Aliens & Anorexia


Chris Kraus - 2000
    Belief is a technology for softening the landscape. The world becomes more beautiful when God is in it. Here is what happens inside a person's body when they starve.Written in the shadow of Georg Buchner's Lenz at razor pitch, Aliens & Anorexia, first published in 2000, defines a female form of chance that is both emotional and radical. The book unfolds like a set of Chinese boxes, using stories and polemics to travel through a maze that spirals back into itself. Its characters include Simone Weil, the first radical philosopher of sadness, the artist Paul Thek, Kraus herself, and "Africa," her virtual S&M partner who's shooting a big-budget Hollywood film in Namibia while Kraus holes up in the Northwest Woods for the winter to chronicle the failure of Gravity & Grace, her own low-budget independent film.In Aliens & Anorexia, Kraus argues for empathy as the ultimate perceptive tool, and reclaims anorexia from the psychoanalytic girl-ghetto of poor "self-esteem." Anorexia, Kraus writes, could be an attempt to leave the body altogether: a rejection of the cynicism this culture hands us through its food.

The Art of Frozen


Charles Solomon - 2013
    Encountering Everest-like conditions, mystical trolls, and a hilarious snowman named Olaf, Anna and Kristoff battle the elements in a race to save the kingdom.Taking inspiration from Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale "The Snow Queen" and the culture and landscape of Norway, the artists of Frozen have created a dynamic, other-worldly icy setting filled with striking background work and detailed costumes. Featuring stunning artwork from the film's creation—including sketches, storyboards, colorscripts, and much more—The Art of Frozen is the ultimate behind-the-scenes look at the research and artistry that went into the making of this wintry action-packed adventure.

Artist's Manual: A Complete Guide to Paintings and Drawing Materials and Techniques


Angela Gair - 1995
    For anyone who has ever had the urge to create art, this easy-to-use manual clearly explains the artist's essential tools and materials -- how to choose them, how to use them, and how to care for them. Packed with information on myriad techniques, from color use and composition to subject choice, and including tips from the professionals, here's everything painters and illustrators need to begin, develop, and perfect their craft. Over 500 color photographs, 200 original works of art, and an extensive list of suppliers complete the most comprehensive, inspirational, and affordable artists' instruction book available today.

The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century


Alex Ross - 2007
    While paintings of Picasso and Jackson Pollock sell for a hundred million dollars or more, and lines from T. S. Eliot are quoted on the yearbook pages of alienated teenagers across the land, twentieth-century classical music still sends ripples of unease through audiences. At the same time, its influence can be felt everywhere. Atonal chords crop up in jazz. Avant-garde sounds populate the soundtracks of Hollywood thrillers. Minimalism has had a huge effect on rock, pop, and dance music from the Velvet Underground onward.The Rest Is Noise shows why twentieth-century composers felt compelled to create a famously bewildering variety of sounds, from the purest beauty to the purest noise. It tells of a remarkable array of maverick personalities who resisted the cult of the classical past, struggled against the indifference of a wide public, and defied the will of dictators. Whether they have charmed audiences with sweet sounds or battered them with dissonance, composers have always been exuberantly of the present, defying the stereotype of classical music as a dying art. The narrative goes from Vienna before the First World War to Paris in the twenties, from Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia to downtown New York in the sixties and seventies. We follow the rise of mass culture and mass politics, of dramatic new technologies, of hot and cold wars, of experiments, revolutions, riots, and friendships forged and broken. The end result is not so much a history of twentieth-century music as a history of the twentieth century through its music.

Alice in Wonderland: The Visual Guide


Jo Casey - 2010
    Set to release in March, 2010, the film combines live-action and CGI technology with the exquisite talents of Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham-Carter, Anne Hathaway, Alan Rickman, Crispin Glover, and more. With these twisted and disturbed minds behind the scenes, Alice in Wonderland is sure to be a feast for audiences young and old.The DK Visual Guide brings the imagery, action, and characters to you with superb photographs and stills, incredible insights into the script, story, and actors, and anything else you can think of that might occur down the rabbit hole!

