For these women, a church hat, flamboyant as it may be, is no mere fashion accessory;  it's a cherished African American custom, one observed with boundless passion by black women of various religious denominations. A woman's hat speaks long before its wearer utters a word.  It's what Deirdre Guion calls "hattitude...there's a little more strut in your carriage when you wear a nice hat. There's something special about you." If a hat says a lot about a person, it says even more about a people-the customs they observe, the symbols they prize, and the fashions they fancy. Photographer Michael Cunningham beautifully captures the self-expressions of women of all ages-from young glamorous women to serene but stylish grandmothers. Award-winning journalist Craig Marberry provides an intimate look at the women and their lives. Together they've captured a captivating custom, this wearing of church hats, a peculiar convergence of faith and fashion that keeps the Sabbath both holy and glamorous.

    Robert Mapplethorpe's black-and-white Polaroid photographs from the 1970s--a medium in which he established the style that would bring him international acclaim--are brought together in this exquisite volume for the first time.Prestel Publications

    . .yet Peter Trachtenberg is such a wonderful writer, and this book is so damn good, that I found myself carried along by its lucidity, its generosity, its deep wisdom. In the end, of course, Another Insane Devotion is about much more than cats." -- Nick Flynn, author of Another Bullshit Night in Suck CityFrom “a genuine American Dostoevsky” (The Washington Post) comes a dazzling, funny, bittersweet exploration of the mysteries of relationship, both human and animal.When his favorite cat Biscuit goes missing, Peter Trachtenberg sets out to find her. The journey takes him 700 miles and many years into his past-- into the history of his relationships with cats and the history of his relationship with his wife F., who may herself be on the verge of disappearing. What ensues is a work that recalls travel narratives from The Incredible Journey to W. G. Sebald’s The Rings of Saturn. Trachtenberg ponders the mysteries of feline intelligence (why do cats score worse on some tests than pigeons?), the origins of their domestication, and why they are harder to write about than dogs. He also looks at what loving a cat can teach us about loving a human being, another insane devotion that takes us farther than we ever dreamed of going."This is Peter’s best book and if you don’t know what that means just imagine your sweetest, most perverse storytelling friend asks to meet because he has a confession to make. When you arrive he informs you that he loves his cat more than life itself, or exactly that much and then he opens his shirt and shows you the cat tattoo and then he begins to tell you of his love and in a puff hours vanish and it’s absolutely riveting. -- Eileen Myles, author of Inferno and Cool for You"Through short sections of intelligent, often humorous prose, former and potential girlfriends and past pets are conjured in hopes of understanding how people can fall in and out of love. Trachtenberg explores his relationship with his wife from early dates to the day before completion of this manuscript, in an effort to deduce how they ended up in their present predicament. Trachtenberg also weaves in accounts of the ancient domesticated cat, famous literary felines, and artistic allegories...Trachtenberg’s journey proves entertaining and enlightening." -- Publishers Weekly

    From the prehistoric Felis (a large mammal from which all domestic cats have descended) to ancient Egyptian cat goddess, key cats of the Enlightenment to swashbuckling pirate felines and infamous American tabbies, the story of catkind is told here in its totality.

    The author "discovered" the feline world's best-kept secret in a file hidden on his mother's computer by her cat, Cleo, and now shares it with humanity for the first time. Topics covered range from avoiding visits to the vet, to the artful display of captured prey, to getting in the way of a human trying to read anything, including this paragraph. Upon publication, Cleo denied authorship and hired a team of lawyers, all of whom have their claws out, but despite her best efforts the word is spreading: The Cat Manual is hilarious for cat-lovers of all ages. From the author of Cave Passages and Dark Life.

