The Suffering of Light


Alex Webb - 2011
    Gathering some of his most iconic images, many of which were taken in the far corners of the earth, this exquisite book brings a fresh perspective to his extensive catalog. Recognized as a pioneer of American color photography since the 1970s, Webb has consistently created photographs characterized by intense color and light. His work, with its richly layered and complex composition, touches on multiple genres, including street photography, photojournalism, and fine art, but as Webb claims, "to me it all is photography. You have to go out and explore the world with a camera." Webb's ability to distill gesture, color and contrasting cultural tensions into single, beguiling frames results in evocative images that convey a sense of enigma, irony and humor. Featuring key works alongside previously unpublished photographs, The Suffering of Light provides the most thorough examination to date of this modern master's prolific, 30-year career.The photographs of Alex Webb (born 1952) have appeared in a wide range of publications, including The New York Times Magazine, Life, Stern and National Geographic, and have been exhibited at the International Center of Photography, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. He is a recipient of the Leica Medal of Excellence (2000) and the Premio Internacional de Fotografia Alcobendas (2009). A member of Magnum Photos since 1976, Webb lives in New York City.

Why I Love New Orleans: A Collection of Blogs


Heather Graham - 2014
    She has used the city as a setting for many of her novels and there are many reasons why. On her blog in 2013 she spent 30 days sharing what she loved about New Orleans. From favorite restaurants, to museums she loves to her most loved ghost stories, she shared what made New Orleans one of her favorite cities in the United States. Now she has compiled these blogs into this ebook that she wants to share with those who are going to New Orleans, those who have dreamed of the city and want to learn more, and those who might want to debate her choices. Why I Love New Orleans is a love story, it's the story of Heather's love for this magical city.

Joseph Cornell: Navigating the Imagination


Lynda Roscoe Hartigan - 2007
    Cornell's lyrical compositions combine found materials in ways that reflect a very personal exploration of art and culture and that represent his belief in art as an uplifting voyage into the imagination. This stunning book is published to accompany the first retrospective of the artist's work in twenty-six years.In her essay, Cornell scholar Lynda Roscoe Hartigan focuses on the seminal experiences and concepts that shaped Cornell's evolution as an American artist with a singular style of seeing. His transformation of found materials, distillation of far-flung ideas and traditions, and mingling of the vernacular and the erudite resonate with the spirit of synthetic innovation associated with American art and culture. Additionally, eight thematic sections (Navigating a Career, Cabinets of Curiosity, Dream Machines, Bouquets of Homage, Nature's Theater, Geographies of the Heavens, Crystal Cages, and Chambers of Time)explore the major ideas that recur in his work. The book also includes a bibliography, numerous illustrations of the artist's source material and previously unpublished works, and much more.

Turner: The Extraordinary Life and Momentous Times of J. M. W. Turner


Franny Moyle - 2016
    M. W. Turner, one of Britain's most admired, misunderstood and celebrated artists J. M. W. Turner is Britain's most famous landscape painter. Yet beyond his artistic achievements, little is known of the man himself and the events of his life: the tragic committal of his mother to a lunatic asylum, the personal sacrifices he made to effect his stratospheric rise, and the bizarre double life he chose to lead in the last years of his life.A near mythical figure in his own lifetime, Franny Moyle tells the story of the man who was considered visionary at best and ludicrous at worst. A resolute adventurer, he found new ways of revealing Britain to the British, astounding his audience with his invention and intelligence. Set against the backdrop of the finest homes in Britain, the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution, this is an astonishing portrait of one of the most important figures in Western art and a vivid evocation of Britain and Europe in flux.Set against this spectacular and ultimately controversial career, Moyle also excavates the private Turner. Psychologically wounded as a child, by a family torn apart by death and mental illness, she suggests a man who could not embrace relationships fully until the very end of his life. Only then did he succumb to his love for the widowed Sophia Booth, concealing this all too human aspect of his life behind an assumed identity. She mines the poignancy of his final years, when, with his health ailing, Turner sought solace in a secret private life that had eluded him before and that he knew would scandalise the new generation of Victorians.

