Best of
Books-About-Books

2010

It's a Book


Lane Smith - 2010
    This satisfying, perfectly executed picture book has something to say to readers of all stripes and all ages.This title has Common Core connections.

The Narnia Code: C. S. Lewis and the Secret of the Seven Heavens


Michael Ward - 2010
    S. Lewis’s famed Chronicles of Narnia, but why? What is it about these seven books that makes them so appealing? For more than half a century, scholars have attempted to find the organizing key—the “secret code”—to the beloved series, but it has remained a mystery. Until now. In The Narnia Code, Michael Ward takes the reader through each of the seven Narnia books and reveals how each story embodies and expresses the characteristics of one of the seven planets of medieval cosmology—Jupiter, Mars, Sol, Luna, Mercury, Venus and Saturn—planets which Lewis described as “spiritual symbols of permanent value.” How does medieval cosmology relate to the Christian underpinnings of the series? How did it impact Lewis’s depiction of Aslan, the Christlike character at the heart of the books? And why did Lewis keep this planetary inspiration a secret? Originally a ground-breaking scholarly work called Planet Narnia, this more accessible adaptation will answer all the questions.

Biblioburro: A True Story from Colombia


Jeanette Winter - 2010
    What to do? Then he comes up with the perfect solution—a traveling library! He buys two donkeys—Alfa and Beto—and travels with them throughout the land, bringing books and reading to the children in faraway villages. Beautiful!Complete with an author's note about the real man on whom this story is based.

Dog Loves Books


Louise Yates - 2010
    At first he’s short of customers. But that’s all right, because when Dog is surrounded by books, he is never short of friends—or fun. And when customers begin arriving, he knows just which books to recommend.Louise Yates’s expressive little white dog—and his many expressive doggie customers—extend an irresistible invitation to the very youngest to try reading. It’s fun!

Penguin 75: Designers, Authors, Commentary (the Good, the Bad . . .)


Paul Buckley - 2010
    Now, on the occasion of Penguin's 75th anniversary, longtime art director Paul Buckley has chosen seventy-five covers that represent the best of what Penguin has produced over the course of the last decade. Giving readers a rare behind-thescenes glimpse into the complex creation of a book's cover, Penguin 75 includes comments from authors, agents, and editors, as well as the designers and artists themselves. This witty and irreverent journey into the book world will appeal to lovers of art, design, and, of course, books. With Contributions By: Paul Auster * Tara McPherson * Daniel Clowes * David Byrne * Elizabeth Gilbert * Joe Sacco * Tana French * T.C. Boyle * Seth * Tom Gauld * William T. Vollmann * Art Spiegelman * Kim Edwards * Melissa Bank * Ruben Toledo * Tomer Hanuka * Jamie Keenan * Roz Chast * Garrison Keillor * Yoshihiro Tatsumi * Sam Weber * Paul Sahre * Tony Millionaire * Nicholas Blechman * Jon Gray and many others!

Playing with Books: The Art of Upcycling, Deconstructing, and Reimagining the Book


Jason Thompson - 2010
    The book combines in equal measure bookbinding, woodworking, paper crafting, origami, and textile and decorative arts techniques, along with a healthy dose of experimentation and fun.The beautiful high-end presentation and stunning photography make this book a delightful, must-have volume for any book-loving artist or art-loving book collector.

In Praise of Reading and Fiction: The Nobel Lecture


Mario Vargas Llosa - 2010
    His Nobel Lecture is a resounding tribute to fiction’s power to inspire readers to greater ambition, to dissent, and to political action. “We would be worse than we are without the good books we have read, more conformist, not as restless, more submissive, and the critical spirit, the engine of progress, would not even exist,” Vargas Llosa writes. “Like writing, reading is a protest against the insufficiencies of life. When we look in fiction for what is missing in life, we are saying, with no need to say it or even to know it, that life as it is does not satisfy our thirst for the absolute—the foundation of the human condition—and should be better.” Vargas Llosa’s lecture is a powerful argument for the necessity of literature in our lives today. For, as he eloquently writes, “literature not only submerges us in the dream of beauty and happiness but alerts us to every kind of oppression.”

