Little Dinosaurs, Big Questions

Meet Diplo – the Jurassic kingdom’s best-loved therapist – on his second adventure.

This time, tackle some of life’s biggest questions with Diplo and his 10 dinosaur friends as they understand more about complex questions, including:
– Does it hurt the grass when I chomp it?
– Is it ever good to lie?
– Why do bad things happen?
– What is fairness?
– How do we remember someone we’ve lost?

Hear Dr Diplo’s answers and learn how to navigate these difficult questions with simple exercises and activities. This book is perfect for guiding your little ones through the big questions they may have.

More in the Series
Little Dinosaurs, Big Questions is the second book in the ‘Dr Diplo’ series. Guide your child through their emotions with Little Dinosaurs, Big Feelings, a cute and funny guide filled with mindfulness activities and tools from Australian child psychologist Amber Owen.


Posted on February 6, 2025

Joel Meyerowitz: A Question of Color

Traces a key turning point in the history of photography: the young Joel Meyerowitz’s early experiments in colour photography.

An early advocate of colour photography, Joel Meyerowitz has impacted and influenced generations of artists. For fifty-eight years, the master photographer has documented the US’s ever-changing social landscape.

For a while, during the late 1960s, Meyerowitz carried two cameras: one loaded with monochrome stock, the other with colour. Just how, when and why US fine-art photographers switched from black-and-white image-making, which was prized within the gallery system, to colour photography, once seen as the preserve of the holiday snapper, has been the cause of much debate.

In this book, Meyerowitz tells the story of his early days as a photographer when he was told that serious photographers took black & white pictures. ‘But why?’ he asked, ‘when the world is in colour?’ He proceed to buy a colour camera and various rolls of films and to read manuals and experiment with colour techniques: a passion he continued to pursue all his life…


Posted on February 6, 2025

Why is art full of naked people?

Artists ask questions when they make art – and viewers ask questions when they look at art. This gently provocative book provides an engaging way for young people to start asking and answering questions for themselves. Why is art full of naked people? is structured around 22 questions, each one tackled over two spreads. The opening spread explores the question and answer, inviting the reader to study a full-bleed image of an important artwork. The second spread shows a selection of work on the theme from across history, showing how art can run with an idea to hugely different ends. The tone of the text is fresh and informal but not flippant.


Posted on February 8, 2025

Why Can’t I Feel the Earth Spinning?

Why do I have to wash? Why don’t aeroplanes fall down?
Where do mountains come from? Why is the sea blue?
Why do I dream?

This book invites young people to discover more about the world around them by asking and answering questions for themselves. The book is structured around twentytwo questions, each one tackled over two spreads. The first spread explores the question and answer, supported by a detailed illustration, photograph or diagram. The second spread asks further questions on a similar theme to help build an understanding of how science underlies everything from the ingredients in our fridge to reaching the moon. The tone of the text is fresh and informal without being flippant.


Posted on February 8, 2025

Why Do Tigers Have Whiskers?

‘A beautifully illustrated resource for parents and children alike, bringing the wonder of science to kids. It’s not the answer that gets you the Nobel Prize, it’s the question!’ – Dr Karl Kruszelnicki

Do sharks sneeze?
Do butterflies remember being caterpillars?
Why don’t cats wear shoes?

Children have an insatiable curiosity for the world around them, and life can be an endless source of fascination for young minds. But do you have all the answers? And are they actually correct? Maybe you need to ask an expert …

Adapted from The Conversation’s highly successful Curious Kids online column, Why Do Tigers Have Whiskers? is the first book in a series exploring some of life’s most pressing questions, submitted by children and answered by leading experts in each field.

‘After editing Curious Kids for The Conversation for so many years, I’ve developed a deep respect for how children see the world in ways adults cannot,’ says series editor Sunanda Creagh. ‘I love their unalloyed awe at the world and brilliant inability to worry about looking silly by asking questions that range from the blindingly simple to the deeply weird. And in every answer we publish on The Conversation – each penned by an academic expert in their field – there is always something for adults to learn, too.’

In this first book on animals, venture into the jungle to discover why tigers need whiskers, dig deep with echidnas to find out how they breathe underground, and shimmy up a tree with your pet cat to learn how it uses its claws. Future books will cover such topics as the ocean, outer space, the human body and language.

