Book picks similar to
Skyscrapers: A History of the World's Most Extraordinary Buildings -- Revised and Updated by Judith Dupre
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Light, Gesture, and Color
Jay Maisel - 2014
He is a mentor, teacher, and trailblazer to many photographers, and a hero to those who feel Jay's teaching has changed the way they see and create their own photography. He is a living legend whose work is studied around the world, and whose teaching style and presentation garner standing ovations and critical acclaim every time he takes the stage.Now, for the first time ever, Jay puts his amazing insights and learning moments from a lifetime behind the lens into a book that communicates the three most important aspects of street photography: light, gesture, and color. Each page unveils something new and challenges you to rethink everything you know about the bigger picture of photography. This isn't a book about f-stops or ISOs. It's about seeing. It's about being surrounded by the ordinary and learning how to find the extraordinary. It's about training your mind, and your eyes, to see and capture the world in a way that delights, engages, and captivates your viewers, and there is nobody that communicates this, visually or through the written word, like Jay Maisel.Light, Gesture & Color is the seminal work of one of the true photographic geniuses of our time, and it can be your key to opening another level of understanding, appreciation, wonder, and creativity as you learn to express yourself, and your view of the world, through your camera. If you're ready to break through the barriers that have held your photography back and that have kept you from making the types of images you've always dreamed of, and you're ready to learn what photography is really about, you're holding the key in your hands at this very moment.
100 Places That Can Change Your Child's Life: From Your Backyard to the Ends of the Earth
Keith Bellows - 2012
What you won't find inside: predictable itineraries and lists of landmarks and events. Instead, you'll get evocative, slice-of-life experiences and age-appropriate ideas that illuminate place and culture.Each chapter of 100 Places That Can Change Your Child's Life plumbs the heart of a special place-from the Acropolis to Machu Picchu to the Grand Canyon-all from the perspective of insiders who see destinations through a child's eyes. You'll meet actor and travel writer Andrew McCarthy, who tours the suqs of Marrakech with his seven-year-old son; photographer Annie Griffiths, who shares the miraculous migration to Mexico of the monarch butterflies; Tom Ritchie, who has guided countless children and parents to Antarctica for more than 30 years; the waterman who knows where to see the ponies of Assateague in the true wild; and countless others who are cultural treasures, great storytellers, and keepers of a sense of place.Packed with ideas to supplement the travel experience-foods, music, films, and carefully curated lists of kid-friendly activities and places to eat and stay-this inspiring book is the perfect trip planner to excite children about culture and the unique magic the world has to offer.
Phantom Warrior: The Heroic True Story of Private John McKinney's One-Man Stand Against the Japanese in World War II
Forrest Bryant Johnson - 2007
On May 11, 1945, McKinney returned fire on the Japanese attacking his unit, using every available weapon-even his fists-standing alone against wave after wave of dedicated Japanese soldiers. At the end, John McKinney was alive-with over forty Japanese bodies before him. This is the story of an extraordinary man whose courage and fortitude in battle saved many American lives, and whose legacy has been sadly forgotten by all but a few. Here, the proud legacy of John McKinney lives on.
Maphead: Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks
Ken Jennings - 2011
Much as Brainiac offered a behind-the-scenes look at the little-known demimonde of competitive trivia buffs, Maphead finally gives equal time to that other downtrodden underclass: America's map nerds.In a world where geography only makes the headlines when college students are (endlessly) discovered to be bad at it, these hardy souls somehow thrive. Some crisscross the map working an endless geographic checklist: visiting all 3,143 U.S. counties, for example, or all 936 UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Some pore over million-dollar collections of the rarest maps of the past; others embrace the future by hunting real-world cartographic treasures like "geocaches" or "degree confluences" with GPS device in hand. Some even draw thousands of their own imaginary maps, lovingly detailing worlds that never were.Ken Jennings was a map nerd from a young age himself, you will not be surprised to learn, even sleeping with a bulky Hammond atlas at the side of his pillow, in lieu of the traditional Teddy bear. As he travels the nation meeting others of his tribe--map librarians, publishers, "roadgeeks," pint-sized National Geographic Bee prodigies, the computer geniuses behind Google Maps and other geo-technologies--he comes to admire these geographic obsessives. Now that technology and geographic illiteracy are increasingly insulating us from the lay of the land around us, we are going to be needing these people more than ever. Mapheads are the ones who always know exactly where they are--and where everything else is as well.
