All the Beauty in the World by Patrick Bringley is a new work of nonfiction that explores the Metropolitan Museum of Art from the perspective of a longtime museum guard. In 2008, following the death of his brother to terminal cancer, Bringley quit his job at The New Yorker and applied to be a guard at the Met. His grief was such that continuing with his regular life didn’t feel like an option; he wanted to stop moving forward, but also needed to be physically and mentally occupied—“My heart is full, my heart is breaking, and I badly want to stand still awhile”—and this position felt like an ideal stopgap. What started out as a temporary shift ends up lasting a decade, and by the end of his ten-year tenure as a Met guard, Bringley realizes how much the experience has taught him about art, life, and time. In this memoir, Bringley takes us through the various wings of the hallowed institution and shares his thoughts on the exhibits, their history, and the people who visit them, sprinkling in workplace anecdotes and personal stories—some funny, some deeply moving—along the way. Part art appreciation, part memoir, All the Beauty in the World is an eye-opening meditation on how we engage with art and what it can teach us about the world and ourselves.

I started this book thinking it might be a light read, and though I realized very quickly that I was in for more of an emotional journey than I bargained for, I was already too captivated by Bringley’s straightforward, nonjudgmental style to put it down. Bringley doesn’t dwell on any one thing for too long—he puts forth an idea or sets up a story, examines it thoughtfully, and moves on—which makes his memoir feel like a series of beautifully captured snapshots. And like the artists he so admires, Bringley gracefully mixes the transcendent with the mundane; in one paragraph he’ll be describing a painting in glorious, contextual detail, and then in the next he’ll be talking about wood floors versus marble floors and which make his feet hurt more (working as a museum guard means standing for hours on end). So many elements stand out—the humorous and tender character sketches of the Met’s visitors, his honest depiction of grief, the fascinating descriptions of stillness and silence—but the thing I’ll remember most is his encouragement to engage with art not just through learning but through feeling. All the Beauty in the World is illuminating and inspiring, and I absolutely loved it.

I’d recommend this book to..

• Anyone who loves simple yet profound writing… it’s similar in style to Stay True by Hua Hsu
• Anyone who enjoys art, philosophy, and New York City… it’s similar in theme to At the Stranger’s Gate by Adam Gopnik
• Anyone looking for a book filled with curiosity and wonder… it’s similar in tone to Late Migrations by Margaret Renkl