Aimed at kids aged 4-7, the series asks the big questions about the world as only a child could, with factual explanations that break down the fundamentals and check our assumptions. A glossary helps young readers learn more complex terms, and immersive collages illustrate each answer, with layers of stuff to marvel at and identify.

Learn the why, the how and the wow! as you explore your world through the eyes of a curious kid.


Posted on February 7, 2025

How to Build Stonehenge

Draws on a lifetime’s study and a decade of new research to address the first question that every visitor asks: how was Stonehenge built?

Icon of the New Stone Age, sculptural and engineering marvel, symbol of national pride: there is nothing quite like Stonehenge. These great sarsen and bluestone slabs, arranged with simple, graphic genius, attract visitors from across the world. The monument stands silent in the face of the questions its unlikely existence raises: who built it? Why? How?

There has been endless speculation about why Stonehenge was built, inspiring theories ranging from the academically credible to the improbable, but far less investigation into how. In the millennia since its creation, pieces of Stonehenge have been knocked over by heavy machinery, found their way to Florida (and back again), and been exposed to radioactive sodium, but the seemingly impossible endeavour of raising the stones with Neolithic technology has remained inexplicable – until now.

In the past decade ground-breaking discoveries, made possible by cutting-edge scientific techniques, have traced the precise provenance of the bluestones in Wales, but can we plot their journeys to the Salisbury Plain? And how might teams of labourers lacking machinery or even pack animals have dragged them 150 miles to the site? How did they carve joints into the sarsen boulders, among the hardest stones in the world, and then raise them into place? Mike Pitts draws on a lifetime’s study to answer these questions, revealing how Stonehenge stood not in austere isolation, as we see it today, but as part of a wider world, the focus of a megalithic cosmology of belief, ritual and creativity.

With 109 illustrations


Posted on February 7, 2025

The Story of Contemporary Art

A lively introduction to and history of international contemporary art from 1960 to the present.

What does it mean?
Is it really art?
Why does it cost so much?
While these questions are perpetually asked about contemporary art, they are not the questions that E. H. Gombrich set out to answer in his seminal book The Story of Art. Contemporary art is very different from what came before. From the 1960s, where Gombrich’s account concludes, artists began to abandon traditional forms of art and started to make work that questioned art’s very definition. This is where Godfrey picks up the story.

Developments in contemporary art have followed no straightforward line of progress or sequence of movements. Recognizing this, Tony Godfrey creates a narrative from a series of often dramatic creative conflicts and arguments around what art is or should be. From object versus sculpture and painting versus conceptual to local versus global, gallery versus wider world, The Story of Contemporary Art traces a history in terms of drastic changes in social and political life over the last sixty years.

How do we experience being human in a world that seems to change so quickly? In exploring art’s relationship to this question, Godfrey asserts that multiple voices must be heard: critics, theorists, curators and collectors, but also audiences and artists themselves. Key to the book is the story of how a perception that art was made almost exclusively by white men from North America and Western Europe has been radically overturned. Compelling and intelligent, but never academic, this book tells us how.


Posted on February 6, 2025

My Animal Book

My animal book is a hands-on, action-packed title to share with young children. The starting point is the child and the questions they ask about animals. First, there’s a big surprise: a human being is an animal! Then come all kinds of questions and activities to encourage children to think about where different animals live, what they eat and how they have families. There are things to do both on and off the page, including games, recipes and craft activities. A little girl called Koko helps children to think about animals and make comparisons with their own lives. There are also three intrepid explorers who go on adventures to a variety of places to find out about different species. This friendly and approachable book will be read again and again by all children of 5 and over.


Posted on February 9, 2025

Why do cats meow?

Why Do Cats Meow? is the second book in the series of natural history books for children that answer curious questions about favourite and familiar pets. The book highlights the qualities of different types of cats, and answers some of the more curious questions children have about cats, including: why do cats like scratching things? Why do cats like bringing us dead things? and Why do cats have wet noses?

Through the book, children will come to understand what’s so unique about a cat’s body and its behaviour and why they deserve to be well cared for. The book also profiles famous cats from history and popular culture, including the cat-headed Egyptian goddess Bastet and Larry, Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office, who lives and works at 10 Downing Street in London. By incorporating zoological information about the feline species with stories from history, art, religion and popular culture, Why Do Cats Meow? celebrates why cats have been such dear pets to us for centuries.


