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The Glassmaker

Tracy Chevalier

Start date: December 1, 2024

Finish date: December 31, 2024

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September-October 2025: The River Knows Your Name
By Ƹ̴Ӂ̴Ʒ Jenn Ƹ̴… , Founding Retro Chick · 1 post · 8 views

last updated Aug 23, 2025 07:26PM

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What Members Thought

Dec 24, 2024 Maureen rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I just loved the cover on this book.it is a wonderful story of the beautiful glass making in Murano, Italy. Tracy Chevalier just captured time and place.
This story spans from 15th century Murano to current time. It is a magical story as the characters age very slowly through the centuries.
Orsola Rossi is the eldest daughter of the Russo family, as a female she is not involved in the production of glass Upon the death of her father , she finds a way to make glass beads in secret, not letting he ...more

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Dec 11, 2024 Tasha rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction

Rating: 3.75

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Dec 16, 2024 Ƹ̴Ӂ̴Ʒ Jenn Ƹ̴Ӂ̴Ʒ Schu rated it liked it

I've read several of Tracy Chevalier's previous books, including her most well-known novel, The Girl with the Pearl Earring, but also The Last Runaway, A Single Thread, At the Edge of the Orchard, and my personal favorite, Remarkable Creatures. Those books demonstrated her ability to create stories that draw you in and capture the essence of a period, whether 17th-century Delft, 1930s Winchester, or 19th-century Ohio.

In The Glassmaker, she tells a story that encompasses centuries and focuses on I've read several of Tracy Chevalier's previous books, including her most well-known novel, The Girl with the Pearl Earring, but also The Last Runaway, A Single Thread, At the Edge of the Orchard, and my personal favorite, Remarkable Creatures. Those books demonstrated her ability to create stories that draw you in and capture the essence of a period, whether 17th-century Delft, 1930s Winchester, or 19th-century Ohio.

In The Glassmaker, she tells a story that encompasses centuries and focuses on a set of characters (chiefly the Rosso family but also a few others in their 'bubble') who age at a slower rate than the world around them. The author likens this to skipping a stone over water, meaning that the history of Murano glassmaking and Venice evolved through the centuries while remaining with the same small cast of characters. The book thus takes the reader from the 15th century to almost the present day. I struggled with the concept as we got further away from the fifteenth century, and modern technology became more of a feature. The last section, set in a flooded Venice in 2019, was an add-on to introduce climate change's impact on the unique city.

The book's main character, Orsola Rosso, daughter of a family involved in glassmaking for centuries, faces the obstacle experienced by almost all women at the time: her gender prevents her from pursuing her ambitions and restricts her independence. It even removes her freedom to choose with whom she should spend her life and the family's interests before her desires. The prospect of a life filled with household chores fills her with dismay. This poignant portrayal of the societal constraints on women's lives in the past is both enlightening and thought-provoking.

However, encouraged by a woman who has defied convention, a fellow glassmaker who has managed to carve out a space for herself in a male-dominated industry, Orsola begins to learn the craft of glass bead making, work that doesn't require a furnace like the other objects produced in the family's factory. Her brother Marco considers beads an inferior product, although as time goes on, Orsola's work proves its value to the family when tastes change and Murano no longer has a monopoly on glassmaking.

The arrival of the plague in Venice in the 16th century was the most gripping section of the book for me. The inhabitants of Murano pray that the stretch of water that divides them from the city will protect them, but it is not to be. The Rosso family experiences loss, separation, and the rigors of quarantine on an island that is not self-sufficient. Some family members are never quite the same afterward, physically or psychologically.

I loved learning about the glassmaking process, which the author has researched in exhaustive detail. The historical richness of the narrative, combined with the author's meticulous research, truly immerses the reader in the past. Although Murano is easily accessible today, for its inhabitants in earlier times, it was very separate from Venice, not just geographically but culturally. When Orsola makes her first visit to Venice, she feels very much like an outsider, confused by the layout of the city and its busy streets and waterways. The notion of visiting the mainland—terra firma—fills her with terror despite her curiosity.

Even if the structure, which spans centuries and focuses on a set of characters who age at a slower rate than the world around them, didn't completely work for me, The Glassmaker is an intriguing story of a family, a city, and a craft over the centuries, and entwined within it is a bittersweet romance. ...more

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Dec 26, 2024 Sarah Brown rated it it was amazing

This book was absolutely beautiful. I learned SO MUCH - found myself googling things at the same time to fill myself in more since I really do not know anything about Venice / Murano. I loved the magical aspect about it - was nice reading a book that went over centuries of time and history in such a connected way (and not a duel timeline book like so many I read). Because of the six centuries, I grew so much with every single character, missing some more than others at times. I now have the urge ...more

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