Slight of build, shy by nature, prone to fits of depression, the 28-year-old Beijing photographer was nonetheless at the forefront of Chinese artists' battle for creative freedom. Like his champion Ai Weiwei, Ren was controversial in his homeland and wildly popular in the rest of the world. He said, -I don't really view my work as taboo, because I don't think so much in cultural context, or political context. I don't intentionally push boundaries, I just do what I do.- Why? Because his models, friends, and increasingly, fans, are naked, often outdoors, high in the trees or on the terrifyingly vertiginous rooftops of Beijing, stacked like building blocks, heads wrapped in octopi, body cavities sprouting phone cords and flowers, whatever enters his mind at the moment. He denies his intentions are sexual, and there is a clean detachment about even his most extreme images: the urine, the insertions, the many, many erections. In a 2013 interview VICE magazine asked, -there are a lot of dicks ... do you just like dicks?- Ren responded, -It's not just dicks I'm interested in, I like to portray every organ in a fresh, vivid and emotional way.- True though that may be, the penises Ren photographed are not just fresh and vivid, but unusually large, making one wonder just where he met his friends. In the same piece, Hang also stated, -Gender isn't important when I'm taking pictures, it only matters to me when I'm having sex, - making him a pioneer of gender inclusiveness. Young fans still eagerly flock to his website, Facebook, Instagram, and Flickr accounts. His photographs, all produced on film, have been the subject of over 20 solo and 70 group shows in his brief six-year career, in cities as disparate as Tokyo, Athens, Paris, New York, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Vienna, and yes, even Beijing. He self-published 16 monographs, in tiny print runs, that now sell for up to $600. TASCHEN's Ren Hang is his only international collection, covering his entire career, with well-loved favorites and many never-before-seen photos of men, women, Beijing, and those many, many erections. We take solace remembering Ren's joy when he first held the book, shared by his long-time partner Jiaqi, featured on the cover.Text in English, French, and German

    Against all odds, Sarbi had survived her injuries, the enemy's weapons, a bitter winter, one brutal summer and the harsh unforgiving landscape on her own. She was the miracle dog of Tarin Kot.Sarbi's story, and those of the other brave Australian Army dogs in Afghanistan, will resonate with anyone who has known the unconditional love of man's best friend, and understands the rewards of unbidden loyalty, trust and devotion. It will appeal to all those who appreciate the selflessness of serving your country and the inherent dangers of putting your life on the line for others in a war zone. And it will strike a chord with anyone who has experienced the magical connection with a dog.

    Minutes to Midnight is the ambitious photographic record of that adventure, in which Parke presents a proud but uneasy nation struggling to craft its identity from different cultures and traditions. Minutes to Midnight merges traditional documentary techniques and imagination to create a dark visual narrative portraying Australia with a mix of nostalgia, romanticism and brooding realism. This is not a record of the physical landscape but of an emotional one. It is a story of human anxiety and intensity which, although told from Australia, represents a universal human condition in the world today.

     The ongoing War on Terror is unlike any conflict the United States Armed Forces have fought. There are no set battles. The enemy adheres to no warrior code or international law. Their only desire is to kill- or be killed. That's where the snipers of the U.S. Marine, Army, and Navy SEALs come in... Here in their own words are the compelling and gripping true stories of the snipers whose sole purpose is to eliminate any and all enemy threats with a single bullet. From the deserts and rubble-strewn streets of Iraq to the endless labyrinth of the remote Afghanistan mountain country, this is life and death beyond the front lines of battle and behind the scope of a high-powered rifle.

    military in Nuristan and Kunar in the hope of preventing Taliban insurgents from moving freely back and forth between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Three years after its construction, the army was finally ready to concede what the men on the ground had known immediately: it was simply too isolated and too dangerous to defend.    On October 3, 2009, after years of constant smaller attacks, the Taliban finally decided to throw everything they had at Keating. The ensuing 14-hour battle-- and eventual victory-- cost 8 men their lives.   Red Platoon is the riveting first-hand account of the Battle of Keating, told by Romesha, who spearheaded both the defense of the outpost and the counter-attack that drove the Taliban back beyond the wire, and received the Medal of Honor for his actions.