Posted on February 7, 2025

The Office Quizpedia

While it’s been a few years since The Office ended, the show’s stellar writing, lovable cast, quoteability and sheer meme-ability have lived on. Most of us can quote Dwight till we’re blue in the face, but how well do we really know The Office?

With 450+ questions, season-specific quizzes and character-focused questions, this interactive trivia book is perfect to play with friends or family. (Or, for the superfans of The Office … solo!) In the “So you think you know Michael Scott” quiz, your memory will be put to the ultimate test, with questions like: What were the names of the “identical” waitresses who Michael Scott met at Benihana? What prized possession of Michael’s does Jan destroy in Dinner Party? What is the title of Michael’s self-penned action movie? And, of course, what four words make up Michael’s favorite joke?

Get thinking, fam. And put on your favorite season of The Office while you flick through this fun book, in the company of your closest work friend.


Posted on February 7, 2025

The Brainiac’s Book of the Climate and Weather

Quirky stories, interactive activities and off-the-wall infographics serve to answer young brainiacs’ urgent questions about the climate and weather.

What’s the difference between the climate and weather? How do we know global warming is real? The answers to these and many more pressing questions are explored in this book through memorable stories, infographic data dumps, and by engineering a solar oven from a pizza box, among other hands-on activities. Aimed at young brainiacs who want to know how many cow farts make up the Earth’s atmosphere, and how to whip up a homemade storm.


Posted on February 7, 2025

The Talisman of Happiness

In 1929, a trail-blazing gastronome named Ada Boni wrote The Talisman of Happiness – the most iconic and beloved Italian cookbook ever published.

Known in Italy as Il Talismano della felicita, this compendium of definitive regional recipes quickly became the perfect wedding gift: a talisman of luck for newlyweds beginning their life together and passed down for generations as the definitive source for classic dishes. It is considered a national treasure in Italy and has sold more than one million copies over the last century.

This landmark first ever English edition of the complete work has been carefully translated to preserve the spirit and warmth of the original and includes over 1700 recipes that catalogue all the flavours and traditions that define Italian cuisine. The recipes cover every style of Italian cuisine, from much-loved favourites to lesser-known specialties. Every region of Italy is covered, every classic dish from the definitive spaghetti Bolognese to osso buco. It includes no less than 17 variations on minestrone. And many lesser known delights like artichoke soufflé or a simple spaghetti with herbs.

Now, finally this beloved book is available for new families to enjoy and pass down to their children, offering the gift of good luck, good food and a life well lived.


Posted on July 4, 2025

A Victim of Anonymity

Are there miscarriages of justice in art history? Neil MacGregor believes there are. However great an artist, if his name is lost he will not receive a fair verdict from posterity. No exhibition will be devoted to his work; no books will be written about him; he will not even figure in indexes.

Among these neglected geniuses is the 15th-century painter known only as the Master of the Saint Bartholomew Altarpiece. He may have been Netherlandish or German; he may or may not have been a monk. On stylistic grounds an oeuvre of half a dozen paintings, three of them large altarpieces, are attributed to him, and from them a vivid, if hypothetical personality can be built up: emotional, compassionate, observant, original, humorous. All that is certain is that he was a great painter whose name, if known, would rank with Botticelli or Holbein.

In A Victim of Anonymity, Neil MacGregor corrects the judgement of history by demonstrating the power of this unacknowledged master, making us look closely at works that are all too easily passed over, showing us a peerless artist whose paintings derive their fame from nothing but their own superlative merits.


Posted on February 9, 2025

Conceiving God

Recent years have seen a growing tension between religion and science as more and more people have asked themselves a fundamental question: is there a supernatural realm that intervenes in daily life? To many it certainly feels so – but what if the religious impulse has another, rational, explanation?

Building on the insights and discoveries of his two earlier books, The Mind in the Cave and Inside the Neolithic Mind, cognitive archaeologist David Lewis-Williams explores how science developed within the cocoon of religion and then shows how the natural functioning of the human brain creates experiences that can lead to belief in the supernatural realm. Such belief gives rise to creeds, a development examined here in the light of critical episodes in world history, from rivalries between Platonists and Aristotelians to the discoveries of Charles Darwin.

Archaeology reveals activities one can label religious many tens of thousands of years ago and the author shows that mental imagery can be detected in widely separated religious communities such as Hildegard of Bingen’s in medieval Europe or the San hunters of southern Africa.