500 Essential Cult Books: The Ultimate Guide


Gina McKinnon - 2010
    It brings together the works of famous as well as less-known authors, all of whom boast passionate followings. Every genre you could imagine is covered, including literature, memoirs, thrillers, science fiction, self-help, fantasy, graphic novels, fairy tales, and more. Each entry features a photo of the book cover, a plot synopsis, a review, and suggestions for further reading.Fun to pore over ... A great reference source ... Sure to provoke conversation and debates among devoted readers ... Here's a page-turner you won't ever want to close the book on.

The Novel: An Alternative History: Beginnings to 1600


Steven Moore - 2010
    Encyclopedic in scope and heroically audacious, "The Novel: An Alternative History" is the first attempt in over a century to tell the complete story of our most popular literary form. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the novel did not originate in 18th-century England, nor even with Don Quixote, but is coeval with civilization itself. After a pugnacious introduction, in which Moore defends innovative, demanding novelists against their conservative critics, the book relaxes into a world tour of the premodern novel, beginning in ancient Egypt and ending in 16th-century China, with many exotic ports-of-call: Greek romances; Roman satires; medieval Sanskrit novels narrated by parrots; Byzantine erotic thrillers; 5000-page Arabian adventure novels; Icelandic sagas; delicate Persian novels in verse; Japanese war stories; even Mayan graphic novels. Throughout, Moore celebrates the innovators in fiction, tracing a continuum between these premodern experimentalists and their postmodern progeny. Irreverent, iconoclastic, informative, entertaining - "The Novel: An Alternative History" is a landmark in literary criticism that will encourage readers to rethink the novel.

Romantic Moderns: English Writers, Artists and the Imagination from Virginia Woolf to John Piper


Alexandra Harris - 2010
    They showed that “the modern”need not be at war with the past: constructivists and conservatives could work together, and even the Bauhaus émigré László Moholy-Nagy was beguiled into taking photos for Betjeman’s nostalgic An Oxford University Chest.A rich network of personal and cultural encounters was the backdrop for a modern English renaissance. This great imaginative project was shared by writers, painters, gardeners, architects, critics, and composers. Piper abandoned purist abstracts to make collages on the blustery coast; Virginia Woolf wrote in her last novel about a village pageant on a showery summer day. Evelyn Waugh, Elizabeth Bowen,and the Sitwells are also part of the story, along with Bill Brandt and Graham Sutherland, Eric Ravilious and Cecil Beaton.

The Naive and the Sentimental Novelist


Orhan Pamuk - 2010
    Harking back to the beloved novels of his youth and ranging through the work of such writers as Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Stendhal, Flaubert, Proust, Mann, and Naipaul, he explores the oscillation between the naive and the reflective, and the search for an equilibrium, that lie at the center of the novelist's craft. He ponders the novel's visual and sensual power--its ability to conjure landscapes so vivid they can make the here-and-now fade away. In the course of this exploration, he considers the elements of character, plot, time, and setting that compose the "sweet illusion" of the fictional world.Anyone who has known the pleasure of becoming immersed in a novel will enjoy, and learn from, this perceptive book by one of the modern masters of the art.

Literature: Unsuccessfully Competing Against TV Since 1953


Dave Kellett - 2010
    From Seuss to Shakespeare, Twain to Tolkien...all your favorite literary subjects are skewered: It's the perfect book for book-lovers."I can not LIVE without books."- Thomas Jefferson(...a man who later died)

Puffin By Design: 70 Years of Imagination 1940 - 2010


Phil Baines - 2010
    The first four titles appeared in 1940 and the series quickly established a reputation for presenting children's non-fiction in a unique blend of editing and design. "Puffin Story Books" soon followed with the publication of "Worzel Gummidge" in 1941 and, like the original launch of Penguin itself, these story books appeared in the three horizontal stripe design. Looking back at seventy years of Puffin paperbacks, Phil Baines charts the development of Puffin and the role of illustrators and designers in creating and defining the identity of the Puffin list from the very first picture book through to modern day. Rich with stunning cover and inside illustrations, and filled with detail of individual titles, Phil discusses the changes in typography, illustration and printing techniques over Puffin's spectacular 70-year history. An extraordinary and beautiful book, this is a perfect companion to "Penguin By Design".