Impounded: Dorothea Lange and the Censored Images of Japanese American Internment


Linda Gordon - 2006
    Presenting 119 images originally censored by the U.S. Army—the majority of which have never been published—Impounded evokes the horror of a community uprooted in the early 1940s and the stark reality of the internment camps. With poignancy and sage insight, nationally known historians Linda Gordon and Gary Okihiro illuminate the saga of Japanese American internment: from life before Executive Order 9066 to the abrupt roundups and the marginal existence in the bleak, sandswept camps. In the tradition of Roman Vishniac's A Vanished World, Impounded, with the immediacy of its photographs, tells the story of the thousands of lives unalterably shattered by racial hatred brought on by the passions of war.

Chess Opening Names: The Fascinating & Entertaining History Behind The First Few Moves


Nathan Rose - 2017
    You probably know the names already: the Sicilian Defense, the Ruy Lopez, the French Defense, the Caro-Kann, the Benoni, the London System, the Scandinavian Defense and so on. But most chess players don't know WHY the openings are called what they are. In this entertaining book, bestselling author Nathan Rose lays out the origins of over 50 standard chess openings and their names. The tales are often deeply connected to the lives of the leading chess grandmasters, the historical events taking place at the time, and the critical chess world championship contests. All these stories are collected together in this, the first book dedicated to uncovering them. The names of the chess openings tell the history of chess. You will meet larger than life characters such as Bobby Fischer, Aron Nimzowitsch, Alexander Alekhine, Frank Marshall, Siegbert Tarrasch, Wilhelm Steinitz, and Paul Morphy. Some of these men won their fame in the chess world championship, while some gained wider renown for reasons other than their ability to play chess. You will be agog at Paul Morphy's stunning conquest of Europe and subsequent disappearance, the outrageous antics of Aron Nimzowitsch upon losing a game, and the eccentric names Alexander Alekhine gave his cats. You will also travel through the places and events that defined chess in the early years. As David Shenk showed in "The Immortal Game", the history of chess has often mirrored the history of society. There's the 1972 world chess championship that pitted the Soviet Union's Boris Spassky against America's irascible Bobby Fischer in the "Match of the Century". The 1939 chess olympiad in Argentina which coincided with the outbreak of World War II. The unveiling of the "Mechanical Turk" chess-playing contraption in 18th-century Vienna. And let's not forget the triumph of Deep Blue over Garry Kasparov. Over 50 standard chess openings and variations. The People: Ruy Lopez Philidor Defense Evans Gambit Petrov's Defense Schliemann-Jaenisch Gambit Falkbeer Countergambit Staunton Gambit Anderssen's Opening Morphy's Defense Caro-Kann Defense Bird's Opening Winawer Variation Albin Countergambit Steinitz Variation Chigorin Defense Alapin's Opening Maroczy Bind Tarrasch Defense Marshall Defense Rubinstein Variation Alekhine's Defense Grunfeld Defense Reti Opening Nimzowitsch Defense Najdorf Variation Pirc Defense Torre Attack Grob's Attack Larsen's Opening Benko Gambit Fischer Defense The Places: English Opening Scotch Opening French Defense Dutch Defense Danish Gambit Indian Defense Scandinavian Defense Sicilian Defense Catalan Opening Baltic Opening Slav Defense London System Paris Opening Berlin Defense Vienna Game Budapest Gambit Leningrad Variation Scheveningen Variation The Stories: Dragon Variation Giuoco Piano Benoni Defense Grand Prix Attack Orangutan Opening Fried Liver Attack Impress your friends with superior opening knowledge - withou

Old in Art School: A Memoir of Starting Over


Nell Irvin Painter - 2018
    Nell Irvin Painter's journey is filled with surprises, even as she brings to bear the incisiveness of her insights from two careers, which combine in new ways even as they take very different approaches—one searching for facts and cohesion, the other seeking the opposite. She travels from her beloved Newark to the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design; finds meaning in the artists she loves, such as Alice Neel, Faith Ringgold, or Maira Kalman, even as she comes to understand how they are undervalued; and struggles with the ever-changing balance between the pursuit of art and the inevitable, sometimes painful demands of a life fully lived.