At once polemical, insightful and thought-provoking, Conceiving God is essential reading for all those interested in these questions about the origins of religious thought, and the respective roles of science and religion in contemporary society.


Posted on February 9, 2025

Afterwards

Modern photography has always sought dramatic events as they unfolded, to capture the key moment, the ‘now’. As viewers in a media-saturated world where professional and amateur photographers alike can capture scenes of upheaval in real time and instantly broadcast them around the world, we are familiar with images of events such as 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina and know what kind of photographs to expect. But what of the scenes after the event? Landscapes, people, buildings captured ‘afterwards’ – looking at an image taken after a dramatic event viewers are given an opportunity to reflect, to think and empathize. The photographs brought together in this book are subtle yet powerful and ask questions about the preceding disasters rather than provide answers. As such, they are more provocative and powerful over time.

Afterwards presents work from leading contemporary photographers, with each body of work in a self-contained sequence of images, analogous to the rooms of an exhibition. Over 30 photographers are featured, including Robert Polidori, Suzanne Opton, Raphael Dallaporta and Simon Norfolk, inviting the viewer to contemplate the aftermath of events that have taken place over sixty years of modern history – the Srebrenica massacre, human trafficking and slave labour, the Hiroshima bombing, the Holocaust and various natural disasters – and get a sense of the physical and emotional scars they left behind. The bedrooms of young American soldiers, still intact long after they have died; the traumatized faces of those who have been to war; the deceptively peaceful facades of respectable-looking houses where domestic workers were abused – these are some examples of the powerful, meditative yet psychologically intense imagery presented.

Accompanied by academic essays on cognitive responses to photographs, the ability to see and empathize, the nature of trauma and the meaning of ‘stigmata’, Afterwards shows the possibility for contemporary photography to question what happens in the world and begin to understand it better.


Posted on February 9, 2025

My Big World

Follow Koko and Alex as they ask questions about the world while intrepid explorers go on adventures to find out how and where we live. Starting from inside the home, Koko and Alex move on to explore the wider world. Step by step the reader encounters different plants and animals, exploring various locations around the world and even visiting outer space! Children explore each topic by playing and learning. Activities, which include things to do on and off the page such as games, recipes and craft activities, are announced by a graphic symbol of a pair of hands. The more complicated procedures, involving cutting and baking, are flagged as requiring adult supervision.


Posted on February 9, 2025

It Might Be An Apple

It Might Be an Apple is a boisterous, philosophical shaggy dog story for young children – and probably a few adults. The story follows a child’s hilarious, wildly inventive train of thought through all the things an apple might be if it is not, in fact, an apple. Distrusting the apple’s convincing appearance, the child’s imagination spirals upwards and outwards into a madcap fantasy world – maybe it’s a planet from outer space with tiny aliens on board? Perhaps it wants a cool hairstyle? Does it feel scared, or snore at night? This book is not only huge fun, but it also encourages a questioning, challenging approach to the world around us.


Posted on February 9, 2025

This Book Thinks You’re a Scientist

This book thinks you’re a scientist explores seven key scientific areas in the Science Museum’s new interactive gallery for children: force and motion, electricity and magnetism, earth and space, light, matter, sound and mathematics. Each spread centres on an open-ended question or activity, with space on the page for the child to write, draw or interact with the book. Imagine dogs are magnetic! Design how you would make a book fly. Write a new robot language. The book ends with a section for children to record their own guided independent investigations, including surveys and experiment logs.


Posted on February 9, 2025

Self-Portraits

The self as a subject is one of the most fascinating and fruitful of artistic enterprises. From the 15th century to today, this collection brings together some of the best examples of self-portraiture to explore the genre’s evolution over the centuries as well as the enduring questions of selfhood and self-representation that have besieged human experience for centuries before social media and the selfie.

Is a self-portrait of an artist a medium of reflection? Or is it merely a black void, the “false mirror,” as the Surrealist René Magritte entitled his 1928 painting of an eye? How much does it impart about contemporary notions of beauty, power, and status? From Albrecht Dürer to Egon Schiele, Fra Filippo Lippi to Frida Kahlo, this far-reaching collection explores the numerous ways in which artists have taken themselves as subjects, the variety of ingenious methods and perspectives they have used, and the intriguing questions they raise.


Posted on February 9, 2025

What Shape Is Space?

