Clancy the Courageous Cow


Lachie Hume - 2006
    Every year their bossy neighbors, the Herefords, win the Cow Wrestling Contest. The winners get to graze on the best pasture. The losers have to wait till next year.Can a beltless Belted Galloway do anything about their plight? He can if his name is Clancy.

Atget's Paris


Eugène Atget - 2001
    His skilled, wonderfully atmospheric photos of Paris's parks, buildings, streets, store windows, prostitutes, workers, and even door handles are a joy to behold. This abbreviated volume contains a selection of Atget's best photographs and is the perfect introduction to this master photographer's work.

The Little Book of Saints


Christine Barrely - 2009
    The perfect gift for the devout or any religious occasion, this captivating collection recounts the extra-ordinary legends, heartrending stories, joys, and sorrows of the most beloved saints, from the famous to the mysteriously obscure. Beautifully illustrated with historical pictures from prayer books and missals, this elegant keepsake is packaged with a padded cover, gilded edges, and a ribbon marker—a joy to have and to give.

Peanuts: The Art of Charles M. Schulz


Chip Kidd - 2001
    Schulz and his art, providing an unprecedented look at the work of the most brilliant and beloved cartoonist of the twentieth century. Here is the whole gang–Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus, Snoopy, Peppermint Patty, Schroeder, Pig-Pen, and all the others from the original Peanuts strips.More than five hundred comic strips are reproduced, as well as such rare or never-before-seen items as a sketchbook from Schulz's army days in the early 1940s; his very first printed strip, Just Keep Laughing; his private scrapbook of pre-Peanuts Li'l Folks strips; developmental sketches for the first versions of Charlie Brown and the other Peanuts characters; a sketchbook from 1963; and many more materials gathered from the Schulz archives in Santa Rosa, California.The art has been stunningly photographed by Geoff Spear in full color, capturing the subtle textures of paper, ink, and line. The strips–which were shot only from the original art or vintage newsprint–reveal how, from the 1950s through 2000, Schulz's style and the Peanuts world evolved. The book features an introduction by Jean Schulz and has been designed and edited by renowned graphic artist Chip Kidd, who also provides an informed and appreciative commentary. This celebration of the genius of the most revered cartoonist of our time is a must for anyone who has ever come under the spell of Peanuts.From the Hardcover edition.

Hanging Off Jefferson's Nose: Growing Up On Mount Rushmore


Tina Nichols Coury - 2012
    But Mount Rushmore would never be finished by Gutzon. It would be his son who would complete the fourteen-year task and present America with one of its most iconic symbols.

How to Sharpen Pencils: A Practical and Theoretical Treatise on the Artisanal Craft of Pencil Sharpening for Writers, Artists, Contractors, Flange Turners, Anglesmiths, & Civil Servants


David Rees - 2012
    I love my pencil!"—AMY SEDARIS"You may think that sharpening a pencil is easy, but David Rees makes it look hard, and that makes all the difference."—JOHN HODGMAN"Truly, my life before I was presented with correctly sharpened pencils by an artisan was a dull and ill-sharpened void. Learn from my mistakes."—NEIL GAIMANHave you got the right kind of point on your pencil? Do you know how to achieve the perfect point for the kind of work you need out of that pencil?Deep in New York’s Hudson River Valley, craftsman David Rees—the world’s number one #2 pencil sharpener—still practices the age-old art of manual pencil sharpening. In 2010, he began offering his artisanal service to the world, to the jubilation of artists, writers, draftsmen, and standardized test takers.Now, Rees presents a book that is both a manifesto and a fully-illustrated walk-through of the many, many, many ways to sharpen a pencil. Including chapters on equipment, current practice, and modern technologies, it also points at new trends in sharpening, including "Celebrity Impression Pencil Sharpening (CIPS)," a warning about the “Psychological Risks Associated with Pencil Sharpening,” and a survey of "Wines that tastes like pencils."As Rees implores: "Sharpening pencils should be an activity that enriches the senses."And if you think it’s a joke, why don’t you poke yourself with your newly sharpened pencil? Or better yet, don’t—because it’ll really hurt.

The Unstrung Harp


Edward Gorey - 1953
    Earbrass begins writing his new novel. Weeks ago he chose its title at random from a list of them he keeps in a little green note-book. It being tea-time of the 17th, he is alarmed not to have thought of a plot to which The Unstrung Harp might apply, but his mind will keep reverting to the last biscuit on the plate. So begins what the Times Literary Supplement called "a small masterpiece." TUH is a look at the literary life and its "attendant woes: isolation, writer's block, professional jealousy, and plain boredom." But, as with all of Edward Gorey's books, TUH is also about life in general, with its anguish, turnips, conjunctions, illness, defeat, string, parties, no parties, urns, desuetude, disaffection, claws, loss, trebizond, napkins, shame, stones, distance, fever, antipodes, mush, glaciers, incoherence, labels, miasma, amputation, tides, deceit, mourning, elsewards. You get the point. Finally, TUH is about Edward Gorey the writer, about Edward Gorey writing The Unstrung Harp. It's a cracked mirror of a book, and it's dedicated to RDP or Real Dear Person.

