Gothic monuments bear witness to a dynamic age, when old values were being redefined, often with great drama and debate. Here is a richly-illustrated overview of the period's architecture, sculpture, painting, stained glass, and jewelry, from its 12th-century French origins to its early 16th-century conclusion.

    Country Living showcases a coast-to-coast collection of sustainable dwellings, all ranging from 100 to 1,500 square feet. Take an inside tour of these impressive little abodes, like a converted 1840s schoolhouse in New York, a 22- x 24-foot kit barn in California wine country, a 1914 New Hampshire coastal row home, and a renovated 1950s Alabama lake house. Along with inspiring photographs, hundreds of decorating tips, smart finds, and storage solutions will help you implement minimalistic living in your own home. These charming cottages, delightful she-sheds, functional farmhouses, and transformative trailersfeature a clever use of space and prove that going small can be simple and fulfilling.

    The daughter of the second most important man in France, Louis XVI's Minister of Finances, Jacques Necker, Madame de Stael was born into a world of political and intellectual prominence. Later, she married Sweden's ambassador to the French court, and for a span of twenty years, she held the limelight as a political figure and prolific writer. Despite a plain appearance, she was notoriously seductive and enjoyed whirlwind affairs with some of the most influential men of her time. She always attracted controversy, and was demonized by Napoleon for her forthrightness, the sheer power of her intellect, and the progressiveness of her salon, which was a hotbed for the expression of liberal ideals. The emperor exiled her, on and off, for the last fifteen years of her life. Madame de Stael--force of nature, exuberant idealist, and ultimate enthusiast--waged a lifelong struggle against all that was tyrannical, cynical, or passionless in her time, and left Europe a legacy of enlightened liberalism that radiated throughout the continent during the nineteenth century.

    Within hours the child joins the five dead siblings who came before him. In the mournful weeks that follow, fifteen-year-old Nicole St. Sylvain meets Philippe de Bois, a young horse trainer breaking in one of the queen's stallions. The attraction between the two is immediate, but duty and honor bring their romance to an abrupt halt. They work together to heal the horse's infected hoof, then part ways.As the daughter of a wealthy but untitled merchant, Nicole exists in a precarious social position. Her family has money, she is the sole heir, but she is only noble on her dead mother's side. An arranged marriage to an established noble family will secure her future but dash any hope she has of a life with Philippe.When the queen's only living child falls ill, she remembers Nicole's skill as a healer. If Nicole's healing sense of touch can save the royal child, will the queen reward her with the greatest desire of her heart--marriage to her one true love?Sense of Touch tells the little-known story of late medieval/early Renaissance queen Anne of Brittany, wife to two kings of France, in a gripping tale of forbidden love between two of her courtiers. If you like page-turning romance and suspense in period-perfect detail, you won’t want to miss this prequel to the Anne of Brittany Series. Download this heart-stopping love story today.

    This is a story of jewellery, of love, of denial, of society that aims to have the simplicity of a fairy tale and the elegance of an eighteenth century roman-a-clef.

    His construct of "four ecologies" examined the ways Angelenos relate to the beach, the freeways, the flatlands, and the foothills. Banham delighted in this mobile city and identified it as an exemplar of the posturban future.

    Writing with characteristic verve, the author tackles cultural topics in chapters such as Living on $1,000 a Year in Paris, American Bohemians in Paris, and Parisian Boorishness. "The scum of Greenwich Village, New York, has been skimmed off and deposited in large ladles on that section of Paris adjacent to the Café Rotonde. New scum, of course, has risen to take the place of the old, but the oldest scum, the thickest scum and the scummiest scum," Hemingway wryly observes, "has come across the ocean, somehow, and with its afternoon and evening levees has made the Rotonde the leading Latin Quarter showplace for tourists in search of atmosphere."

    Voltaire Almighty provides a lively look at the life and thought of one of the major forces behind European Enlightenment. A rebel from start to finish (1694-1778), Voltaire was an ailing and unwanted bastard child who refused to die; and when he did consent to expire some eighty-four years later, he secured a Christian burial despite a bishop’s ban. During much of his life Voltaire was the toast of society for his plays and verse, but his barbed wit and commitment to human reason got him into trouble. Jailed twice and eventually banished by the king, he was an outspoken critic of religious intolerance and persecution. His personal life was as colorful as his intellectual life. Of independent means and mind, Voltaire never married, but he had long-term affairs with two women: Emilie, who died after giving birth to the child of another lover, and his niece, Marie-Louise, with whom he spent the last twenty-five years of his life. The consummate outsider; a dissenter who craved acceptance while flamboyantly disdaining it; author of countless stories, poems, books, plays, treatises, and tracts as well as some twenty thousand letters to his friends: Voltaire lived a long, active life that makes for engaging and entertaining reading.