Spiral Jetta: A Road Trip through the Land Art of the American West


Erin Hogan - 2008
    Her journey took her through the states of Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas. It also took her through the states of anxiety, drunkenness, disorientation, and heat exhaustion. Spiral Jetta is a chronicle of this journey.A lapsed art historian and devoted urbanite, Hogan initially sought firsthand experience of the monumental earthworks of the 1970s and the 1980s—Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty, Nancy Holt’s Sun Tunnels, Walter De Maria’s Lightning Field, James Turrell’s Roden Crater, Michael Heizer’s Double Negative, and the contemporary art mecca of Marfa, Texas. Armed with spotty directions, no compass, and less-than-desert-appropriate clothing, she found most of what she was looking for and then some.

Simply Salads: More than 100 Delicious Creative Recipes Made from Prepackaged Greens and a Few Easy-to-Find Ingredients


Jennifer Chandler - 2007
    With the abundance of supermarket selections of prepackaged greens, you can create a restaurant-style salad―along with a fabulous dressing―in your own kitchen.Before bagged blends, a salad with four different types of lettuces was unheard of. Now there are more than fifty different combinations of lettuces, packaged in just the right size, from which to choose. Think beyond iceberg and romaine. The more than one hundred salads and dressings in Simply Salads are colorful, gourmet, and surprisingly simple to prepare. Whether you're looking for the perfect complement to a main dish or you want a salad that can stand as an entrée, you'll find the perfect salad, including such winners as: Asian Salad with Ginger Dressing and Wasabi Peas (page 4) Jalapeño Chicken Salad with Avocado Dressing (page 40) Crawfish Salad with Spicy Cajun Remoulade (page 106) Cheese Tortellini Salad with Sun-Dried Tomato Vinaigrette (page 172) Memphis Mustard Cole Slaw (page 223)

Draw Your Day: An Inspiring Guide to Keeping a Sketch Journal


Samantha Dion Baker - 2018
    In Draw Your Day, Baker guides you through her inspirational practice and provides guidance for starting your own. Part instructional guide and part encouraging manifesto about how making art--even art that's not museum-worthy--can make your life more mindful and meaningful, Draw Your Day is ideal for both seasoned artists looking for fresh inspiration, as well as aspiring artists who need a friendly nudge to get started.

Painting for the Absolute and Utter Beginner


Claire Watson Garcia - 2009
    The chapters follow a progressive sequence that teaches basic skills through practical, accessible exercises–how to handle a brush, achieve the right paint consistency, mix color, and create dimension–building a solid foundation that readers can rely on as painting projects grow more challenging. A special feature is the artwork and commentary of real students, which helps beginners set realistic goals and shows them how other artists at the same level of experience have worked through inevitable setbacks to achieve success.

The Intellectual Devotional: Revive Your Mind, Complete Your Education, and Roam Confidently with the Cultured Class


David S. Kidder - 2006
    The Intellectual Devotional is a secular version of the same—a collection of 365 short lessons that will inspire and invigorate the reader every day of the year. Each daily digest of wisdom is drawn from one of seven fields of knowledge: history, literature, philosophy, mathematics and science, religion, fine arts, and music.Impress your friends by explaining Plato's Cave Allegory, pepper your cocktail party conversation with opera terms, and unlock the mystery of how batteries work. Daily readings range from important passages in literature to basic principles of physics, from pivotal events in history to images of famous paintings with accompanying analysis. The book's goal is to refresh knowledge we've forgotten, make new discoveries, and exercise modes of thinking that are ordinarily neglected once our school days are behind us. Offering an escape from the daily grind to contemplate higher things, The Intellectual Devotional is a great way to awaken in the morning or to revitalize one's mind before retiring in the evening.

