Leonardo on Painting: An Anthology of Writings by Leonardo da Vinci; With a Selection of Documents Relating to his Career as an Artist


Leonardo da Vinci - 1989
    In this anthology the authors have edited material not only from his so-called Treatise on Painting but also from his surviving manuscripts and from other primary sources, some of which were here translated for the first time. The resulting volume is an invaluable reference work for art historians as well as for anyone interested in the mind and methods of one of the world’s greatest creative geniuses.“Highly readable. . . . Also included are documentary sources and letters illuminating Leonardo’s career; the manuscript sources for all of Leonardo’s statements are fully cited in the notes. The volume is skillfully translated and is illustrated with appropriate examples of drawings and paintings by the artist.”—Choice“Certainly easier to read and . . . more convenient than previous compilations.”—Charles Hope, New York Review of Books“A chaotic assemblage of Leonardo da Vinci’s writings appeared in 1651 as Treatise on Painting. . . . [Kemp] successfully applies . . . order to the chaos.”—ArtNews

Chaos: The Broadsheets of Ontological Anarchism


Peter Lamborn Wilson - 1984
    A philosophical-poetic-political text divided into 13 parts: Chaos, Poetic Terrorism, Amour Fou, Wild Children, Paganism, Art Sabotage, The Assassins, Pyrontechnics, Chaos Myths, Pornography, Crime, Sorcery, & Advertisement.

The Great Book of Rock Trivia: Amazing Trivia, Fun Facts & The History of Rock and Roll


Bill O'Neill - 2018
    Do you look up the lyrics and wonder what they mean or if there is a story behind them? What on earth does “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” mean, anyway? We’ve got those answers for you in The Great Book of Rock Music! This book contains hundreds of riveting facts about your favorite rock songs. Do you want to know how your favorite group got together and who is really the brains behind the band? Whether you’re interested in what your favorite musicians like to do in their spare time, where they get the ideas for their music, or which artist had an exorcism in his home, you’re in for a treat. This book will satisfy your curiosity and help you impress your friends with your rock and roll knowledge. As easy to follow as a good drummer, this book will take you through the early years of rock and its development through the hippie era, the synthesizer-filled eighties, and the grunge age. You’ll read about dramatic, absolutely hilarious, and downright odd moments during the concerts that shaped music history and defined generations. Whether you’re a passive listener of your friend’s rock playlists or a connoisseur of guitar riffs, you’re sure to learn something new that will increase your enjoyment of your favorite music. For an extra challenge, try the quizzes at the end of each chapter. So go ahead, open the cover and enter the world of rock!

Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama


Alison Bechdel - 2012
    Now, a second thrilling tale of filial sleuthery, this time about her mother: voracious reader, music lover, passionate amateur actor. Also a woman, unhappily married to a closeted gay man, whose artistic aspirations simmered under the surface of Bechdel's childhood . . . and who stopped touching or kissing her daughter good night, forever, when she was seven. Poignantly, hilariously, Bechdel embarks on a quest for answers concerning the mother-daughter gulf. It's a richly layered search that leads readers from the fascinating life and work of the iconic twentieth-century psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott, to one explosively illuminating Dr. Seuss illustration, to Bechdel’s own (serially monogamous) adult love life. And, finally, back to Mother—to a truce, fragile and real-time, that will move and astonish all adult children of gifted mothers.

The World Only Spins Forward: The Ascent of Angels in America


Isaac Butler - 2018
    Mike Nichols' 2003 HBO adaptation starring Meryl Streep, Mary-Louise Parker, and Al Pacino was itself a tour de force, winning 11 Emmys and introducing the play to an even wider public. This generation-defining classic continues to shock, move, and inspire viewers worldwide.Now, on the 25th anniversary of that Broadway premiere, Isaac Butler and Dan Kois offer the definitive account of Angels in America in the most fitting way possible: through oral history, nearly 200 voices in vibrant conversation and debate. The intimate storytelling of actors (including Streep, Parker, Jeffrey Wright, and Nathan Lane), directors, producers, and Kushner himself reveals the turmoil of the play's birth-a hard-won miracle in the face of artistic roadblocks, technical disasters, and disputes both legal and creative. And historians and critics help to situate the play in the arc of American culture, from the staunch activism of the AIDS crisis through civil-rights triumphs to our current era, whose politics are a dark echo of the Reagan '80s. The World Only Spins Forward is both a rollicking theater saga and an uplifting testament to one of the great works of American art of the past century, from its gritty San Francisco premiere to the starry revival that electrified London in 2017.