The Big Idea shortlisted for series design in the British Design and Production Awards

What Shape is Space? is a question with surprisingly far-reaching implications for our understanding of the very nature of reality and our place within it. The concepts involved may be sophisticated, but Giles Sparrow’s effortless prose style easily renders them understandable, allowing readers to get to grips with the overarching debates at the cutting edge of cosmology today. Infographics, diagrams and astronomical visualizations illustrate and clarify the various astonishing implications of a universe of infinite space.


Posted on February 9, 2025

My Animal Book

My animal book is a hands-on, action-packed title to share with young children. The starting point is the child and the questions they ask about animals. First, there’s a big surprise: a human being is an animal! Then come all kinds of questions and activities to encourage children to think about where different animals live, what they eat and how they have families.

There are things to do both on and off the page, including games, recipes and craft activities. A little girl called Koko helps children to think about animals and make comparisons with their own lives. There are also three intrepid explorers who go on adventures to a variety of places to find out about different species. This friendly and approachable book will be read again and again by all children of 5 and over.


Posted on February 8, 2025

Is Democracy Failing?

The Big Idea shortlisted for series design in the British Design and Production Awards

Only four countries around the world do not currently define themselves as democracies. But many more do not fulfil the four basic requirements of democracy: free and fair elections, active participation of citizens in politics, protection of human rights, and the rule of law. Since 2015, far-right and populist politicians have been on the rise throughout the West. Is populism the new face of democracy? Is democracy simply the will of the people? Can any existing government claim to be truly democratic? This captivating, articulate volume explores and interrogates each form of democracy and questions whether they remain fit for purpose today.


Posted on February 8, 2025

Aliens and other Worlds

Did life on Earth arrive on a meteorite from outer space? Are there living beings on planets beyond our solar system? If they are out there, what might these aliens look like? Would they be smart, curious, scared? Would they even want to meet us?

Revealing the wonders of scientific inquiry, astrophysicist and best-selling author Lisa Harvey-Smith guides Earthlings young and old through our search for alien life. On the way, she considers where our best chances are to find any galactic neighbours; ponders whether they might already be living among us; and looks at what we might learn about aliens from life at Earth’s extremes.

Asking all the important questions, answering some and explaining why others need further investigation, Aliens and Other Worlds explores the mystery of life beyond Earth. With illustrations by acclaimed artist Tracie Grimwood, this awe-inspiring journey will thrill anyone with eyes fixed on distant horizons.


Posted on February 8, 2025

The Light Fades but the Gods Remain

Over thirty years have passed since Bill Henson made his iconic Untitled 1985/86 series. These mesmerising photographs cast a hazy procession of people and places from Melbourne’s suburb of Glen Waverley, interspersed with dreamlike vignettes of Egyptian structures.

Now, commissioned by Monash Gallery of Art, Henson has revisited his home suburb to create new work. While these photographs return to Glen Waverley, they show an environment that appears to have slipped out of linear time. Henson’s new images are sumptuous and resplendent in their grandeur, offering a view of what is ‘just down the street’, but seem to come from another age. Together, the two series provide a glimpse into Henson’s brilliant mind as he ponders the passing of time.

The Light Fades but the Gods Remain, accompanied by an exhibition of both series of work at Monash Gallery of Art, celebrates an extraordinary artist at two stages in his career. The publication includes extracts by various authors who have had an impact on Henson, as well as text by Monash Gallery of Art Senior Curator Pippa Milne.


Posted on February 7, 2025

This Book Thinks You’re an Inventor

This activity book helps children to think like an inventor by introducing key engineering concepts in a highly visual and entertaining way. Through fun activities and Harriet Russell’s playful illustrations, it encourages readers to engage with new ideas and think about problems in a creative way.

The book explores the six key aspects of engineering that are essential to any successful inventor: problem-finding, designing, making and testing, improving your invention, building techniques and how to find new uses for existing objects. Each spread centres on an open-ended question that introduces a different way of approaching an invention. Activities include making a bridge from toothpicks and mini marshmallows; inventing a way to lift this book without touching it; building a painting robot; designing your own remote control; and harvesting electricity from a banana. At the end of the book is a tinkering lab, which includes paper-based crafts and engineering activities.


Posted on February 7, 2025

Why do dogs sniff bottoms?

