Why, specifically?”“I like to build things.”As of the time of writing, more than ten million copies of E L James’ “Fifty Shades of Grey” have been sold worldwide. Whether you find this notion inspiring or terrifying, there’s no escaping the fact that, as literary events go, “Fifty Shades of Grey” is at least...significant. And books that are...significant...deserve to be subjected to thorough critical and textual analysis. By taking it apart into teeny tiny small pieces and put those pieces under a spiteful and mean-spirited microscope, we may all just learn something about the elusive nature of the bestseller,“Lighter Shades of Grey” is a chapter-by-chapter dissection of “Fifty Shades of Grey”, cataloguing unusual leaps of logic, surprising deductions, exciting exchanges of dialogue, recurrent motifs and stand-out moments, that will allow you to better appreciate / enjoyably ruin for others the “Fifty Shades” experience. It also provides definitive answers to questions such as “How often does Ana say ’oh my’?”, “How often do people’s mouths fall open in surprise?” and “Is Christian Grey a diagnosable psychopath?”Building on the viral hit blog-entry, “Fifty Things That Annoy Me About Fifty Shades Of Grey”, “Lighter Shades of Grey” is the perfect snarky companion to this year’s most inexplicable blockbuster. (Approximately 31,000 words; 30 pictures)

    For Catherine Anderson, it's just the beginning. In a wide array of projects using techniques from Photoshop to needle and thread, she shows beginner and experienced photographers alike how to turn their pictures into handmade objects of art-from books and collages to customized greeting cards.

    When overnight success came to the Pointer Sisters in 1973, they all thought it was the answer to their long-held prayers. While it may have served as an introduction to the good life, it also was an introduction to the high life of limos, champagne, white glove treatment, and mountains of cocaine that were the norm in the high-flying '70s and '80s. Ruth Pointer’s devastating addictions took her to the brink of death in 1984. Ruth Pointer has bounced back to live a drug- and alcohol-free life for the past 30 years and she shares how in her first biography. Readers will learn about the Pointer Sisters’ humble beginnings, musical apprenticeship, stratospheric success, miraculous comeback, and the melodic sound that captured the hearts of millions of music fans. They will also come to understand the five most important elements in Ruth’s story: faith, family, fortitude, fame, and forgiveness.

    Like Apple, it was an innovation machine that cranked out one must-have product after another. Led by its own visionary genius founder, Edwin Land, Polaroid grew from a 1937 garage start-up into a billion-dollar pop-culture phenomenon. Instant tells the remarkable tale of Land's one-of-a-kind invention-from Polaroid's first instant camera to hit the market in 1948, to its meteoric rise in popularity and adoption by artists such as Ansel Adams, Andy Warhol, and Chuck Close, to the company's dramatic decline into bankruptcy in the late '90s and its unlikely resurrection in the digital age. Instant is both an inspiring tale of American ingenuity and a cautionary business tale about the perils of companies that lose their creative edge.

    Using the map as a metaphor, fiction writer Peter Turchi considers writing as a combination of exploration and presentation, all the while serving as an erudite and charming guide. He compares the way a writer leads a reader though the imaginary world of a story, novel, or poem to the way a mapmaker charts the physical world. "To ask for a map," says Turchi, "is to say, ‘Tell me a story.’ "With intelligence and wit, the author looks at how mapmakers and writers deal with blank space and the blank page; the conventions they use or consciously disregard; the role of geometry in maps and the parallel role of form in writing; how both maps and writing serve to re-create an individual’s view of the world; and the artist’s delicate balance of intuition with intention.A unique combination of history, critical cartography, personal essay, and practical guide to writing, Maps of the Imagination is a book for writers, for readers, and for anyone interested in creativity. Colorful illustrations and Turchi’s insightful observations make his book both beautiful and a joy to read.

    One of the most celebrated living architects, Ando is best known for crafting serenely austere structures that fuse Japanese building traditions with Western modernism. His minimalist masterworks-geometric forms clad in silky-smooth exposed concrete-are suffused with natural light and set in perfect harmony with the landscape. In these highlights from lectures delivered at the University of Tokyo's Graduate School of Architecture, Ando candidly describes his experiences as a largely self-taught practitioner, tracing his development from an early interest in the traditional building craft of his native Japan through his political awakening in the turbulent 1960s to his current stature as one of the world's foremost architects. In addition to exploring his aesthetic influences and working process, Ando offers students a road map not only for maintaining professional integrity, but also for becoming effective agents of change in the world.

