Appassionata Author:Eva Hoffman Selected as one of Oprah.com?s 20 Tantalizing Beach Reads — Selected as a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice — Isabel Merton is a renowned concert pianist, whose performances are�marked by�a rare�intensity of feeling.�At the height of her career, she feels increasingly torn between the compelling�musical realm�she deeply inhabits, and her ... more »fragmented itinerant artist?s life, with its frequent flights, anonymous hotels, and brief, arbitrary encounters. Away from her New York home on a European tour, Isabel meets a political exile from a war-torn country, a man�driven by a rankling�sense of injustice and a powerful desire to�vindicate�his cause and avenge his�people.�As their paths cross in several cities, they are drawn to each other both by their differences and their seemingly parallel passions?until a menacing incident throws her into a creative crisis, and forces her�to reevaluate�her lover's actions,�and her own�motives.�In this story of contemporary love and conflict,�Hoffman illuminates the currents and undercurrents of our time, as�she�explores the luminous and dark faces of romanticism, and those perennial human yearnings, frustrations, and moral choices that can�lead to destructiveness, or the richest art.�« less