Why do dogs play dead? How do you speak dog? Why do dogs go about in handbags? This book will help children to understand what’s so unique about a dog’s body and its behaviour and why they deserve to be well cared for. The book also profiles famous dogs from history and popular culture, including the dog-headed Egyptian god Anubis and internet sensation Boo, the cutest dog in the world (according to Google). By incorporating zoological information about the canine species with stories from history, art, religion and popular culture, Why do dogs sniff bottoms? celebrates why dogs have been such dear pets to us for centuries.


Posted on February 7, 2025

Human Nature

Humanity has reached a pivotal moment in time. With extinction looming over one million species of plants and animals, the United Nations has declared that nature is in more trouble now than at any time in human history. In light of increasing natural disasters, polluted environments and rising sea levels, the present geological era has been described as the age of Anthropocene; the effect of humanity’s now indelible, and irreversible, intersection with nature.

In this important and timely book, these seminal questions of our time are addressed by twelve of the world’s most influential contemporary photographers: Joel Sartore, Paul Nicklen, Ami Vitale, Brent Stirton, Frans Lanting, Brian Skerry, Tim Laman, Cristina Mittermeier, J Henry Fair, Richard John Seymour, George Steinmetz and Steve Winter. With compassion, insight and in compelling detail they share their extraordinary images and the stories behind them, and seek to understand what really matters now for humanity and the planet.

At once shocking, illuminating and inspiring, Human Nature: Planet Earth in Our Time asks: ‘What do we have?’, ‘What do we stand to lose?’ and ‘What must we change?’, or is the Anthropocene Age to be humanity’s last?


Posted on February 7, 2025

This Small Blue Dot

With a strong message of interconnectedness, hope and empowerment, This Small Blue Dot follows a little girl exploring the big and small things in life. From contemplating our place on this ‘blue dot’ to the best Italian, Chinese and Indian desserts, the book provides a broader, more inclusive view of who we are, where we come from and where our dreams may take us.

Delivering big lessons with playful humour, the precocious young narrator shares her take on nature and the environment, wisdom from elders, embracing difference, the power of imagination and broccoli. Through this character – loosely based on his eldest daughter, whose crayon drawings decorate the endpapers – Sworder channels the lessons he took from his Chinese grandmother and British father. ‘Because my daughters would not grow up hearing their voices I wanted to pass on some part of who they were and what they had taught me … In passing these lessons forward it was important to me to do so in the same spirit of generosity and fun that they gifted to me. There is a saying that you sail through life on a carpet woven from the love and wisdom of your ancestors. I benefited greatly from such a carpet and I made this book hoping that my daughters will as well.’

Richly illustrated with original pencil and crayon drawings that conjure up memories of childhood, This Small Blue Dot captures not only lessons on life but also the sense of fun and strangeness that comes with being a member of the human family on planet Earth.


Posted on February 7, 2025

Face to Face

Although we are now, more than ever before, bombarded with portraits in both social and traditional media, interest in the three-dimensional sculptural portrait has declined dramatically. What accounts for this trend, and what does it mean for our understanding of the portrait as a medium? Portraits have a visceral power of attraction. They arouse our curiosity, prompting us to wonder who the person is behind the face – and, by extension, to reflect on our own identity. But whereas portrait paintings and photographs are immediately arresting, and fascinating, sculptural portraits can seem harder to approach there is no background and few details to help orient the beholder. As a result, sculpted portraits may seem like a sea of unknown faces that one only takes fleeting note of in passing; irrelevant, immaterial, perhaps even boring. But that is not how it used to be.

Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770-1844) was one of Europe’s most popular portrait artists. Over the course of his lifetime, he created approximately 160 portraits, ranging from members of Europe’s royal houses to leading cultural figures to ordinary Danes. Thorvaldsen’s portraits thus make up the biggest single category of artworks in his oeuvre. In former times, such sculptural portraits were a common phenomenon. So what happened? Why did they go out of fashion? These are some of the questions that this book seeks to illuminate. The book contains essays and articles by 42 authors, amongst them Whitney Davis, Malcolm Baker, Grant Parker, Ulrich Pfisterer, Rolf Schneider, Peter Fibiger Bang, Tim Flohr Sørensen, and Jane Fejfer.


Posted on February 7, 2025

Does Monogamy Work?