    Design Drawing covers the traditional basics of drawing, including line, shape, tone, and space. The supplemental CD-ROM contains information and instruction that elucidates a broad range of design drawing concepts through animation, video, and three-dimensional models. Intended for use with the book or as a stand-alone product, the CD-ROM includes 25 interactive lessons which demonstrate concepts and techniques in a way that a 2-D book format cannot.

     Drawing on his uncommon background and global perspective, in Breaking Ground Daniel Libeskind explores ideas about tragedy and hope, and the way in which architecture can memorialize-and reshape-human experience. Born in 1946 to Holocaust survivors in Poland, Daniel Libeskind eventually emigrated to New York City in 1959. A virtuoso musician before studying architecture, Libeskind has designed iconic buildings around the world, including the Jewish Museum Berlin and the Imperial War Museum in Manchester, England. In February 2003, Libeskind was chosen as the Master Plan Architect for the World Trade Center reconstruction. Full of the vitality, humor, and visionary spark that helped win him the Trade Center Commission, Breaking Ground invites readers to see architecture-and the larger world-through new perspectives.

    The sparkling redesigned city fostered a culture of energetic crowd-pleasing and multi-sensory amusements that would apprehend and represent real life as spectacle.Vanessa R. Schwartz examines the explosive popularity of such phenomena as the boulevards, the mass press, public displays of corpses at the morgue, wax museums, panoramas, and early film. Drawing on a wide range of written and visual materials, including private and business archives, and working at the intersections of art history, literature, and cinema studies, Schwartz argues that "spectacular realities" are part of the foundation of modern mass society. She refutes the notion that modern life produced an unending parade of distractions leading to alienation, and instead suggests that crowds gathered not as dislocated spectators but as members of a new kind of crowd, one united in pleasure rather than protest.

    The long-awaited second edition includes: new coverage on Postmodernism and its relationship to the Modernist era; a reorganization of Mesopotamian and Prehistoric architecture based on thematic lines of development; an expanded chapter on Medieval architecture, including developments from the end of the Roman Empire to the Renaissance; and an expanded art program that includes over 500 images in black and white and color. Understanding Architecture continues to be the only text in the field to examine architecture as a cultural phenomenon as well as an artistic and technological achievement with its straightforward, two-part structure: (1) The Elements of Architecture and (2) The History and Meaning of Architecture. Comprehensive, clearly written, affordable, and accessible, Understanding Architecture is a classic survey of Western architecture.

    Kundig's projects, especially his houses, uniquely combine these two seemingly disparate sets of characteristics to produce some of the most inventive structures found in the architecture world today. Kundig's internationally acclaimed work is inspired by both the industrial structures with which he grew up in the Pacific Northwest and the vibrant craft cultures that are fostered there. His buildings uniquely meld industrial sensibilities and materials such as Cor-ten steel and concrete with an intuitive understanding of scale. As Kundig states, "The idea is insaperable from the fabrication, inseparable from the materials used."Tom Kundig: Houses presents five projects in depth, from their early conceptual sketches to their final lovingly wrought, intimate details. Kundig's houses reflect a sustained and active collaborative process between designer, craftsmen, and owners, resulting in houses that bring to life the architect's intentions, the materials used, and lines of unforgettable beauty.

    Holl reveals his working methods in this book, part treatise, part manifesto, and part, as Holl writes, "liner notes" to fifteen of his projects. Parallax traces Holl's ideas on topics as diverse as the "chemistry of matter" and the "pressure of light," and shows how they emerge in his architectural work: "criss-crossing" at the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki, "duration" in the Palazzo del Cinema in Venice, "correlational programming" in the Makuhari housing in Japan. The result is a book that provides a personal tour of the work of one of the world's most esteemed architects. Parallax is designed by Michael Rock of the award-winning design firm 2x4.

    The Magic. Dominarian legends speak of a mighty conflict, obscured by the mists of history. Of a conflict between the brothers Urza and Mishra for supremacy on the continent of Terisiare. Of titantic engines that scarred and twisted the very planet. Of a final battle that sank continents and shook the skies. The saga of the Brothers' War.