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Despite the fantastic eccentricities, beautiful buildings and lavish lifestyles that are contained in this book, aided in part by the lovely layout and multiple images that appear throughout, this is a book that at its heart is a warm and loving biography of very real people. Flawed, human and endlessly fascinating, the fact that author Sofka is related to these men (even if potentially not by blood) and knew characters at the very heart of this story make it one with deep emotional ties that really help the reader form connections with this extremely fun cast of characters, and it makes for a gripping and transporting read that's very hard to put down indeed.

For further reading I'd recommend [[The Hare With Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance by Edmund de Waal]] – a book that manages to be biography, history and mystery rolled into one.