The Creek Side Bones: Reality is more horrifying than fiction
George Jared - 2017
A friend needed help with his car. What happened to Carl, Lisa, Gregory, and Felicia that night is worse than any fictional horror story you've ever read or seen on the big screen. Little girls should never have to live in a barrel ... Award-winning journalist and best-selling author George Jared takes readers on a gripping and chilling journey with his latest true-crime book, The Creek Side Bones ... Reality is more horrifying than fiction. The book details how the Elliott family in Dalton, Ark., lived in constant fear in the summer 1998. How they met their fates is ghastly. Jared covered two murder trials in connection with the case, and provides his own theories as to how and why the Elliott family was murdered. Four other murder cases are also detailed in the book. Sidney Nicole Randall was a beauty pageant queen, about to enter high school when a monster stole her away in the dark. Bridgett Sellers was a mother of three who vanished without a trace while on a walk down Peace Valley Road. Her fate is incomprehensible. Bob Castleman was a respected attorney and Vietnam War vet until the drugs, murder, a live copperhead snake; Native American artifact fraud consumed his life. The book also includes an update on the unsolved Rebekah Gould case. The 22-year-old college student was murdered Sept. 20, 2004, in Melbourne, Arkansas. There are suspects in the case, but to this day, no one has been jailed for her brutal death. Jared has won numerous first place awards for investigative journalism, feature writing, news stories, and others with the coveted Associated Press Managing Editors and the Arkansas Press Association. His first book Witches in West Memphis ... and another false confession detailed his coverage of the internationally famous "West Memphis Three" case. Three Marion, Ark., teens - Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley Jr. - were convicted in the 1993 murders Christopher Byers, Stevie Branch, and Michael Moore. The boys' bodies were found nude and bound in a drainage ditch near their homes one day after they disappeared May 5, 1993. Prosecutors claimed the boys were sacrificed in a Satanic ceremony orchestrated by the convicted. There was only one problem. These three didn't do it. It took nearly 20 years to free them. Jared wrote more stories about the case than any journalist in the world. He was cited in Life After Death, a New York Times best-selling book about the case. He also received credit for in the Academy Award nominated documentary Paradise Lost Three ... Purgatory also about the case. Through the years, the longtime newsman has written thousands of stories on a wide range of topics. Get a copy of The Creek Side Bones today.
The Lives of the Artists
Giorgio Vasari
Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
Belle: The Slave Daughter and the Lord Chief Justice
Paula Byrne - 2014
The illegitimate daughter of a captain in the Royal Navy and an enslaved African woman, Dido Belle was sent to live with her great-uncle, the Earl of Mansfield, one of the most powerful men of the time and a leading opponent of slavery. Growing up in his lavish estate, Dido was raised as a sister and companion to her white cousin, Elizabeth. When a joint portrait of the girls, commissioned by Mansfield, was unveiled, eighteenth-century England was shocked to see a black woman and white woman depicted as equals. Inspired by the painting, Belle vividly brings to life this extraordinary woman caught between two worlds, and illuminates the great civil rights question of her age: the fight to end slavery.
Leonardo da Vinci
Anna Abraham - 2014
Best known as one of the world's greatest painters, he sketched the foundations for inventions that would not come to fruition for centuries. Born a bastard in a hillside village in northern Italy, Leonardo became the protégé of princes, popes, and kings. He mastered so many branches of science that scholars still debate whether he was greater as an anatomist, botanist, cartographer, engineer, geographer, or naturalist. Nevertheless, he died unhappy, believing he had failed to work the miracles of which he had dreamed. Here, from New York Times bestselling author Anna Abraham, is his extraordinary story.
The Story of Philosophy: A Concise Introduction to the World's Greatest Thinkers and Their Ideas
Bryan Magee - 1998
Discover the great thinkers in their historical contexts and learn the influences that shaped their lives and work. Each philosophical movement includes profiles of key philosophers and their important works, historical contexts and influences, important quotes, and other related people and ideas. Full-color photographs, artworks, and illustrations illuminate every page."The Story of Philosophy" gives you the information you need to think about life's greatest questions, opening up the world of philosophical ideas in a way that can be easily understood by students and by anyone fascinated by the ways we form our social, political, and ethical ideas.
The Treehouse Book
Judy Nelson - 2000
Smiles of recognition turn into grins of enthusiasm as more people discover them and dream about making their own private retreats or family play spaces. And it's nice to remind ourselves that treehouses are built into the oldest and most forgiving, living things on earth. Also, history records treehouses as being built as deliberate follies, as challenges for arboreal designers, for merrymaking, and for keeping the spirit of fairy tales alive. But treehouses can also be social places. We will visit many that were built to entertain, to hang out with friends, or as guest houses. Trees welcome all types. Master treehouse builders Peter and Judy Nelson, with David Larkin, have embarked on yet another treehouse-discovery expedition across America, this time adding the investigation of backyard playhouses to their agenda. Now, in The Treehouse Book, they reveal their findings, illustrated and described in the most complete volume yet. From casual treeshacks made from discarded lumber to multitiered feats of fancy, they found shelters representing myriad builders-interesting characters ranging from childhood fanatics grown up, to weekend carpenters, to those who want their grandkids to have the best clubhouse on the block. Detailed how-to information, including plans and drawings, is woven with behind-the-scenes tales of each structure's occupants and stunning interior and exterior photographic explorations.