    It captures the moving reunion of two young men and their pet lion Christian, after they had left him in Africa with Born Free’s George Adamson to introduce him into his rightful home in the wild.A Lion Called Christian tells the remarkable story of how Anthony “Ace” Bourke and John Rendall, visitors to London from Australia in 1969, bought the boisterous lion cub in the pet department of Harrods. For several months, the three of them shared a flat above a furniture shop on London’s King’s Road, where the charismatic and intelligent Christian quickly became a local celebrity, cruising the streets in the back of a Bentley, popping in for lunch at a local restaurant, even posing for a fashion advertisement. But the lion cub was growing up—fast—and soon even the walled church garden where he went for exercise wasn’t large enough for him. How could Ace and John avoid having to send Christian to a zoo for the rest of his life? A coincidental meeting with English actors Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers, stars of the hit film Born Free, led to Christian being flown to Kenya and placed under the expert care of “the father of lions” George Adamson. Incredibly, when Ace and John returned to Kenya to see Christian a year later, they received a loving welcome from their lion, who was by then fully integrated into Africa and a life with other lions. Originally published in 1971, and now fully revised and updated with more than 50 photographs of Christian from cuddly cub in London to magnificent lion in Africa, A Lion Called Christian is a touching and uplifting true story of an indelible human-animal bond. It is is destined to become one of the great classics of animal literature.

     Shoeboxes and paper bags are fine for other cats. But your favorite felines deserve luxurious living spaces! This DIY construction guide includes fun and easy instructions for making cardboard trains, ships, food trucks, rockets, and other hideouts. Also included are tips for climbing towers and scratching pads that they can use to stay sharp.All twenty projects are quick to assemble and require inexpensive and easy-to-find materials. You can customize them to match your cat's wildest desires!

    His subjects represent a cross-section of American society—musicians and artists, soldiers and CEOs, truck drivers and tattoo artists—with one very furry common denominator. These fun, fuzzy, and offbeat portraits are full of personality, and the accompanying stories share everything from “how we met” to how the cats earned their names. Men with Cats is a delightful gift book for anyone who appreciates the bond between pets and their people.

    3 bus on journeys around his home town, Plymouth, in Devon. While his devoted owner Sue Finden had wondered where her elusive pet was disappearing to each day, Casper was brightening the lives of countless commuters. Bus drivers, too, were getting well-acquainted with Casper, and notices went up in their depot alerting staff that a very special passenger might board their vehicle. In fact, he became a mascot for the bus company, and pictures of him and Susan adorned No. 3 buses. When Casper was sadly killed by a car in early 2010 messages of sympathy flooded in from places as far a field as Australia and Argentina. It quickly became clear that Casper and his remarkable story had touched the lives of many people around the world. Movingly told by the owner who loved him dearly, Casper the Commuting Cat is the touching story of a very special black-and-white cat who rode the bus and stole our hearts.

    Supplemented with original newspaper articles, clippings, funeral notices, memorial ephemera and more, the collection will take us on a journey through a fascinating, moving, and melancholically beautiful part of our past. The images in Beyond the Dark Veil speak to us: they speak of love, loss, lives cut short, brave final hours, shattered families, and the depths of the human spirit. Contains 194 images of hand-colored photographs, albumen prints, ambrotypes, cabinet cards, carte de viste, daguerreotypes, gelatin silver prints, opaltypes, real photo postcards, stereoviews, tintypes, and supplementary articles and related ephemera. Contributors include: Adam Arenson I, Jacqueline Ann Bunge Barger, Alex Jackson, Bess Lovejoy, Marion Peck, Joanna Roche, and Joe Smoke. ABOUT THE ARCHIVE: Located in Woodinville, Washington, The Thanatos Archive houses an extensive collection of early post-mortem, memorial, and mourning photographs dating as far back as the 1840s. The online version of the archive, hosted at Thanatos.net since 2002, offers a searchable database of over 2,300 scanned images, with scans of new acquisitions being added on a regular basis. In addition to the main online archive, hundreds of additional images and material can be found in the community discussion forum, including hi-resolution enlargements, genealogical information, and more.

    In 1972, the 13-year-old Woodman made a black-and-white photograph of herself sitting at the far end of a sofa in her home in Boulder, Colorado. Her face is obscured by her hair, light radiates from an unseen source behind her out at the viewer through her right hand. This photograph typifies much of what would characterize Woodman's work to come: a semi-obscured female form merging with or flailing against a somewhat bare and often dilapidated interior. In an oeuvre of around 800 photographs made in just nine years, Woodman performed her own body against the textures of wallpaper, door frame, baths and couches, radically extending the Surrealist photography of Man Ray, Hans Bellmer and Claude Cahun and creating a mood and language all her own. In the 30 years since her untimely death, Woodman has gained a following among successive generations of artists and photographers, a testament to her work's undeniable immediacy and enduring appeal Amid a renewed intensification of interest in Francesca Woodman, this volume is published for a major touring exhibition of her photographs and films at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim. Containing many previously unpublished photographs, it is the definitive Francesca Woodman monograph.Francesca Woodman (1958-1981) was born in Denver, Colorado, to the well-known artists George and Betty Woodman. In 1975 she attended the Rhode Island School of Design, and in 1979 she moved to New York, to attempt to build a career in photography. In 1981, at the age of 22, she committed suicide.