You Can't Take a Balloon into the Metropolitan Museum


Jacqueline Preiss Weitzman - 1998
    But its string becomes untied, and the balloon embarks on an uproarious journey through New York City. With an ever-increasing cast of wacky urban characters in tow, it soars past a host of landmarks. Eighteen famous paintings and sculptures are reproduced in this delightful, wordless book that explores the magical relationship between art and life.

The Ship That Sailed to Mars


William M. Timlin - 1923
    The Ship That Sailed to Mars has a legendary reputation, and the original edition is much sought after by an ardent cult of collectors. Its author, William Timlin, was an obscure South African architect who, in a singular burst of creativity, brought forth a magical intertwining of science fiction and fantasy, a kind of Burroughs meets Tolkien. With 48 pages of calligraphic text — in Timlin's hand — and 48 color plates, it is a work of stunning design, illustration, calligraphy, and overall conception. The Calla Edition also features a new introduction by John Howe, one of the two chief conceptual designers for Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy. The reappearance of this much-discussed title will be applauded by many fans of science fiction, fantasy, and book illustration.

Alexander McQueen: Genius of a Generation


Kristin Knox - 2010
    He was a major fashion figure, famous throughout the world, especially the US (where he is a celebrity-favourite with clients including Sarah Jessica Parker, Penelope Cruz and Nicole Kidman) and Japan. McQueen's dramatic designs, also been worn by celebrities including Bjork, Lady Gaga and Rihanna, met with critical acclaim and earned him the British Designer of the Year award four times. This book is a must-have for fashion lovers everywhere.

The Gentle Art of Making Enemies


James McNeill Whistler - 1890
    Whistler not only refused to tolerate misunderstanding by critics and the so-called art-loving public — but launched vicious counterattacks as well. His celebrated passages-at-arms with Oscar Wilde and Swinburne, the terse and penetrating "letters to the editor," his rebuttals to attacks from critics, and biting marginal notes to contemptuous comments on his paintings and hostile reviews (which are also reprinted) are all part of this record of the artist's vendettas.Whistler's most famous battle began when critic John Ruskin saw one of the artist's "Nocturnes" exhibited in Grosvenor Gallery. "I have seen, and heard," wrote Ruskin, "much of cockney impudence before now; but never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public's face." Whistler was incensed with this criticism, and initiated the famous libel case "Whistler vs. Ruskin." Extracts from the resultant trial record are among the highlights of this book, with Whistler brilliantly annihilating his Philistine critics, but winning only a farthing in damages.The Gentle Art, designed by Whistler himself, is a highly entertaining account of personal revenges, but it is also an iconoclast's plea for a new and better attitude toward painting. As a historical document, it is the best statement of the new aesthetics versus the old guard academics, and it helped greatly in shaping the modern feeling toward art.

Don't Let the Turkeys Get You Down


Sandra Boynton - 1986
    Any similarity to actual persons living or in Los Angeles is strictly unintentional, including the stuff on page 54 that will remind many people of Snigbert Knuddsen.From the turkeys extremely large ego to its arrogant behavior, the traits are classified. Boynton traces the turkey's influence on history, the neighborhood, the family, more. Several profiles in turkitude and a pop quiz further uncover turkeys in the immediate vicinity. Forewarned is forearmed: turkeys possess absolutely unwarranted and absolutely unshakable self-confidence. They insist on high visibility, and can show up at a party, in an argument, on the jogging path. The reader's best defense is through study of this important manual, keying in on the single most important turkey fact: a turkey never knows that it is a turkey.

Elements of Style Revised Edition: A Practical Encyclopedia of Interior Architectural Details from 1485 to the Pres


Stephen Calloway - 1991
    Examines the details of architectural styles from 1485 to 1996, and provides a directory of suppliers and biographical data on select architects and designers.

Alfons Mucha, 1860-1939: Master of Art Nouveau


Renate Ulmer - 1993
    His photographic sketchbook and personal visual diary, comprising photographs from the mid-1880s until the end of his life, constitutes a unique and profound artistic statement. This mosaic of captured moments reveals the intimate and personal basis of both Mucha's own life as an artist and the time period in which he lived. The behind-the-scenes glimpses of his studio provided here prove that Mucha--the creator of the ideal of Art Nouveau beauty--was one of the pioneers of the classic nude in Czech photography. This is the first time such a large selection of Mucha's extensive photographic work has been assembled as a book. Many of the photos in this book, never before published, reveal hitherto unknown aspects of Mucha's work, which will be of interest to the general reader and the photographic connoisseur alike.

The Last Flower: A Parable in Pictures


James Thurber - 1939
    The New York Times called it "at once one of the most serious and one of the most hilarious contributions on war."     Civilization has collapsed  after World War XII, dogs have deserted their masters, all the groves and gardens have been destroyed, and love has vanished from the earth. Then one day, "a young girl who had never seen a flower chanced to come upon the last one in the world." Written among the sorrow and chaos of war, dedicated to this only child " in the wistful hope that her world will be better than mine." The new printing will feature new scans of Thurber's original 1939 drawings.