    Tim won many awards for his war reporting, and was nominated for an Academy Award for the critically acclaimed documentary, Restrepo. Hetherington's dedication to his career led him time after time into war zones, and unlike some other journalists, he did not pack up after the story had broken.In Here I Am, journalist and freelance writer Alan Huffman tells Hetherington's life story, and through it analyzes what it means to be a war reporter in the twenty-first century. Huffman recounts Hetherington's life from his first interests in photography, through his critical role in reporting the Liberian Civil War, to his tragic death in Libya. Huffman also traces Hetherington's photographic milestones, from his iconic and prize-winning photographs of Liberian children, to the celebrated portraits of sleeping U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. Here I Am explores the risks, challenges, and thrills of war reporting, and is a testament to the unique work of people like Hetherington, who risk their lives to give a voice to people ravaged by war.

    As a turret gunner with the famed 101st Airborne "Screaming Eagles," and a member of the famed "Rakkasans" regiment-the most decorated regiment in the U.S. Army-he endured hellish conditions in the war-torn city of Tikrit, Iraq. When he returned to the States, he became a cast member on "The Real World: Brooklyn" in 2008. That came to an end when he received his notice recalling him to duty. "An Angel from Hell" is a gritty, blunt, and laughout-loud funny war memoir from the grunt's perspective. Conklin reveals what the Iraq war is really like, day to day-the misery, the boredom, the absurdity, the horror, and even the moments of grace. With stunning candor and wisdom beyond his years, Ryan Conklin has documented a complex and unavoidably life-changing experience for his generation."

    The sense of private mystery that fills these photographs--mostly taken during Koudelka's many years of wandering through Europe and Great Britain since leaving his native Czechoslovakia in 1968--speaks of passion and reserve, of his rage to see. Solitary, moving, deeply felt and strangely disturbing, the images in Exiles suggest alienation, disconnection and love. Exiles evokes some of the most compelling and troubling themes of the twentieth century, while resonating with equal force in this current moment of profound migrations and transience.Josef Koudelka (born 1938) has published ten books of photographs, many of which focus on the relationship between man and the landscape, including Gypsies (1975; revised and enlarged edition in 2011), Exiles (1988), Black Triangle (1994), Invasion 68: Prague (2008) and Wall (2013). Significant exhibitions of his work have been held at The Museum of Modern Art and the International Center of Photography, both in New York; Hayward Gallery, London; and Palais de Tokyo, Paris. Koudelka is the recipient of the Medal of Merit awarded by the Czech Republic (2002) and numerous other awards. In 2012, he was named Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture. He is based in Paris and Prague.

    Photographs taken over seven years across more than 35 countries document the epic displacement of the world's people at the close of the twentieth century. Wars, natural disasters, environmental degradation, explosive population growth and the widening gap between rich and poor have resulted in over one hundred million international migrants, a number that has doubled in a decade. This demographic change, unparalleled in human history, presents profound challenges to the notions of nation, community, and citizenship. The first extensive pictorial survey of the current global flux of humanity, "Migrations" follows Latin Americans entering the United States, Jews leaving the former Soviet Union, Africans traveling into Europe, Kosovars fleeing into Albania and many others. The images address suffering while revealing the dignity and courage of the subjects. With his unique vision and empathy, Salgado gives us a picture of the enormous social and political transformations now occurring in a world divided between excess and need.

    . . . Those who like war are aptly named warriors. Some, like me, are fated never to be warriors, as we are more afraid of war than fascinated by it. But I have the consolation that I have walked with warriors and know what kind of men and women they are. I will never be a warrior, but I have known war.” (The Patrol)In 2008, Ryan Flavelle, a reservist in the Canadian Army and a student at the University of Calgary, volunteered to serve in Afghanistan. For seven months, twenty-four-year-old Flavelle, a signaller attached to the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, endured the extreme heat, the long hours and the occasional absurdity of life as a Canadian soldier in this new war so far from home. Flavelle spent much of his time at a Canadian Forward Operating Base (FOB), living among his fellow soldiers and occasionally going outside the wire. For one seven-day period, Flavelle went into Taliban country, always walking in the footsteps of the man ahead of him, meeting Afghans and watching behind every mud wall for a sign of an enemy combatant.The Patrol is a gritty, boots-on-the-ground memoir of a soldier’s experience in the Canadian Forces in the twenty-first century. In the tradition of Farley Mowat’s The Regiment and James Jones’ The Thin Red Line, this book isn’t merely about the guns and the glory—it is about why we fight, why men and women choose such a dangerous and demanding job and what their lives are like when they find themselves back in our ordinary world.