Restoring Beauty: The Good, the True, and the Beautiful in the Writings of C.S. Lewis


Louis A. Markos - 2010
    Lewis prophetic voice for today?'s issues More and more in our modern and postmodern culture the twin concepts of beauty and truth have been separated both from each other and from their individual connection to the divine source of Beauty and Truth. Even as our public schools move further and further away from their connection to the universal moral code, the world of art (both high and low) embraces an aesthetic that privileges ugliness over beauty, nihilism over form, and radical self-expression over the pursuit of higher truth. As both an effective apologist for truth-based education and as a sub-creator of his own beauty-enhancing fiction, Lewis is the ideal guide for those who would seek to restore truth and beauty to their proper place and role in our modern world. Sections one and two analyze Lewis?'s eleven novels, showing how Lewis counters the growing cult of the ugly and helps restore a clearer understanding of the nature of good and evil. Sections three and four turn to Lewis?'s non-fiction works to assess what advice Lewis can give educators at all levels who would steer their students away from chronological snobbery and values-free education toward a true re-engagement with the past. The book concludes with a commentary on Screwtape?'s Letters that exposes what Satan?'s main temptation tactics have been since the 1960s and a detailed bibliographical essay of books by and about Lewis.

My Reading Life


Pat Conroy - 2010
    Pat Conroy, the beloved American storyteller, is a voracious reader. Starting as a childhood passion that bloomed into a life-long companion, reading has been Conroy’s portal to the world, both to the farthest corners of the globe and to the deepest chambers of the human soul. His interests range widely, from Milton to Tolkien, Philip Roth to Thucydides, encompassing poetry, history, philosophy, and any mesmerizing tale of his native South. He has for years kept notebooks in which he records words and expressions, over time creating a vast reservoir of playful turns of phrase, dazzling flashes of description, and snippets of delightful sound, all just for his love of language. But for Conroy reading is not simply a pleasure to be enjoyed in off-hours or a source of inspiration for his own writing. It would hardly be an exaggeration to claim that reading has saved his life, and if not his life then surely his sanity.  In My Reading Life, Conroy revisits a life of reading through an array of wonderful and often surprising anecdotes: sharing the pleasures of the local library’s vast cache with his mother when he was a boy, recounting his decades-long relationship with the English teacher who pointed him onto the path of letters, and describing a profoundly influential period he spent  in Paris, as well as reflecting on other pivotal people, places, and experiences. His story is a moving and personal one, girded by wisdom and an undeniable honesty. Anyone who not only enjoys the pleasures of reading but also believes in the power of books to shape a life will find here the greatest defense of that credo.BONUS: This ebook edition includes an excerpt from Pat Conroy's The Death of Santini.

A Family of Readers: The Book Lover's Guide to Children's and Young Adult Literature


Roger Sutton - 2010
    It’s divided into four sections:1. Reading to Them:Choosing and sharing board books and picture books with babies and very young children.2. Reading with Them:Launching the new reader with easy readers and chapter books.3. Reading on Their Own:Exploring what children read—and how they read—by genre and gender.4. Leaving Them Alone:Respecting the reading privacy of the young adult.Roger Sutton knows how and why children read. He must, as the editor in chief of THE HORN BOOK, which since 1924 has been America’s best source for reviews of books for young readers. But for many parents, selecting books for their children can make them feel lost. Now, in this essential resource, Roger Sutton and Martha V. Parravano, executive editor at the magazine, offer thoughtful essays that consider how books are read to (and then by) young people. They invite such leading authors and artists as Maurice Sendak, Katherine Paterson, Margaret Mahy, and Jon Scieszka, as well as a selection of top critics, to add their voices about the genres they know best. The result is an indispensable readers’ companion to everything from wordless board books to the most complex and daring young adult novels.