Yzerman: The Making of a Champion
Douglas Hunter - 2004
Drawing on the insights of coaches, teammates and league insiders, award-winning writer Douglas Hunter charts Yzerman's career as "the player's player," the embodiment of skill, dedication, sacrifice, and leadership.Yzerman went fourth overall to the Detroit Red Wings in the very strong 1983 NHL entry draft, which included such prospects as Tom Barasso, Cam Neely, and Pat LaFontaine. He made an immediate impact in the NHL with his dazzling offensive skills. In 1986, having just turned 21, he was made the youngest captain in league history.Despite his individual success, including being one of the only three players in NHL history to record a 155-point season, Yzerman's team struggled and Detroit's devoted hockey fans wondered when he would reverse the Red Wings' fortunes. When Detroit was unexpectedly bumped from the playoffs in the '95 Stanley Cup final, many fingers, pointed at the captain. Determined to bring a championship back to Detroit, shrugging off persistent trade rumors, Yzerman continued to adjust his game for the good of the team. While his finesse as a playmaker and goal scorer remained in evidence, the gritty centerman blocked shots, drove to the net, and worked tirelessly along the boards in the corners. He led by aggressive example on the ice and with quiet confidence in the dressing room.In 1997, when the Red Wings won their first Stanley Cup since 1955, Yzerman proved he was a winner. He proved it again the next season, when he raised the Cup for a second time and was awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy as the playoffs' most valuable player. In 2002 the team captured its third Stanley Cup in seven seasons and that same year Yzerman was pivotal in Team Canada's Olympic gold medal victory.
Vanity Fair's Hollywood
Vanity Fair - 2000
The brightest stars in Hollywood's firmament have been assembled in one volume: Garbo and Swanson, Gable and Grant, Tracy and Hepburn, Fairbanks and Pickford, Taylor and Burton - along with today's cinematic giants: Cruise and Kidman, Nicholson and Streep, De Niro and DiCaprio, Hanks and Roberts, and scores more. Vanity Fair's photographers - among them Cecil Beaton, Annie Leibovitz, Helmut Newton, Herb Ritts, Edward Steichen and Bruce Weber - have helped to define modern portraiture. Likewise, Vanity Fair's stable of Hollywood writers in this volume includes luminaries of the past (P.G. Wodehouse, Dorothy Parker and D.H. Lawrence) and of the present (Christopher Hitchens, Dominick Dunne, Amy Fine). Here, then, is a century's worth of stars and moguls, parties and scandals, power and glamour, through the unrivalled lens and the inimitable prose of Vanity Fair.
One Man's Folly: The Exceptional Houses of Furlow Gatewood
Julia Reed - 2014
Antiques expert Furlow Gatewood's highly personal property in bucolic Americus, Georgia, where he has meticulously restored his family's carriage house and added intimate dwellings and outbuildings-several rescued from demolition-has evolved over decades to become a sublime expression of stylish living. The structures exemplify various architectural traditions-from mid-nineteenth-century Gothic to Palladian. He has collaborated with local craftsmen to create these follies and takes delight in designing the picturesque grounds and plantings and in devising comfortable areas for his beloved dogs and peacocks. A gifted designer and longtime associate of antiques dealer John Rosselli, Gatewood has a talent for discovering singular pieces with a poetic patina, composing custom paint finishes and subtle palettes, and knowing how to incorporate distinctive architectural elements. To accompany the book's atmospheric images, close friend Bunny Williams writes about the lessons she has learned from this master of discernment. Gatewood's seductive and hospitable Arcadian oasis, with its exquisite and timeless design, will have an enduring impact on the design community.
20th Century Fashion: 100 Years of Style by Decade and Designer, in Association with Vogue.
Linda Watson - 2000
Fashion was as turbulent as the times. Throughout it all, Vogue magazine was there, as the leading visual filter.20th Century Fashion, published in association with Vogue magazine, is the definitive style bible for anyone interested in the past, present and future of fashion. It takes a fresh look at fashion history over the twentieth century and charts the evolution from corsets to Coco Chanel to punk.The book chronicles and explores one hundred years of developments and movements, including:20s flappers Christian Dior's New Look Swinging Sixties New Romanticism 90s Eclecticism Illustrated with eye-catching archive images, 20th Century Fashion also features the work of the photographers who helped immortalize seminal fashion images. An A-Z section profiles two hundred and fifty of the greatest fashion designers who inspired, created and altered the course of fashion -- from Azzedine Alaia to Zoran by way of Balenciaga and Yohji Yamamoto.20th Century Fashion is an informative and inspirational look at how fashion reflects and projects social mores and individual values.
Letters of Note: An Eclectic Collection of Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience
Shaun Usher - 2013
Kennedy, Groucho Marx, Charles Dickens, Katharine Hepburn, Mick Jagger, Steve Martin, Clementine Churchill, Ray Bradbury, Kurt Vonnegut and many more.