    An astonishing first book, Apache is a story of courage, comradeship, technology and tragedy, during the ongoing war in Afghanistan.

    Army Special Forces veteran Chester Wong writing his memoir, Yellow Green Beret: Stories of an Asian-American Stumbling Around U.S. Army Special Forces, it's more about chopstick humor-and random acts of hilarity. From his days at West Point through his time serving as a Green Beret combat commander on the frontlines of Iraq and the Philippines, Wong tells how he scaled the ranks despite being more adept at cutting corners than taking orders. Darkly comic and brutally honest, Wong's stories range from sting operations on Filipino cell phone thieves to ordering pizzas during special operations wilderness survival school. And beyond the humor, his darker stories offer up a no-holds-barred account of what it's like to serve on the front lines as a Special Forces commander, showing the strange mix of tedium, absurdity, danger and bravery that colored his four tours and just what it's like to be yellow and fight for the red, white, and blue. Whether or not you're in the Army, there's a whole lot of adventure and a whole lot of "who'd have thoughts" and "imagine thats" in this military memoir. With short stories like "Johnnie Walker Brown," "Wily Filipino Cell Phone Thieves," and "Sniper School: Extending the Range of Personality Lethality," Wong pokes fun at the ironies of special operations combat, the idiosyncrasies of military life, and the absurdities of life on the frontline; more often than not he heckles his own harebrained ways. Each vignette is a standalone anecdote; sometimes there's a lesson, sometimes it's just for a laugh. He reminisces his West Point and Special Forces training, working with various militaries in Southeast Asia, and serving in Iraq and the Philippines, as well as general tidbits of military life. With a self-deprecating humor style, he leaves readers rolling with laughter and reflection on his unique observations and lessons learned from a path not often taken, which is good since this memoir is the first in a three-part collection.

    Taylor Jr. and his brother Marines are assembled into a new reaction force that is immediately tested in the fire of a bloody conflict known as Operation Beaver Cage. After a traumatic first fight, they push through back-to-back operations with little time to rest or reflect. Those who survive will return home ensnared by everlasting memories of a real, but entirely surreal nightmare. Now after more than fifty years of holding everything in, Taylor shares his experience in explicit and often horrific detail and with a reverent honor for those Marines who did not live to tell the tale.Taylor reveals what it truly means to walk the path of a warrior, to sacrifice, and to live a lifetime with the memories of a war—seeking answers to the question, “Was it worth it?"

    Waking from a nine-day coma, he had no memory of the thirty-eight prior years of his life, including his ex-wife, family, artistic talents, or military service. To reconstruct his past, Hogancamp built, in his backyard, Marwencol, an imaginary village set in World War II Belgium, where everybody is welcome—Germans, Americans, French, British, and Russians—as long as peace is kept. With 1:6 scale action figures and Barbie dolls, as well as toy armaments and meticulously built props, buildings, and clothes, Marwencol is an alternate reality, created with painstaking (and sometimes painful) realism and obsessive attention to detail.Here, riveting wartime dramas are played out and photographed in saturated hues and unflinching detail. The emotional narrative mirrors the artist's own: through Marwencol, Hogancamp regained his cognitive facilities.Welcome to Marwencol is an astonishing story of the redemptive power of art—of art as therapy and act of obsession.

    Except for this month's Patti Smith: Dream of Life, which isn't so much a glossy centerpiece as it is an addictive pictorial of the godmother of punk's life as a poet, activist, mother, style icon, and all-around kick-ass front woman." ~Elle "With the Rizzoli imprint, we have come to expect certain things: perfect printing, the highest quality papers, flawless binding, superior layouts and type. This historic book is no different." ~SoHo Journal