On Whitman


C.K. Williams - 2010
    K. Williams's personal reflection on the art of Walt WhitmanIn this book, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet C. K. Williams sets aside the mass of biography and literary criticism that has accumulated around Walt Whitman and attempts to go back to Leaves of Grass as he first encountered it--to explore why Whitman's epic continues to inspire and sometimes daunt him. The result is a personal reassessment and appreciation of one master poet by another, as well as an unconventional and brilliant introduction to Whitman. Beautifully written and rich with insight, this is a book that refreshes our ability to see Whitman in all his power.

Art Matters: Hemingway, Craft, and the Creation of the Modern Short Story


Robert Paul Lamb - 2010
    Lamb locates Hemingway's art in literary historical contexts and explains what he learned from earlier artists, including Edgar Allan Poe, Paul C�zanne, Henry James, Guy de Maupassant, Anton Chekhov, Stephen Crane, Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, and Ezra Pound. Examining how Hemingway developed this inheritance, Lamb insightfully charts the evolution of the unique style and innovative techniques that would forever change the nature of short fiction.Art Matters opens with an analysis of the authorial effacement Hemingway learned from Maupassant and Chekhov, followed by fresh perspectives on the author's famous use of concision and omission. Redefining literary impressionism and expressionism as alternative modes for depicting modern consciousness, Lamb demonstrates how Hemingway and Willa Cather learned these techniques from Crane and made them the foundation of their respective aesthetics. After examining the development of Hemingway's art of focalization, he clarifies what Hemingway really learned from Stein and delineates their different uses of repetition. Turning from techniques to formal elements, Art Matters anatomizes Hemingway's story openings and endings, analyzes how he created an entirely unprecedented role for fictional dialogue, explores his methods of characterization, and categorizes his settings in the fifty-three stories that comprise his most important work in the genre.A major contribution to Hemingway scholarship and to the study of modernist fiction, Art Matters shows exactly how Hemingway's craft functions and argues persuasively for the importance of studies of articulated technique to any meaningful understanding of fiction and literary history. The book also develops vital new ways of understanding the short story genre as Lamb constructs a critical apparatus for analyzing the short story, introduces to a larger audience ideas taken from practicing storywriters, theorists, and critics, and coins new terms and concepts that enrich our understanding of the field.

The Book in the Renaissance


Andrew Pettegree - 2010
    It rescued ancient learning from obscurity, transformed knowledge of the natural and physical world, and brought the thrill of book ownership to the masses. But, as Andrew Pettegree reveals in this work of great historical merit, the story of the post-Gutenberg world was rather more complicated than we have often come to believe.The Book in the Renaissance reconstructs the first 150 years of the world of print, exploring the complex web of religious, economic, and cultural concerns surrounding the printed word. From its very beginnings, the printed book had to straddle financial and religious imperatives, as well as the very different requirements and constraints of the many countries who embraced it, and, as Pettegree argues, the process was far from a runaway success. More than ideas, the success or failure of books depended upon patrons and markets, precarious strategies and the thwarting of piracy, and the ebb and flow of popular demand. Owing to his state-of-the-art and highly detailed research, Pettegree crafts an authoritative, lucid, and truly pioneering work of cultural history about a major development in the evolution of European society.

V.C. Andrews: Her Life and Books


Dana Rasmussen - 2010
    Andrews shocked America with her debut novel "Flowers in the Attic." She continued her hold on the literary world with the Dollanganger series and Casteel series until her death. Andrews' work lived on as more series were created featuring rags-to-riches tales chock-full of romance, horror, sagas and true love.Read all about her life, books, and the ghost writer who keeps the V.C. Andrews legacy alive.Project Webster represents a new publishing paradigm, allowing disparate content sources to be curated into cohesive, relevant, and informative books. To date, this content has been curated from Wikipedia articles and images under Creative Commons licensing, although as Project Webster continues to increase in scope and dimension, more licensed and public domain content is being added. We believe books such as this represent a new and exciting lexicon in the sharing of human knowledge.

My Bibliofile: A Reading Journal for Book Lovers


Potter Style - 2010
    This journal offers space for readers to fill in their own reading and offers lists of recommended books to read next.

