Passionately argued, brilliantly written, and filled with Paglia’s trademark audacity, Glittering Images takes us on a tour through more than two dozen seminal images, some famous and some obscure or unknown—paintings, sculptures, architectural styles, performance pieces, and digital art that have defined and transformed our visual world. She combines close analysis with background information that situates each artist and image within its historical context—from the stone idols of the Cyclades to an elegant French rococo interior to Jackson Pollock’s abstract Green Silver to Renée Cox’s daring performance piece Chillin’ with Liberty. And in a stunning conclusion, she declares that the avant-garde tradition is dead and that digital pioneer George Lucas is the world’s greatest living artist. Written with energy, erudition, and wit, Glittering Images is destined to change the way we think about our high-tech visual environment.

    The culmination of a lifetime of aesthetic investigation, Aesthetic Theory is Theodor W. Adorno's magnum opus, the clarifying lens through which the whole of his work is best viewed, providing a framework within which his other major writings cohere.

    Both a practical guide and a great source of inspiration, The Monocle Guide to Cosy Homes presents the interiors, furniture, and locations you need to know about along with portraits of the people who can make it happen. The Monocle Guide to Cosy Homes celebrates the durable and the meaningful through a collection of homes that tell a story. Most architecture and interior books show houses polished to perfection, manicured to the extent that it is hard to imagine anybody acually lives there: they seem to miss the point that homes are meant to be inhabited. They should be able to take the scuffs and knocks and to be part of a community, whether in a Chicago skyscraper or on Australia's sunshine coast. So where are the best places to make a home? What are the villages, coastlines, mountains, towns, and cities that would make you want to settle down? The Monocle Guide to Cosy Homes answers those questions with a global photographic survey of a wide variety of homes. Whether the focus is on a remote residence in the Swedish archipelago or a lush abode in Rio de Janeiro, or on the difference between residing in Tokyo and Toronto, this book is the perfect balance between the inspirational and the practical. The book is a survey of everything you need to know to build the residence of your dreams, providing insight into the best neighborhoods, architects, and makers all over the world. From design-store owners to green-roof gardeners, The Monocle Guide to Cosy Homes introduces you to interesting people with ideas that are built to last. Monocle's signature illustrations punctuate the book's rich and detailed content. Through striking photography, The Monocle Guide to Cosy Homes also gives you a glimpse into the lives that unfold in these apartments, villas, and cottages, showing that these homes are alive and that this is precisely what makes them special. This is a book that should be referred to again and again--it is a book about the quality of life.

    Thirty-one leading architects are represented in this updated Third Edition in examinations of more than 100 structures assessed through a diagrammatic technique that is applicable to any structure. This impressive collection includes sixteen new buildings and eight innovative architects distinguished by the strength, quality, and interest of their designs. Readers will find valuable guidance in analyzing architectural history as an evolutionary process by exploring the commonality of design ideas reflected in a broad range of structures by internationally renowned architects. Both novices and seasoned professionals will find Precedents in Architecture, Third Edition a very useful tool for enriching their design vocabulary and for the ongoing assessment of buildings found in today's evolving landscape.

    His technique-which earned him a reputation as "The Norman Rockwell of cheesecake"-involved photographing models and then painting them into gorgeous hyper-reality, with longer legs, more flamboyant hair and gravity-defying busts, and in the process making them the perfect moral-boosting eye-candy for every homesick private.

    Rockwell senior, who said he depicted life “as I would like it to be,” chronicled iconic visions of American life: the Thanksgiving turkey, soda fountains, ice skating on the pond, and small-town boys playing baseball-not to mention the beginning of the civil rights movement. Now, the best-selling collection of Rockwell’s most beloved illustrations, organized by decade, is available in a refreshed edition. With more than 150 images-oil paintings, watercolors, and rare black-and-white sketches--this is an uncommonly faithful Rockwell treasury. The original edition has sold nearly 200,000 copies.

    Stale, often dully composed images of corporate headquarters, roadways, bus-station parking lots, convalescent-home dayrooms, hospital cafeterias, and undistinguished motels. But look carefully, and the cards - culled from the collection of artist Martin Parr --are filled with fascinating little details. As a group, they offer readers the interesting opportunity to puzzle over the collective psyche of the people of the 1950s and '60s (the approximate vintage of the images) who were inclined to create, buy, and send these cards. What, one can't help but wonder, could be so scintillating about a room at the Fortes Excelsior Motor Lodge near Pontefract, Yorkshire? The singular force of the orange bedspreads, carpet, drapes, and walls punctuated by the inexplicably white leather upholstered panel attached to the wall unit behind each of the room's beds.The exterior of the Mirfield Modern School, shot at a distance and unimaginatively placed dead in the centre of the grey sky and green playing field? The building's Bauhaus-like lines. The tarmac of Luton Airport in London? The pink jumbo jet being towed into the frame from the left. The uniformly shaped trailers parked at the Freshwater Caravan Camp? The handwritten X that presumably marks the sender's location. The Chalets at Llandanwg? Arguably, not much. The few hundred images here, unfettered by any explanatory text, offer a far from dull diversion for any readers interested in mid-century design or the mundane details of daily life.