    In this new and innovative series, Aperture works with the worlds top photographers, many of whom also teach, to publish their core thinking on photography making their experience, insight, and knowledge accessible to a wider audience, including students. Each title in the series will provide an essential primer on the photographers area of expertise and creative process. The key points of their practice are presented in the photographers own words, and will answer the questions they are asked most frequently. The commentary will accompany a selection of fifty photographs, iconic images by each featured photographer, as well as key images by others that have influenced their thinking and work.

    This is a stunning, photo-driven book that shares enchanting and timeless ways to live more elegantly.

    This book is printed individually on uncoated (non-glossy) paper with the best quality printers available. The printing quality of this copy will vary from the original offset printing edition and may look more saturated. The information presented in this version is the same as the latest edition. Any pattern pullouts have been separated and presented as single pages. If the pullout patterns are missing, please contact c&t publishing.

    But too often, even the most innovative organization quickly becomes a "giant hairball"--a tangled, impenetrable mass of rules, traditions, and systems, all based on what worked in the past--that exercises an inexorable pull into mediocrity. Gordon McKenzie worked at Hallmark Cards for thirty years, many of which he spent inspiring his colleagues to slip the bonds of Corporate Normalcy and rise to orbit--to a mode of dreaming, daring and doing above and beyond the rubber-stamp confines of the administrative mind-set. In his deeply funny book, exuberantly illustrated in full color, he shares the story of his own professional evolution, together with lessons on awakening and fostering creative genius.Originally self-published and already a business "cult classic", this personally empowering and entertaining look at the intersection between human creativity and the bottom line is now widely available to bookstores. It will be a must-read for any manager looking for new ways to invigorate employees, and any professional who wants to achieve his or her best, most self-expressive, most creative and fulfilling work.

    This survey features more than 400 works from the Polaroid Collection along with essays by Hitchcock, who illuminates the beginnings and history of the Polaroid Corporation.

    Breaking down the message from his bestselling Re-Imagine!, these pocket-sized books deliver crucial business truths to those who are looking for inspiration on leadership, innovation, design, or trends.

    . . Welcome Home is an enthralling and moving drama from bestselling author Margaret Dickinson, set during the Second World War.Neighbours Edie Kelsey and Lil Horton have been friends for over twenty years, sharing the joys and sorrows of a tough life as the wives of fishermen in Grimsby. So it was no surprise that their children were close and that Edie's son, Frank, and Lil's daughter, Irene, would fall in love and marry at a young age.But the declaration of war in 1939 changed everything. Frank went off to fight, and Irene and baby, Tommy, along with Edie's youngest son are sent to the countryside for safety. With Edie's husband, Archie, fishing the dangerous waters in the North Sea and daughter Beth in London doing 'important war work', Edie's family is torn apart.Friendship sustains Edie and Lil, but tragedy follows and there's also concern that Beth seems to have disappeared. But it is Irene's return, during the VE day celebrations, that sends shock waves through the family and threatens to tear Edie and Lil's friendship apart forever.

    Since nobody photographs libraries as beautifully as Hofer, it seemed only natural to dedicate one of her publications to the splendid and intimate cathedrals of knowledge across Europe and the US: the Escorial in Spain, the Whitney Museum in New york, Villa Medici in Rome, the Hamburg University library, the Bibliotheque nationale de France in Paris, the Museo Archeologico in Madrid, and Pierpont Morgan Library in New York, to name just a few. Almost completely devoid of people, as is Candida Hofer's trademark, these pictures radiate a comforting serenity that is exceptional in contemporary photography. Now available in an unchanged reprint.

    Architecture, Jeremy Till argues with conviction in this engaging, sometimes pugnacious book, cannot help itself; it is dependent for its very existence on things outside itself. Despite the claims of autonomy, purity, and control that architects like to make about their practice, architecture is buffeted by uncertainty and contingency. Circumstances invariably intervene to upset the architect's best-laid plans--at every stage in the process, from design through construction to occupancy. Architects, however, tend to deny this, fearing contingency and preferring to pursue perfection. With Architecture Depends, architect and critic Jeremy Till offers a proposal for rescuing architects from themselves: a way to bridge the gap between what architecture actually is and what architects want it to be. Mixing anecdote, design, social theory, and personal experience, Till's writing is always accessible, moving freely between high and low registers, much like his suggestions for architecture itself.