Spinning


Tillie Walden - 2017
    Wake up, grab the ice skates, and head to the rink while the world was still dark.Weekends were spent in glitter and tights at competitions. Perform. Smile. And do it again.She was good. She won. And she hated it.For ten years, figure skating was Tillie Walden's life. She woke before dawn for morning lessons, went straight to group practice after school, and spent weekends competing at ice rinks across the state. It was a central piece of her identity, her safe haven from the stress of school, bullies, and family. But over time, as she switched schools, got into art, and fell in love with her first girlfriend, she began to question how the close-minded world of figure skating fit in with the rest of her life, and whether all the work was worth it given the reality: that she, and her friends on the figure skating team, were nowhere close to Olympic hopefuls. It all led to one question: What was the point? The more Tillie thought about it, the more Tillie realized she'd outgrown her passion--and she finally needed to find her own voice.

Gender Queer


Maia Kobabe - 2019
    At the time, it was the only thing e felt comfortable with strangers knowing about em. Now, Gender Queer is here. Maia's intensely cathartic autobiography charts eir journey of self-identity, which includes the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, grappling with how to come out to family and society, bonding with friends over erotic gay fanfiction, and facing the trauma of pap smears. Started as a way to explain to eir family what it means to be nonbinary and asexual, Gender Queer is more than a personal story: it is a useful and touching guide on gender identity--what it means and how to think about it--for advocates, friends, and humans everywhere.

I Love You Phillip Morris: A True Story of Life, Love, & Prison Breaks


Steve McVicker - 2003
    To do it four times is incredible. To do it four times in five years and always on a Friday the 13th is the stuff of legend. Welcome to the world of Steven Russell. Con artist. Thief. Swindler. Embezzler. Hopeless romantic.A husband and father, Russell was a church organist, prosperous businessman, and onetime Boca Raton cop before turning to his life of crime. Arrested for a string of felonies, with a specialty in fraud, his real expertise turned out to be his uncanny ability to escape from jail. Between 1993 and 1998, he orchestrated a string of prison breaks that were as audacious as they were ingenious. Using whatever unlikely materials were at handa Magic Marker, a pay phone, a walkie-talkie, a pair of stolen bright red women's stretch pantsalong with an innate talent for analytical thinking and boundless quantities of sheer nerve, Russell again and again arranged his own "early releases" from jail. Unfortunately, for Russell, staying out of jail is another matter entirely.Over the years, it became increasingly clear that Russell's talent for escape is matched only by his knack for getting arrested. One thing always seems to trump Steven Russell's careful planning, cool head, and instinct for self-preservationlove. Russell cannot resist the urge to try and spring the great love of his lifea fellow inmate named Phillip Morris.In I Love You Phillip Morris, journalist Steve McVicker goes right to the heart of this improbable-but-true story of crime, punishment, and passion. Thanks to unprecedented and exclusive access to Russell, his family, and his friends, he retraces Russell's journey from small-town businessman to flamboyant white-collar criminal and jailhouse Houdini. It's the darkly comic tale of a man with a spectacular ability to manipulate almost everyone he meets, yet who is himself helpless in the face of love.

Nan Goldin: The Other Side 1972-1992


Nan Goldin - 1993
    Ever since the early 1970s Goldin has lived with and among drag queens, documenting both their glamour and their struggles. The Other Side is her very personal declaration of love and gratitude to these drag queens, who showed her a way out of the captivity of pre-packaged, socially prescribed identity. As she put it: "The pictures in this book are not of people suffering gender dysphoria but rather expressing gender euphoria.... The people in these pictures are truly revolutionary; they are the real winners in the battle of the sexes because they have stepped out of the ring". In contrast to much of the early 90s drag queen mania, The Other Side has brilliantly passed the test of time: Goldin's photographs are as beautiful, moving, and vibrant as ever, heralding the utopian promises of a world where gender has stopped being a prison -- a vision that remains as vital and acute as it was when the book was first published.

People We Love


Jenny Harper - 2015
    Jenny Harper is a most gifted storyteller." Alexander McCall Smith‘Thoroughly entertaining’ Katie FfordeFor readers of Jojo Moyes, Jodi Picoult, David Nicholls - you'll love Jenny Harper's "People We Love".Her life is on hold – until an unlikely visitor climbs in through the kitchen window.A year after her brother’s fatal accident, Lexie’s life seems to have reached a dead end. She is back home in small-town Hailesbank with her shell-shocked parents, treading softly around their fragile emotions.As the family business drifts into decline, Lexie’s passion for painting and for her one-time mentor Patrick have been buried as deep as her unexpressed grief, until the day her lunch is interrupted by a strange visitor in a bobble hat, dressing gown and bedroom slippers, who climbs through the window.Elderly Edith’s batty appearance conceals a secret and starts Lexie on a journey that gives her an inspirational artistic idea and rekindles her appetite for life. With friends in support and ex-lover Cameron seemingly ready to settle down, do love and laughter beckon after all?

