Betty Page Confidential includes a biography of the reclusive goddess, an official Betty Page trivia quiz and 100 photos.Betty Page Confidential is the ultimate book on this 1950s icon.

    It is also one of history’s most mysterious and compelling works of art. This haunting stitched account of the battle that redrew the map of medieval Europe has inspired dreams of theft, waves of nationalism, visions of limitless power, and esthetic rapture. In his fascinating new book, Yale professor R. Howard Bloch reveals the history, the hidden meaning, the deep beauty, and the enduring allure of this astonishing piece of cloth.Bloch opens with a gripping account of the event that inspired the Tapestry: the swift, bloody Battle of Hastings, in which the Norman bastard William defeated the Anglo-Saxon king, Harold, and laid claim to England under his new title, William the Conqueror. But to truly understand the connection between battle and embroidery, one must retrace the web of international intrigue and scandal that climaxed at Hastings. Bloch demonstrates how, with astonishing intimacy and immediacy, the artisans who fashioned this work of textile art brought to life a moment that changed the course of British culture and history. Every age has cherished the Tapestry for different reasons and read new meaning into its enigmatic words and images. French nationalists in the mid-nineteenth century, fired by Tapestry’s evocation of military glory, unearthed the lost French epic “The Song of Roland,” which Norman troops sang as they marched to victory in 1066. As the Nazis tightened their grip on Europe, Hitler sent a team to France to study the Tapestry, decode its Nordic elements, and, at the end of the war, with Paris under siege, bring the precious cloth to Berlin. The richest horde of buried Anglo-Saxon treasure, the matchless beauty of Byzantine silk, Aesop’s strange fable “The Swallow and the Linseed,” the colony that Anglo-Saxon nobles founded in the Middle East following their defeat at Hastings–all are brilliantly woven into Bloch’s riveting narrative.Seamlessly integrating Norman, Anglo-Saxon, Viking, and Byzantine elements, the Bayeux Tapestry ranks with Chartres and the Tower of London as a crowning achievement of medieval Europe. And yet, more than a work of art, the Tapestry served as the suture that bound up the wounds of 1066. Enhanced by a stunning full-color insert that includes reproductions of the complete Tapestry, A Needle in the Right Hand of God will stand with The Professor and the Madman and How the Irish Saved Civilization as a triumph of popular history.From the Hardcover edition.

    From Sprite commercials to The Source magazine to Soho art galleries, the elements and vernacular of the graffiti aesthetic are apparent in today's society. This book examines graffiti's influence from its earliest days to its undeniable ubiquity now. Written by an insider, it includes a general history, in-depth interviews with both the progenitors of the form and current artists, and full-color illustrations of the most important works over the last 30 years. Unlike other subcultures that have been corrupted by the media and the mainstream, graffiti has maintained its sense of the underground and its clandestine feel. The purity and integrity that have defined the graffiti writer's mission have never faltered. The Art of Getting Over offers an unprecedented glimpse into this deeply affecting urban art form.

    Rejected by his family, hounded by society for his interest in young girls, he expressed through his art a deep and bewildering loneliness and an obsession with sexuality, death and decay. He was only twenty-eight when he died, yet he left behind him a body of work that sustains a huge public reputation--and a myth. This book sets out to examine both. 151 illus., 20 in color.

    Some pictures are easily appreciated at first glance, but others - often the most rewarding - require some explanation before they can be fully understood. This clearly written and enjoyable book is intended to increase pleasure and stimulate thought. It tackles many aspects of looking at paintings as well. Starting with familiar ideas, Dr Susan Woodford moves on to explore subtler, less obvious concepts. For example, she shows how paintings can be appreciated as patterns on a flat surface emotional effect; how ordinary objects can conceal hidden meanings and how knowledge of tradition improves our understanding of revolutionary works.

    This, the most detailed and lavishly illustrated book on the cathedral available in English, beautifully evokes the awe-inspiring monument that attracts countless visitors from around the world.