    Hodgkins's discussions are provocative, and disturbing, and the problems they identify will not be easy to rectify quickly. Nonetheless, they are long overdue." ---Alice Villalobos, president of the American Association of Human-Animal Bond Veterinarians and Director of the Animal Oncology Consultation Service, Woodland Hills (Torrance, CA) and Pawspice Care Clinic (Norwalk, CA) In this controversial new book, dedicated veterinarian Elizabeth M. Hodgkins, D.V.M., Esq., raises the alarm regarding the serious flaws in the commercial diets we feed our cats and the nutritional diseases that result. Your Cat turns today's conventional wisdom of cat care on its head with completely new yet remarkably easy-to-follow guidelines for every cat owner. Features include: The real problem with pet foodsParasites, vaccines, and litter-box trainingObesity and feline diabetesPreventative nutrition for the older catThe ten great myths of cat careFrom kitten-rearing to the adult cat's middle years to caring for the geriatric cat, Dr. Hodgkins explores the full spectrum of proper cat care, as well as rampant deadly feline diseases like hyperthyroidism, asthma, skin allergies, and gum disease. She provides an explanation of the origin and thorough discussion of the very latest treatments. Illuminated by brief case histories from illness to health, this indispensable manual is one book that every modern cat owner must have on their shelf.

    Enter Ting, a seven-pound Korat who changed his life, and the life of the family. All kittens are mischievous, but Ting “the cat grenade” was real trouble. She was also smart, endearing, and the soul of the Warren family.     In late 2008, Lissa’s father died of a heart attack. The images from that night still haunt her—especially the EKG readout ending in one long, devastating em dash. Less than a year later, Lissa and her mother stared at another EKG readout, this time for Ting. A living feline extension of the man they missed so much—the man they had tried, but failed, to save—she was diagnosed with a potentially fatal heart condition. The only option was to have a human pacemaker implanted in the cat—a procedure even the best animal hospital in Boston hadn’t performed in a decade. Determined not to lose another family member, they embarked on a medical odyssey on behalf of the gray cat who had been her father’s shadow—a journey that would prepare one of them for her own serious diagnosis.   A gorgeously written memoir about grief, hope, and how pets both complicate and enrich our lives, The Good Luck Cat is a testament to the power of the human—and the feline—spirit.

    From its inception in 1913, through the Jazz Age and the Depression, to its reincarnation in the boom-boom Reagan years, to the image-saturated Information Age, Vanity Fair has presented the modern era as it has unfolded, using wit, imagination, peerless literary narrative, and bold, groundbreaking imagery from the greatest photographers, artists, and illustrators of the day. This sumptuous book takes a decade-by-decade look at the world as seen by the magazine, stopping to describe the incomparable editor Frank Crowninshield and the birth of the Jazz Age Vanity Fair, the magazine’s controversial rebirth in 1983, and the history of the glamorous Vanity Fair Oscar Party.With its exhaustive sweep, visual impact, and time-capsule format, Vanity Fair 100 Years is the book everyone will want in 2013.<!--?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /--> Praise for Vanity Fair 100 Years: “The book is a stunning artifact that begets staring, less for the words and publishing industry than as an exercise in visual storytelling reflected through the prism of society and celebrity. The best photographers, the best designers, the best illustrators all came together over Vanity Fair’s contents, and the book unfolds in page after page of stunningly rendered images, some iconic and some that never even ran.” —New York Times Book Review

    This particularly delicious guide--filled with lovely line drawings and illuminating commentary about that most mysterious and compelling species--offers a fitting tribute to the animal that provokes the imagination and touches the spirit more deeply than any other on Earth. As subtle and sly and often as funny as cats themselves.--Alice Adams.