The Third Wave: An Entrepreneur's Vision of the Future


Steve Case - 2016
    At the time, only three percent of Americans were online. It took a decade for AOL to achieve mainstream success, and there were many near-death experiences and back-to-the-wall pivots. AOL became the top performing company of the 1990s, and at its peak more than half of all consumer internet traffic in the United States ran through the service. After Case engineered AOL’s merger with Time Warner and he became Chairman of the combined business, Case oversaw the biggest media and communications empire in the world. In The Third Wave, which pays homage to the work of the futurist Alvin Toffler (from whom Case has borrowed the title, and whose work inspired him as a young man), Case takes us behind the scenes of some of the most consequential and riveting business decisions of our time while offering illuminating insights from decades of working as an entrepreneur, an investor, a philanthropist, and an advocate for sensible bipartisan policies. We are entering, as Case explains, a new paradigm called the “Third Wave” of the internet. The first wave saw AOL and other companies lay the foundation for consumers to connect to the Internet. The second wave saw companies like Google and Facebook build on top of the Internet to create search and social networking capabilities, while apps like Snapchat and Instagram leverage the smartphone revolution. Now, Case argues, we’re entering the Third Wave: a period in which entrepreneurs will vastly transform major “real world” sectors like health, education, transportation, energy, and food—and in the process change the way we live our daily lives. But success in the Third Wave will require a different skill set, and Case outlines the path forward. The Third Wave is part memoir, part manifesto, and part playbook for the future. With passion and clarity, Case explains the ways in which newly emerging technology companies (a growing number of which, he argues, will not be based in Silicon Valley) will have to rethink their relationships with customers, with competitors, and with governments; and offers advice for how entrepreneurs can make winning business decisions and strategies—and how all of us can make sense of this changing digital age.

A Dog Named Jimmy


Rafael Mantesso - 2015
    She took their cookware, their furniture, their photos, their decorations. She left Rafael alone in an empty all-white apartment. The only thing she didn't take was their bull terrier, whom she'd named after her favorite shoe designer: Jimmy Choo.With only Jimmy for company, Rafael found inspiration in his blank walls and his best friend and started snapping photos of Jimmy Choo as he trotted and cavorted around the house in glee. Then, when Jimmy collapsed in happy exhaustion next to the white wall, on a whim Rafael grabbed a marker and drew a new world around his ginger-eared pup. Suddenly, Rafael felt his long-dormant inspiration—for drawing, for art, for life—returning.The result? Hundreds of charming and cheeky images chronicling the owner and dog's relationship and adventures, including poses in a Star Wars stormtrooper helmet, passed out with liquor bottles, and as the shark in Jaws. Mantesso's Instagram feed quickly garnered fans from all over the world and caught the attention of major media outlets like Today, The Huffington Post, USA Today, and the Daily Mail, as well as Jimmy's namesake, the luxury shoe brand Jimmy Choo Ltd.Now, Mantesso presents a definitive selection of new and classic images of Jimmy and includes the backstory of how the two became such great collaborators. As heartwarming as it is hilarious, A Dog Named Jimmy will delight animal lovers everywhere.

I Will Never Forget You: Frida Kahlo and Nickolas Muray


Salomon Grimberg - 2004
    Now back in print by popular demand, the classic volume I Will Never Forget You collects more than 50 striking portraits of Kahlo as we know and love her, wearing traditional costumes, heavy jewelry, and flowers in her hair. Archival letters and photographs that tell the story of Kahlo and Muray's touching relationship accompany these stunning plates and make for a truly unique celebration of one of the 20th century's most beloved artists.

Rough Magic: Riding the World's Loneliest Horse Race


Lara Prior-Palmer - 2019
    On a whim, she decided to enter the race. As she boarded a plane to East Asia, she was utterly unprepared for what awaited her.Riders often spend years preparing to compete in the Mongol Derby, a course that recreates the horse messenger system developed by Genghis Khan, and many fail to finish. Prior-Palmer had no formal training. She was driven by her own restlessness, stubbornness, and a lifelong love of horses. She raced for ten days through extreme heat and terrifying storms, catching a few hours of sleep where she could at the homes of nomadic families. Battling bouts of illness and dehydration, exhaustion and bruising falls, she decided she had nothing to lose. Each dawn she rode out again on a fresh horse, scrambling up mountains, swimming through rivers, crossing woodlands and wetlands, arid dunes and open steppe, as American television crews chased her in their Jeeps.Told with terrific suspense and style, in a voice full of poetry and soul, Rough Magic captures the extraordinary story of one young woman who forged ahead, against all odds, to become the first female winner of this breathtaking race.