A Song for Noah


Declan Rhodes - 2020
    He's about to have his younger brother’s wedding, the 10th anniversary of his parents’ tragic death, and the return to town of his first love, Callum, collide in what feels like a terrifying recipe for disaster. All Noah wants to do is keep a low profile, but all three events carry hidden opportunities and secret traps. One of the most compelling is the possibility of a second chance for romance.Callum McCrea was Noah’s high school sweetheart in private, and the best friend of Noah’s brother, Ike, in public. Callum and Noah kept their relationship discreet even when Callum’s farewell in pursuit of a professional music career broke Noah’s heart. Now, Ike is getting married, and Callum can’t say no to the wedding invitation. He returns to the Midwestern town of Lincolnport as a hometown hero with a desire to bridge an eight-year gap by offering Noah friendship and a hug.A Song for Noah is a 59,000-word gay second chance romance with strong family relationship themes. This is the first book in the Sanderson Brothers series. It features four brothers: high school art teacher, Noah, the oldest, businessman, Ike, the acknowledged leader of the family, police officer, Jared, and Ivy League college student, Matthew. The tragic loss of their parents brought the four boys close together and forged an unbreakable bond.All of the books can be read as standalone stories, but they are best read as a continuing series about the Sanderson family including all four brothers as characters in each novel.

Linocut for Artists & Designers


Nick Morley - 2016
    Whether you are printing by hand on your kitchen table or on a press in a print studio, this book gets you started and goes on to explore the myriad creative applications of linocut. It encourages you to experiment with different approaches to image making and explores new ways of thinking about how linocut can be used. Nick Morley shares his experience and specialist knowledge to make this practical guide an essential companion for everyone interested in this addictive and absorbing medium.

Disposable: A History of Skateboard Art


Sean Cliver - 2004
    Longtime skateboard artist Sean Cliver put together this staggering survey of over 1,000 skateboard graphics from the last 30 years, creating an indispensable insiders' history as he did so.Alongside his own history, Sean has assembled a wealth of recollections and stories from prominent artists and skateboarders such as: Andy Howell, Barry McGee, Ed Templeton, Steve Caballero, and Tony Hawk.The end result is a fascinating historical account of art in the skateboard subculture, as told by those directly involved with shaping its legendary creative face.

The Dotted Line


Claire Cullen - 2017
    Until the elder Aldsley issues an ultimatum: either Benn agrees to wed Leopold Ravensworth to save the family from destitution or his younger sister will be forced into marriage. But when Benn signs the marriage contract, he loses much more than he expects. Trapped on the Ravensworth estate, he becomes isolated and lonely with little to distract him from the painful memories of his past. Until Leo. Leo has long since given up on inheriting, throwing his energy into becoming a successful entrepreneur. When a new law changes things, his father comes up with a plan to see him married before his twenty-fifth birthday. Once the contracts are signed, Leo thinks nothing more about his husband on paper until illness forces him to return to the family home to convalesce. He's surprised to find Benn there, even more so to see he is a shadow of the gorgeous man he met at their wedding. He makes it his mission to connect with the skittish, fragile Benn. And the more he unravels the events of Benn's past and present, the closer they become. Until husband on paper starts to look like something more... The Dotted Line is a 36,000 word romance novella with some angst, a happy ending and no cliffhangers. It contains some scenes unsuitable for readers under the age of eighteen.

Artist's Dream


Gerri Hill - 2005
    Her father, the fire-and-brimstone Reverend Parker, has made that a neccessity. Raised in a web of secrets, sadness, and under the heavy hand of her father's righteous wrath and intolerance, Cassie turns to her art to fill the hole in her heart and erase the memory of a mother who abandoned her in childhood. Then Luke Winston enters her life. Strong, mysterious, and beautiful, Luke sparks Cassie's desire, and takes her heart to places she's never known. Soon Cassie can no longer deny her attraction to women--and especially to Luke. When Cassie's father makes an unexpected visit, the intrusion on her new life explodes as dark family secrests are revealed. Will Cassie choose a life without family...or a life without love?