It's an essential ingredient in pop music and high art. Why do we choose accusations of elitism over open-mindedness? What do our anxieties about "pretending" say about us?Co-editor of frieze, Europe's foremost magazine of contemporary art and culture, Dan Fox has authored over two hundred essays, interviews, and reviews and contributed to numerous catalogues and publications produced by major international art galleries and institutions.

    That book was the last surviving manuscript of an ancient Roman philosophical epic, On the Nature of Things, by Lucretius—a beautiful poem of the most dangerous ideas: that the universe functioned without the aid of gods, that religious fear was damaging to human life, and that matter was made up of very small particles in eternal motion, colliding and swerving in new directions.The copying and translation of this ancient book—the greatest discovery of the greatest book-hunter of his age—fueled the Renaissance, inspiring artists such as Botticelli and thinkers such as Giordano Bruno; shaped the thought of Galileo and Freud, Darwin and Einstein; and had a revolutionary influence on writers such as Montaigne and Shakespeare and even Thomas Jefferson.

    "A full-color picture book for adults that tells a wrenching story of eternal love.”—NPR Books"To truly love another, you must follow the lover’s path wherever it may take you . . . .”Filamena Ziani is the much younger sister of the most famous courtesan in sixteenth-century Venice, Tullia Ziani. Orphaned as an infant, Filamena has come of age bent like a branch to her sister’s will, sheltered and lonely in the elegant but stifling confines of their palazzo by the sea. Then a dark-haired stranger offers a gift that will change the course of her life forever: a single ripe plum, and an invitation to walk along the lover’s path, wherever it may lead.THE LOVER’S PATH, a moving tale of forbidden love, is an illustrated novella told in multiple layers. Through a sumptuous combination of Filamena’s narrative, famous love stories from history and mythology, ornate illustrations, and interactive maps, Filamena’s path is beautifully described and, finally, stunningly revealed.Praised by The New York Times Book Review for her “quality of myth and magic,” Waldherr brings to life a remarkable period in Venetian history. Her glorious celebration of romance, the feminine spirit, and the power of love to transform will inspire and move readers everywhere.

    Yet the Republic of Venice—and the Venier family’s fortune—began to wane and the project was abandoned, with only one story completed. Luisa Casati. Doris Castlerosse. Peggy Guggenheim. These three women  inhabited the Palazzo at different periods, from the start of the twentieth century to the 1960s. Each came from a different country—an Italian, a Brit, and an American—but they had a surprising amount in common, above and beyond their ownership of the same extraordinary building. Amongst other things, all of them had scandalous lives, a passionate interest in art (although in the case of Luisa Casati, the subject had almost invariably to be herself), a fascination with sex, and a deep love of Venice. And, all surrounded themselves with an amazing supporting cast at so many glamorous parties, from D’Annunzio and Nijinsky, via Noel Coward and Cecil Beaton, to Yoko Ono amongst the Picassos. Mackrell weaves an intricate history of the Unfinished Palazzo, bringing it—and its legendary inhabitants—to life.

    There, in a late-night world of sex, drugs, dreams and laughter, they created an artistic community unlike any before or since. It was Comedy Camelot—but it couldn’t last.William Knoedelseder was then a cub reporter covering the burgeoning local comedy scene for the Los Angeles Times. He wrote the first major newspaper profiles of several of the future stars. And he was there when the comedians—who were not paid by the clubs where they performed— tried to change the system and incidentally tore apart their own close-knit community. In I’m Dying Up Here he tells the whole story of that golden age, of the strike that ended it, and of how those days still resonate in the lives of those who were there. As comedy clubs and cable TV began to boom, many would achieve stardom.... but success had its price.

    Inspired by a true story, "People of the Book" is a novel of sweeping historical grandeur and intimate emotional intensity by an acclaimed and beloved author. Called "a tour de force" by the San Francisco Chronicle, this ambitious, electrifying work traces the harrowing journey of the famed Sarajevo Haggadah, a beautifully illuminated Hebrew manuscript created in fifteenth-century Spain. When it falls to Australian rare book expert Hanna Heath to conserve this priceless work, the tiny artifacts she discovers in its ancient binding—a butterfly wing fragment, wine stains, salt crystals, a white hair—only begin to unlock the book’s deep mysteries and unexpectedly plunges Hanna into the intrigues of fine art forgers and ultra-nationalist fanatics.

    Miranda Jones is determined to put the experience behind her. Distraction comes when she is summoned to Italy—to verify the authenticity of a Renaissance bronze of a Medici courtesan known as The Dark Lady.But instead of cementing Miranda’s reputation as the leading expert in the field, the job nearly destroys it when her professional judgment is called into question. Emotionally estranged from her mother, with a brother immersed in his own troubles, Miranda has no one to turn to...except Ryan Boldari, a seductive art thief whose own agenda forces them into a reluctant alliance.Now it becomes clear that the incident in Maine was not a simple mugging—and that The Dark Lady may possess as many secrets as its beautiful namesake once did. For Miranda, forced to rely on herself—and a partner who offers her both unnerving suspicion and intoxicating passion—the only way home is filled with deception, treachery, and a danger that threatens them all.

    The three long poems in Eye Against Eye convey the wrought particulars of intimate human relations, perceptions of the landscape, and the historical moment, tense with political exigencies. Mayan ruins invoke the collapsing Twin Towers, love between parents and child blister with tension, and a bicycle thief shatters the narcotic illusion of a private accord. Also contained is Late Summer Entry, a series of poetic commentaries on Sally Mann's landscape photographs. Eye Against Eye, Forrest Gander's third book with New Directions, cries out an ethical concern for the ways we see each other and the world, the potential to share a vision that acknowledges our commonality. As always with Gander's poetry, suspensions and repetitions drive toward a complex emotional experience, evoking the multifaceted, multi-vocal surge of our present.