the novel reflects on the human frailty known as fate, and such frailty is expressed as a longing and obsession with things that do not change.
The unfamiliar scenes of the art black market and the repair and trading of antique furniture that unfold along the boy's path are intriguing and central to the story.
The same goes for the stark reality of the metropolis that is New York.
The contrast between immigrants stuck at the bottom of society and the elite is an interesting observation and in itself a bitter insight into human reality.


Explosive reaction surrounding "The Goldfinch"

"The Goldfinch," which tackles such a difficult subject with flowing rhetoric and detailed settings, created a sensation immediately after its publication.
American entertainment magazine [Vanity Fair] compared the sensation of "Have you seen [Breaking Bad]?" to the popular drama [Breaking Bad] that swept the nation, and expressed it as "Have you read The Goldfinch?"
[New York Times] It stayed on the bestseller list for 45 weeks, and also occupied the bestseller spot for a long time in the UK, France, Italy, Finland, and Germany, and was translated and published in 32 countries, and was scheduled to be made into a movie by Warner Bros., etc.
It was also selected as a best book by Amazon, [The New York Times], and [Publisher's Weekly], and its literary quality was recognized when it won the Andrew Carnegie Medal of the American Library Association and the 2014 Pulitzer Prize.


Even more interestingly, despite the book being nearly 800 pages long, it recorded the highest completion rate with a Hawking Index of 98.5%.
The Hawking Index was developed by University of Wisconsin professor Jordan Ellenberg and is based on the distribution of the five most frequently underlined passages in a book by readers using the Amazon Kindle highlighting feature.
In this survey of Amazon bestsellers, The Goldfinch ranked first by a significant margin over other books (The Hunger Games at 43.4% and Great Expectations at 28.3%).
Regarding this high level of attraction, novelist Stephen King commented, "It's like watching a game where no mistakes are made."


Along with the popularity of the work, interest in the author, who had been silent for 11 years, has grown again, and she was selected as one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time, and fashion designer Kate Sylvester was inspired by her adherence to mannish fashion and presented a collection called 'Tart'.
In addition, the painting itself received a lot of attention, with 200,000 visitors coming to see [The Goldfinch] over three months at the 'Dutch Masters' exhibition held at the Frick Collection in New York.
This book reignited the Donna Tartt craze that began in 1992 and became a phenomenon.



Recommendation

As I read, I was surprised and excited, as if I was watching a game where the pitcher led the team to the end without giving up a single run.
If you're expecting mistakes to be made, this book is a waste of time.
Donna Tartt achieved great literary success by boldly exploring the theme of "art as a rescue from the addictive and burdensome sorrows of life." - Stephen King

The characters are elaborately drawn as they follow the complex intertwining of a boy grieving over loss and a lost masterpiece.
A beautiful novel that stirs our minds and touches our hearts. -Pulitzer.org

An engaging and harmonious work, brought to life by Donna Tartt's masterful storytelling.
It will revive the joy of staying up all night and reading with immersion. - Michiko Kakutani, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic

A very fascinating novel.
I'd love to hold it in my hand. - [Le ​​Monde]

In this work, nothing is simply mentioned.
Everything is ingeniously connected, and every scene is important. - The Dutch Dachblatt