    Through the worst years of the Great Depression as many as five thousand laborers toiled twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, to erect the huge structure that would harness the Colorado River and transform the American West.Construction of the giant dam was a triumph of human ingenuity, yet the full story of this monumental endeavor has never been told. Now, in an engrossing, fast-paced narrative, Joseph E. Stevens recounts the gripping saga of Hoover Dam. Drawing on a wealth of material, including manuscript collections, government documents, contemporary newspaper and magazine accounts, and personal interviews and correspondence with men and women who were involved with the construction, he brings the Hoover Dam adventure to life.Described here in dramatic detail are the deadly hazards the work crews faced as they hacked and blasted the dam’s foundation out of solid rock; the bitter political battles and violent labor unrest that threatened to shut the job down; the deprivation and grinding hardship endured by the workers’ families; the dam builders’ gambling, drinking, and whoring sprees in nearby Las Vegas; and the stirring triumphs and searing moments of terror as the massive concrete wedge rose inexorably from the canyon floor.Here, too, is an unforgettable cast of characters: Henry Kaiser, Warren Bechtel, and Harry Morrison, the ambitious, headstrong construction executives who gambled fortune and fame on the Hoover Dam contract; Frank Crowe, the brilliant, obsessed field engineer who relentlessly drove the work force to finish the dam two and a half years ahead of schedule; Sims Ely, the irascible, teetotaling eccentric who ruled Boulder City, the straightlaced company town created for the dam workers by the federal government; and many more men and women whose courage and sacrifice, greed and frailty, made the dam’s construction a great human, as well as technological, adventure.Hoover Dam is a compelling, irresistible account of an extraordinary American epic.

    Escher (Dutch, 1898-1972) shows us the limitless, the infinite, and the impossible -- continuous staircases that rise and yet end at their beginning points, two hands reaching out of a page to draw each other. The pop-up format adds even more intrigue, bringing the designs to life. Each pop-up is accompanied by a quotation from Escher's writings.

    This reader for lovers of the piano distils his musical and linguistic eloquence and vast knowledge, and will prove invaluable to anyone with an interest in the technique, history and repertoire of the piano. Erudite, witty, enlightening and deeply personal, A Pianist's A to Z is the ideal book for all piano lovers, musicians and music aficionados: rarely has the instrument been described in such an entertaining and intelligent fashion.

    Thirty years after leaving Florence with a broken heart, Suzanne Cunningham is back, determined to solve the mystery of what happened to a priceless painting from her past-and to the man who forever changed the course of her life.

    In this innovative biography of the enigmatic eighteenth-century master, the author of Chatterton clarifies at last the true nature of William Blake's extraordinary life and art. 24-page color insert. Illustrations throughout.

    In a book that spans the years from the wild speculation of the late 1980s to the recession of the 1990s, Polsky, himself a private dealer, takes his readers on a funny, fast-paced tour through an industry characterized by humor, hypocrisy, greed, and gossip.

    Over 100 additional new images are integrated into Volume I, and appear online as full size digital images with discussions written by the author. These bonus images are complemented by groundbreaking media support for students including video study tools and a robust eBook.

    In "Song of Herself", Kahlo expert and child psychiatrist Salomon Grimberg introduces and contextualizes an intimate, deeply introspective interview that Kahlo gave towards the end of her life to her friend the psychologist Olga Campos for an unpublished book on the creative process. Kahlo comments directly and starkly as never before on her life, her loves and her art, and expresses her attitudes towards sexuality, her body, friendship, politics and death, among other personal concerns.The most revealing autobiographical text known on this singular woman, this startling interview is accompanied here by Campos' reflections on her relationship with Kahlo and a psychological assessment of Kahlo by Dr James Bridger Harris. The book is illustrated with selected photographs and works by Kahlo, including previously unseen and rarely seen drawings.

    Clinton Heylin has devoted his career to Bob Dylan's work and presents here a comprehensive study of all of Dylan's recording sessions 1960 - 1994