The Imperial Way: By Rail from Peshawar to Chittagong


Paul Theroux - 1985
    After attending the University of Massachusetts Amherst he joined the Peace Corps and taught in Malawi from 1963 to 1965. He also taught in Uganda at Makerere University and in Singapore at the University of Singapore. Although Theroux has also written travel books in general and about various modes of transport, his name is synonymous with the literature of train travel. Theroux's 1975 best-seller, The Great Railway Bazaar, takes the reader through Asia, while his second book about train travel, The Old Patagonian Express (1979), describes his trip from Boston to the tip of South America. His third contribution to the railway travel genre, Riding the Iron Rooster: By Train Through China, won the Thomas Cook Prize for best literary travel book in 1989. His literary output also includes novels, books for children, short stories, articles, and poetry. His novels include Picture Palace (1978), which won the Whitbread Award and The Mosquito Coast (1981), which won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. Theroux is a fellow of both the British Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Geographic Society.Steve McCurry (b.1950) launched his career as a photojournalist when, disguised in native garb, he crossed the Pakistan border into Afghanistan over twenty years ago. His remarkable coverage won him the Robert Capa Gold Medal, which is awarded to photographers who exhibit exceptional courage and enterprise. Famous also for his work in Southeast Asia, McCurry's photographs are beautiful, uplifting and affecting. McCurry is a regular contributor to many international journals including National Geographic magazine and is a member of the prestigious agency Magnu

A Well-Behaved Woman: A Novel of the Vanderbilts


Therese Anne Fowler - 2018
    costume ball--a coup for the former Alva Smith, who not long before was destitute, her family's good name useless on its own. Marrying into the newly rich but socially scorned Vanderbilt clan, a union contrived by Alva's bestfriend and now-Duchess of Manchester, saved the Smiths--and elevated the Vanderbilts.From outside, Alva seems to have it all and want more. She does have a knack for getting all she tries for: the costume ball--no mere amusement--wrests acceptance from doyenne Caroline Astor. Denied abox at the Academy of Music, Alva founds The Met. No obstacle puts her off for long.But how much of ambition arises from insecurity? From despair? From refusal to play insipid games by absurd rules? --There are, however, consequences to breaking those rules. One must tread carefully.And what of her maddening sister-in-law, Alice? Her husband William, who's hiding a terrible betrayal? The not-entirely-unwelcome attentions of his friend Oliver Belmont, who is everything William is not? What of her own best friend, whose troubles cast a wide net?Alva will build mansions, push boundaries, test friendships, and marry her daughter to England's most eligible duke or die trying. She means to do right by all, but good behavior will only get a woman so far. What is the price of going further? What might be the rewards? There's only one way to know for certain...

Born to Be Posthumous: The Eccentric Life and Mysterious Genius of Edward Gorey


Mark Dery - 2018
    Some even call him the Grandfather of Goth.But who was this man, who lived with over twenty thousand books and six cats, who roomed with Frank O'Hara at Harvard, and was known--in the late 1940s, no less--to traipse around in full-length fur coats, clanking bracelets, and an Edwardian beard? An eccentric, a gregarious recluse, an enigmatic auteur of whimsically morbid masterpieces, yes but who was the real Edward Gorey behind the Oscar Wildean pose?He published over a hundred books and illustrated works by Samuel Beckett, T.S. Eliot, Edward Lear, John Updike, Charles Dickens, Hilaire Belloc, Muriel Spark, Bram Stoker, Gilbert & Sullivan, and others. At the same time, he was a deeply complicated and conflicted individual, a man whose art reflected his obsessions with the disquieting and the darkly hilarious.Based on newly uncovered correspondence and interviews with personalities as diverse as John Ashbery, Donald Hall, Lemony Snicket, Neil Gaiman, and Anna Sui, Born to be Posthumous draws back the curtain on the eccentric genius and mysterious life of Edward Gorey.

The Library: A Catalogue of Wonders


Stuart Kells - 2017
    From the Bodleian, the Folger and the Smithsonian to the fabled libraries of middle earth, Umberto Eco’s mediaeval library labyrinth and libraries dreamed up by John Donne, Jorge Luis Borges and Carlos Ruiz Zafón, Stuart Kells explores the bookish places, real and fictitious, that continue to capture our imaginations.The Library: A Catalogue of Wonders is a fascinating and engaging exploration of libraries as places of beauty and wonder. It’s a celebration of books as objects and an account of the deeply personal nature of these hallowed spaces by one of Australia’s leading bibliophiles.