Bookbinding: A Step-by-Step Guide


Kathy Abbott - 2010
    The craft of bookbinding has a long history and tradition and is now enjoying a period of renewed popularity and creativity. Here, transforming a few sheets of paper and some thread into a book to be proud of is made accessible. For the more experienced craftsperson, it also covers how to work with leather to create classic, professional bindings. Topics covered include single-section bindings, such as paperback or hardcover; multisection bindings, such as full-cloth case, photograph album, quarter-leather binding with paper or cloth-covered sides, or wrap-around structure; and containers, such as a phase box, slipcase, or portfolio case.

Building a Reading Life: Stamina, Fluency, and Engagement


Lucy Calkins - 2010
    

Back to the Best Books


Marilyn Green Faulkner - 2010
    Are you bored by bestsellers you can t remember a week later? Is your book group ready for more meaningful discussions? Have TV and movies got your brain on autopilot? Back to the Best Books explores 36 great works of literature, some that you know (Twain, Bronte) and some you might not (Undset, Cronin) that will bring you new insights about your own life. Inside you'll find: Jane Austen Looking for love in all the wrong places Betty Smith Recession lessons from the depression William Faulkner Road trips and self-discovery Anne Tyler Putting the fun into dysfunctional Charles Dickens Changing the world one child at a time The perfect guide for book groups, students, and casual readers who are ready to take it up a notch! If you're feeling the need to get your brain in gear, your relationships in order and your life on track, then it's time to get Back to the Best Books.

Banned Books: Challenging Our Freedom to Read


Robert P. Doyle - 2010
    Interpretations of the uniquely American notion of freedom of expression - and our freedom to read what we choose - are supplemented by straightforward, easily accessible information that will inspire further exploration."--P. [4] of cover.

The Art of American Book Covers: 1875-1930


Richard Minsky - 2010
    Readers accustomed to today’s more utilitarian book covers will find breathtaking images here. The diversity and ingenuity of the artwork will capture the imagination of book lovers and collectors alike—and anyone who enjoys engaging design.

The Oxford Companion to the Book


Michael F. Suarez - 2010
    Along with such subjects as bibliography, the history of printing, editorial theory and practice, and textual criticism, it also engages with newer disciplines such as the history of the book and the electronic book. Additionally, the companion provides an engaging analysis of how books and societies have shaped one another. Written by the world's top scholars in bibliography and book history, the companion is an authoritative and highly informative work of reference for an international readership across a vast range of disciplines. This unique two-volume work is organized into two parts. Part I is a substantial series of introductory essays-over forty essays offer generic histories of the subject as well as surveys of the history of the book around the world, including the Muslim world, Asia, Latin America, and Sub-Saharan Africa. Part II of the companion comprises anA-Z section of over 5,000 entries on every aspect of this exceptionally rich and diverse subject, ranging from brief definitions and biographical entries to more extensive treatments. Both parts of the text are richly illustrated with reproductions, diagrams, maps, and examples of various typographical features.

How Philosophy Became Socratic: A Study of Plato's "Protagoras," "Charmides," and "Republic"


Laurence Lampert - 2010
    By presenting his model philosopher across a fifty-year span of his life, Plato leads his readers to wonder: does that time period correspond to the development of Socrates’ thought? In this magisterial investigation of the evolution of Socrates’ philosophy, Laurence Lampert answers in the affirmative.The chronological route that Plato maps for us, Lampert argues, reveals the enduring record of philosophy as it took the form that came to dominate the life of the mind in the West. The reader accompanies Socrates as he breaks with the century-old tradition of philosophy, turns to his own path, steadily enters into a deeper understanding of nature and human nature, and discovers the successful way to transmit his wisdom to the wider world. Focusing on the final and most prominent step in that process and offering detailed textual analysis of Plato’s Protagoras, Charmides, and Republic, How Philosophy Became Socratic charts Socrates’ gradual discovery of a proper politics to shelter and advance philosophy.

The Cambridge Companion to C. S. Lewis


Robert MacSwain - 2010
    S. Lewis is a controversial and enigmatic figure who continues to fascinate, fifty years after his death. This Companion is the first comprehensive single-volume study written by an international team of scholars to survey Lewis's career as a literary historian, popular theologian, and creative writer. Twenty-one expert voices from Oxford, Cambridge, Princeton, and Wheaton, among many other places of learning, analyze Lewis's work from theological, philosophical, and literary perspectives. Some chapters consider his professional contribution to fields such as critical theory and intellectual history, while others assess his views on issues including moral knowledge, gender, prayer, war, love, suffering, and Scripture. The final chapters investigate his work as a writer of fiction and poetry. Original in its approach and unique in its scope, this Companion shows that C. S. Lewis was much more than merely the man behind Narnia.