Art Forms in Nature


Ernst Haeckel - 1974
    This volume highlights the research and findings of this natural scientist. Powerful modern microscopes have confirmed the accuracy of Haeckel's prints, which even in their day, became world famous. Haeckel's portfolio, first published between 1899 and 1904 in separate installments, is described in the opening essays. The plates illustrate Haeckel's fundamental monistic notion of the -unity of all living things- and the wide variety of forms are executed with utmost delicacy. Incipient microscopic organisms are juxtaposed with highly developed plants and animals. The pages, ordered according to geometric and -constructive- aspects, document the oness of the world in its most diversified forms. This collection of plates was not only well-received by scientists, but by artists and architects as well. Rene Binet, a pioneer of glass and iron constructions, Emile Galle, a renowned Art Nouveau designer, and the photographer Karl Blossfeld all make explicit reference to Haeckel in their work.

Needle Painting Embroidery: Fresh Ideas for Beginners


Trish Burr - 2011
    In 15 projects organized in three levels, from novice to intermediate, Trish provides expert, easy-to-follow guidance on techniques for surface stitching that provide subtle shadings and a soft, paintlike blending of colors. Sections on materials, the long and short stitch, and helpful practice motifs lead to gorgeous projects like Burgundy Rosebuds, a Wild Pansy, and a Racquet-tailed Roller.

What Is Art?


Leo Tolstoy - 1898
    These culminated in What is Art?, published in 1898. Although Tolstoy perceived the question of art to be a religious one, he considered & rejected the idea that art reveals & reinvents through beauty. The works of Dante, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Beethoven, Baudelaire & even his own novels are condemned in the course of Tolstoy's impassioned & iconoclastic redefinition of art as a force for good, for the improvement of humankind.

Why They Stay: Sex Scandals, Deals, and Hidden Agendas of Eight Political Wives


Anne Michaud - 2017
    Instead, she became the first woman to run for U.S. president on a major party ticket.Veteran political journalist Anne Michaud knows the hidden agendas women employ to gain and cling to power. Working as a reporter for The Wall Street Journal and awarded “Columnist of the Year” by the New York News Publishers Association, Anne has researched the women behind some of the most notorious men in the public eye.She discovered a surprising pattern as old as the dynastic maneuverings of England’s medieval queens.Today, women married to the “royalty” of our times – politicians – make bold decisions to keep their “thrones” and their family’s history-making potential.Why They Stay reveals the inner lives of eight political wives as they fight to maintain a grip on power and pursue personal ambition:Melania & Donald Trump: A foreigner’s desire to live the American dreamHillary & Bill Clinton: One masterful decision launched her political careerJackie & John F. Kennedy: Coping in bed and all the way to the bankEleanor & Franklin D. Roosevelt: A lifeless marriage sparks a social championMarion Stein & Jeremy Thorpe: Riding out British scandal to provide for her sonsWendy & David Vitter: Married to the Party versus married to a manSilda Wall & Elliot Spitzer: Real-life drama spawns TV show The Good WifeHuma Abedin & Anthony Weiner: How to win against a man and the MediaThese political wives aren’t powerless pawns. They are shrewder than you expect. Why They Stay pulls back the curtain to reveal why women throughout history stand by their man … for better and for worse.

Transcending Depression: Quest Without a Compass


Larry Godwin - 2020
    I've been there and have struggled with suicidal thoughts and plans. I can share with you what I did to not only survive, but to tolerate depression, live with it, and function acceptably most of the time, interspersed with periods of contentment, happiness, and joy. My strategies may well work for you. My goal is to save lives. The primary motivation for presenting my history is to encourage others who grapple with either chronic depression or occasional bouts. I hope my journey resonates with some, validates feelings, and sparks the thoughts "I'm not alone" and "I will feel better." This book can also help family members and friends of the mentally ill, and their caregivers, find compassion and enable them to understand the struggle. Transcending Depression differs from many other books on the topic in that it is not grounded in clinical experience, scientific research, or empirical evidence, which may make it more approachable than some. It's not a how-to book, not a model for depressed people to follow, not a toolbox. On the contrary, it shows rather than tells the reader what he or she might do to feel better. Appendices include my Depression Survival Guide, which offers 36 suggestions to bring relief, and Chess in the Labyrinth, a metaphor that compares defeating depression to winning a chess game.