    Each work of literature featured here is a seminal work key to understanding and appreciating the written word.The featured works have been handpicked by a team of international critics and literary luminaries, including Derek Attridge (world expert on James Joyce), Cedric Watts (renowned authority on Joseph Conrad and Graham Greene), Laura Marcus (noted Virginia Woolf expert), and David Mariott (poet and expert on African-American literature), among some twenty others.Addictive, browsable, knowledgeable--1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die will be a boon companion for anyone who loves good writing and an inspiration for anyone who is just beginning to discover a love of books. Each entry is accompanied by an authoritative yet opinionated critical essay describing the importance and influence of the work in question. Also included are publishing history and career details about the authors, as well as reproductions of period dust jackets and book designs.

    The strange imagination displayed in the pages, the impeccable technique and the very fine state of preservation make The Book of Kells an object of endless fascination.This edition reproduces the most important of the fully decorated pages plus a series of enlargements showing the almost unbelievable minuteness of the detail; spiral and interlaced patterns, human and animal ornament—a combination of high seriousness and humor. The text is by Bernard Meehan, the Keeper of Manuscripts at Trinity College, Dublin.

    Jane Austen Cover to Cover compiles two centuries of design showcasing one of the world’s most beloved and celebrated novelists. With over 200 images, plus historical commentary, Austen trivia, and a little bit of wit, this fascinating and visually intriguing look back is a must for Janeites, design enthusiasts, and book lovers of every age.

    The concluding chapter by Amy de la Haye, covering the second half of the twentieth century, has now been updated by Andrew Tucker. He discusses the reinvention in the 1990s of the luxury label Gucci, the rise of houses such as Prada and Tommy Hilfiger, and the appointments of relatively avant-garde British, American, and European designers to head classic French houses. All the late-twentieth-century and turn-of-the-century style innovations are included, such as the appropriation of utility clothing by designers like Helmut Lang—who spearheaded the predominantly unisex urban sportswear look—and the impact of workplace dressing down on masculine fashion. The phenomenon of the must-have accessory—the pashmina shawl and the Fendi baguette, for example—is also considered.

    Originally published in 1941, it was hailed in the original flap copy as "neither a cookbook nor a book of etiquette, but a vivacious and inspiring book on home entertaining."

    After many years of research, Robert Descharnes and Gilles Neret finally located all the paintings of this highly prolific artist. These two volumes represent a one time offer at 29.99 as a celebration of the 100th anniversary of Dali's birth. The set will have a sticker indicating the 100th anniversary,

    Drawing on her ten years of experience in the interior design industry, Erin combines honest design advice and gorgeous professional photographs and illustrations with personal essays about the lessons she has learned while designing her own home and her own life—the first being: none of our homes or lives is perfect. Like a funny best friend, she reveals the disasters she confronted in her own kitchen renovation, her struggles with anorexia, her epic fight with her husband over a Lucite table, and her secrets for starting a successful blog.Organized by rooms in the house, Elements of Style invites readers into Erin’s own home as well as homes she has designed for clients. Fresh, modern, and colorful, it is brimming glamour and style as well as advice on practical matters from choosing kitchen counter materials to dressing a bed with pillows, picking a sofa, and decorating a nursery without cartoon characters. You’ll also find a charming foreword by Erin’s husband, Andrew, and an extensive Resource and Shopping Guide that provides an indispensable a roadmap for anyone embarking on their first serious home decorating adventure. With Erin’s help, you can finally make your house your home.

    But its myriad occurrences in art, nature, and science have been a source of speculation and wonder for thousands of years. Divine Proportion draws upon both religion and science to tell the story of Phi and to explore its manifestations in such diverse places as the structure of the inner ear, the spiral of a hurricane, the majesty of the Parthenon, and the elusive perfection of the Mona Lisa. A universal key to harmony, regeneration, and balance, Phi is at the heart of a tantalizing story begun on clay tablets in ancient Babylon, and which will continue to be written for centuries to come.