Books Will Speak Plain: A Handbook for Identifying and Describing Historical Bindings


Julia Miller - 2010
    Clements Library.

Harry Potter Magic Eye Book: 3D Magical Creatures, Beasts and Beings


Magic Eye Inc. - 2010
    More than 30 Magic Eye 3D illusions are ready to entertain and delight inside Harry Potter Magical Creatures, featuring creatures from all the films to date including Buckbeak, Hedwig, and the Hungarian Horntail Dragon. The book employs Magic Eye's patented 3D technology to reveal scenes from the top-grossing theatrical franchise in movie history, with two films still to come!(tm) and (c) Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. Harry Potter Publishing Rights (c) J. K. Rowling(s10)

Harry Potter on Location (Standard Edition)


J.P. Sperati - 2010
    Also included in this publication are tips and recommendations for those wishing to plan their own exploration of these wonderful places. This book will give the reader an appreciation for how the films are constructed from a variety of different locations and spliced together to make one seamless magical moment on the big screen This guide is a must for all Harry Potter enthusiasts as well as those just wishing to visit some of the most beautiful locations in the UK.

The Readers' Advisory Handbook


Jessica E. Moyer - 2010
    You will find a trove of solid guidance, including how to advise patrons on all kinds of media, from fiction and nonfiction to audiobooks, graphic novels, and reference materials. Also *How to provide services to senior citizens, tenns, and even readers who are incarcerated *How to handle author visits and book groups *How to enhance storytelling, including for adults

This Is All I Choose to Tell: History and Hybridity in Vietnamese American Literature


Isabelle Thuy Pelaud - 2010
    She provides an analytical introduction to the literature, showing how generational differences play out in genre and text.

Backward Glances: Contemporary Chinese Cultures and the Female Homoerotic Imaginary


Fran Martin - 2010
    By examining representations of erotic and romantic love between women in popular films, elite and pulp fiction, and television dramas, Fran Martin shows how youthful same-sex love is often framed as a universal, even ennobling, feminine experience. She argues that a temporal logic dominates depictions of female homoeroticism, and she traces that logic across texts produced and consumed in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan during the twentieth century and the early twenty-first.

Complete Write a Novel Course: Teach Yourself


Will Buckingham - 2010
    A new and complete course in writing a novel, designed to take the reader from complete beginner to the point at which they have completed, edited and redrafted their first piece of work.

The Book That Changed Europe: Picart & Bernard's Religious Ceremonies of the World


Lynn Hunt - 2010
    In this captivating account, Lynn Hunt, Margaret Jacob, and Wijnand Mijnhardt take us to the vibrant Dutch Republic and its flourishing book trade to explore the work that sowed the radical idea that religions could be considered on equal terms.Famed engraver Bernard Picart and author and publisher Jean Frederic Bernard produced The Religious Ceremonies and Customs of All the Peoples of the World, which appeared in the first of seven folio volumes in 1723. They put religion in comparative perspective, offering images and analysis of Jews, Catholics, Muslims, the peoples of the Orient and the Americas, Protestants, deists, freemasons, and assorted sects. Despite condemnation by the Catholic Church, the work was a resounding success. For the next century it was copied or adapted, but without the context of its original radicalism and its debt to clandestine literature, English deists, and the philosophy of Spinoza.Ceremonies and Customs prepared the ground for religious toleration amid seemingly unending religious conflict, and demonstrated the impact of the global on Western consciousness. In this beautifully illustrated book, Hunt, Jacob, and Mijnhardt cast new light on the profound insight found in one book as it shaped the development of a modern, secular understanding of religion.

Jane Austen on Love & Romance


Jane Austen - 2010
    From Jane Austen's writing, her views on love and romance.

The Library Book: Design Collaborations in the Public Schools


Anooradha Iyer Siddiqi - 2010
    But declining literacy rates among the nation's public elementary school students suggests this maxim needs revision. For reading to become an everyday habit, it needs to be nurtured in a home of its own. Fortunately, there is space available inside most elementary schools. At just 5 percent of a school's total real estate, the school library is the most powerful and efficient way to reach 100 percent of the student body. But far too many of the nation's public school libraries lack even the most basic resources to support learning and encourage achievement. The nonprofit L!brary Initiative, created by the Robin Hood Foundation, has been working since 2001 to enhance student literacy and overall academic achievement by collaborating with school districts to design, build, equip, and staff new elementary school libraries.The L!brary Book takes readers behind the scenes of fifty groundbreaking library projects to show how widely varied fields and communities—corporate underwriters, children's book publishers, architects, graphic designers, product manufacturers, library associations, teachers, and students—can join forces to make a difference in the lives of children. Based on the premise that good library design can actually inspire learning, the L!brary Initiative brings together some of the world's leading architects to reimagine the elementary school libraries in New York City—the nation's largest public school system. Working on a pro bono basis, architecture firms—including 1100 Architects, Weiss/Manfredi Architects, Della Valle Bernheimer, Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects, and Dean/Wolf Architects—have in just eight years built or transformed more than fifty libraries into vital resources for the whole school community. These libraries—both beautiful learning spaces and innovative architecture—feature a wide range of design solutions, including creative uses of space, color, lighting, and furniture. Author and former L!brary Initiative director Anooradha Iyer Siddiqi documents every project with beautiful photos as well as renderings and measured drawings. The L!brary Book concludes with the chapter How to Make a Library which shows how community organizers and architects can pursue similar initiatives in their own communities.

Oscar Wilde: Art and Morality A Defence of "The Picture of Dorian Gray"


Stuart Mason - 2010
    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

From the Hand to the Machine: Nineteenth-Century American Paper and Mediums: Technologies, Materials, and Conservation


Cathleen Baker - 2010
    Most products gradually ceased being made by hand in local shops and mills to be replaced and augmented by those manufactured in faraway factories by bigger and faster machines. Nowhere in the world did that industrial revolution occur faster and to such a degree than in the United States. The American pulp-and-paper and printing industries not only grew exponentially, but also enabled a national publishing industry. Books published en masse allowed the dissemination of information and knowledge to great numbers of people, and new businesses specialized in art reproductions for the homes of a burgeoning middle class, employing nineteenth century inventions, lithography and photography."Cathleen A. Baker’s book gives detailed information about the various papers made by hand and then by machine, and the mediums imprinted or drawn upon them for books, writing, and works of art. Information is presented in easily understood language for professional conservators, librarians, antiquarian book dealers and book collectors alike. Contents include: history of the American pulp-and-paper industry, papermaking (ranging from the materials, processes, and technologies in use in 1800 to 1900), common mediums such as letterpress printing, fine printmaking (intaglio, lithography), photomechanical reproductions, drawing, and painting mediums. Decorated papers are also discussed. The book features hundreds of images, as well as appendices including analytical testing procedures, cellulose degradation processes, and preservation recommendations, a glossary, and a bibliography.

The the Role of Translators in Children's Literature: Invisible Storytellers


Gillian Lathey - 2010
    Translations dominate the earliest history of texts written for children in English, and stories translated from other languages have continued to shape its course to the present day. Lathey traces the role of the translator and the impact of translations on the history of English-language children's literature from the ninth century onwards. Discussions of popular texts in each era reveal fluctuations in the reception of translated children's texts, as well as instances of cultural mediation by translators and editors. Abridgement, adaptation, and alteration by translators have often been viewed in a negative light, yet a closer examination of historical translators' prefaces reveals a far more varied picture than that of faceless conduits or wilful censors. From William Caxton's dedication of his translated History of Jason to young Prince Edward in 1477 ('to thentent/he may begynne to lerne read Englissh'), to Edgar Taylor's justification of the first translation into English of Grimms' tales as a means of promoting children's imaginations in an age of reason, translators have recorded in prefaces and other writings their didactic, religious, aesthetic, financial, and even political purposes for translating children's texts.

Purity of Aim: The Book Jacket Designs of Alvin Lustig


Ned Drew - 2010
    Lustig used the book cover as a vehicle of his bold graphic experimentation that was enhanced by a lifelong collaboration with James Laughlin, founder and publisher of New Directions Books. As a modern designer, Lustig had interests that spanned many fields: architectural, industrial and interior design which served as an expression of his deeply held convictions. For him, the designer was not a single-minded specialist, but an integrator of many art forms and simultaneously, as he saw it, a spokesman for social change.

The Edinburgh Companion to Irvine Welsh


Berthold Schoene - 2010
    The unprecedented worldwide success of "Trainspotting," magnified by Danny Boyle's iconic film, revolutionized Scottish culture and radically remade the country's image from dreamy romantic hinterland to agitated metropolitan hotbed. Although Welsh's career is still taking shape, his influence on contemporary Scottish literary history is indisputable. This volume covers all of Welsh's fiction, as well as his dramatic work for the stage and for television, and features a detailed analysis of Danny Boyle's film. It tracks the author's critical and popular reception at home, abroad, and overseas, and questions the popular cult and mainstream hype surrounding his work. Issues of class, subculture, nationhood, gender, and narrative experimentation are tied to broader developments, such as devolution and globalization, within contemporary Scottish, British, and world culture. The book also examines Welsh's relationships to other writers, both Scottish and non-Scottish, and his contentious position within the Scottish literary canon. All in all, this guide merges a critical assessment of Walsh's work with an analysis of the writer and his phenomenon.

Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning Teen Literature: A Guide to Reading Interests


Carlisle K. Webber - 2010
    It provides some 300 fiction and nonfiction suggestions, including poetry, drama, and graphic novels; and organizes them according to genre, subgenre and theme. Each entry includes a brief description of the work, a code for the type of characters it includes (G, L, B, T, and Q), indication of reading level, and full bibliographic information. Award-winners and titles that have audio and film versions are indicated. Lists of keywords follow the entries. Resources for further study enhance the volume, making this an indispensable guide for any library that serves teens.

One Hundred Great Jewish Books: Three Millennia of Jewish Conversation


Lawrence A. Hoffman - 2010
    Each of the entries features one work in its historical and cultural context, provides a summary of content and author, and reflects on its relevance for today’s readers.

The Cambridge Introduction to the Novel


Marina MacKay - 2010
    Drawing on hundreds of examples of famous novels from all over the world, Marina MacKay explores the essential aspects of the novel and its history: where novels came from and why we read them; how we think about their styles and techniques, their people, plots, places, and politics. Between the main chapters are longer readings of individual works, from Don Quixote to Midnight's Children. A glossary of key terms and a guide to further reading are included, making this an ideal accompaniment to introductory courses on the novel.

Bookbinding & Conservation: A Sixty-Year Odyssey of Art and Craft


Don Etherington - 2010
    Illustrated in color with personal photographs and examples of his fine bindings"--Provided by publisher.

Women Writers and Detectives in Nineteenth-Century Crime Fiction: The Mothers of the Mystery Genre


Lucy Sussex - 2010
    Traditionally the invention of crime writing has been ascribed to Poe, Wilkie Collins and Conan Doyle, but they had formidable women rivals, whose work has been until recently largely forgotten. The purpose of this book is to "cherchez les femmes," in a project of rediscovery.

Weird and Wonderful: Discoveries from the Mysterious World of Forgotten Children's Books


Welleran Poltarnees - 2010
    The results are both engaging and delightful and reveal a world of children’s books where imagination is given free rein. Artists and authors include Frank Baum, Edward Lear, Gelett Burgess, Peter Newell, John R. Neill and Charles Doyle.

Lark Studio Series: Handmade Books


Ray Hemachandra - 2010
    The talented contributors include Jeanne Germani, David Hodges, Laura Wait, and a host of other artists. With nearly 100 selections taken from the best-selling 500 Handmade Books, this pocket-sized book will delight handmade-book devotees!

Reading Journal: For Book Lovers


Potter Style - 2010
    Journal in which readers can list, describe, and explain all read books.