Even with the current rise in awareness of sexual and intimate diversity, monogamous relationships remain the cultural norm. Most people aspire to it and the state encourages it, providing legal and financial benefits to married couples; however, statistics show adultery is commonplace, marriage rates are falling, and divorce figures are rising. Does Monogamy Work? – the twelfth book in The Big Idea series – traces the evolution and normalization of the monogamous ideal, questioning whether it is ‘natural’ or not, and surveying the spectrum of alternative relationship models that people are seeking out in a world of internet dating and scientific control over reproduction. It explores the emotional and psychological facets of ethical polyamorous relationships; questions whether these relationships benefit men disproportionately and whether they are compatible with raising children; and assesses the likelihood that diverse forms of multi-partner marriages and large friendship networks will become the norm in the future.

With over 150 colour images and incisive, engaging and authoritative text, this book examines society’s attachment to monogamy, evaluates its benefits and limitations, and asses the merits of polyamorous relationship models in our modern world.


Posted on February 7, 2025

A History of Music for Children

Following on from the success of the award-winning A History of Pictures for Children comes this introduction to the history of music that takes children on a musical journey around the world. Readers will meet along the way a diverse cast of composers, musicians and performers who all make music in different ways in a variety of different genres, from Bach to Billie Eilish, Mozart to Miriam Makeba.

Why do we make music? Which instruments make up a classical orchestra? How does music affect our brains and emotions? These are just some of the fascinating questions addressed in this book, which looks at music’s transnational and boundary-breaking qualities. All over the world and throughout time, music has been recorded and passed down through different oral traditions and forms of notation. It has always been a powerful catalyst for influencing change and connecting people. And what might the future of music hold? Exploring the technology we use to listen to and create music, the authors imagine new possibilities such as computer-generated compositions and robot musicians.

Includes an online playlist organized by chapter that children can listen to as they read.


Posted on February 7, 2025

90s Quizpedia

These 450+ questions will put your knowledge of the raddest decade to the test!

Who shot Mr Burns? What did the first ever text message say? Who is the youngest Hanson brother? On what movie did Brad Pitt and Gwyneth Paltrow meet?

This interactive trivia book is the ultimate chance to flex your knowledge of the decade that gave us Friends, NKOTB and the Tamagotchi, with more questions than you can shake a flip phone at.


Posted on February 7, 2025

Women in Abstraction

With a few notable exceptions, the fundamental role that women played in the development of abstract art has long been underestimated, and their work has not received the same critical attention as that of their male counterparts. Now, at last, the tide is turning. The latest historiographical advances illustrated by numerous recent publications, monographs and thematic exhibitions make it possible to reassess the importance of the contribution of women artists to the different currents of abstraction, while at the same time questioning the patterns of the past.

Edited by Christine Macel, this catalogue and the exhibition it accompanies highlights the contributions of a hundred or so women artists to abstraction up to the 1980s, with a few unprecedented forays into the 19th century. By focusing on the careers of artists so often unjustly eclipsed, the book questions the established canons and offers an alternative history of abstraction, from the symbolist abstraction of Hilma Af Klint, to the sensual abstraction of Huguette Caland, to the purist non-objective approach of Verena Von Loewensberg. Essays by noted scholars explore the techniques, concerns and legacies of these women, shedding light on their unique experiences and offering keen new reflections on their work and the movement as a whole.

With 350 illustrations


Posted on February 7, 2025

The Universe

The story of our Universe, from its beginning in the first milliseconds of the Big Bang right up to our present moment and beyond, told in a gripping narrative.

We have entered a new age of exploration and discovery, enabling us to probe ever more distant reaches of space and greatly advance our knowledge of the Universe. Today, telescopes peer not only into outer space, but also into the deep past.

Paul Murdin takes us on an original and breathtaking journey across the lifetime of the Universe, from the first milliseconds of the Big Bang right up to our present moment and even beyond. Murdin draws on the latest discoveries in astronomy to describe the most important characters and events in the life of our Universe: the most powerful explosions, the most curious planets, and the most spectacular celestial bodies. He charts our developing understanding of the cosmos, showing how thinkers have deduced profound truths from even the simplest observations – everyone can see that it is dark at night, but only recently have we understood this as proof that the Universe has not been the same forever. Since then, the Universe has grown up from childhood: astronomers have tracked it as it passed through maturity and as it now moves into middle age.

Murdin shows how our own lives were seeded from the Big Bang, galaxies, stars and planets. He considers some of the key questions: how did structures like galaxies and ourselves emerge from the dense maelstrom of the Universe’s birth? How did the ‘dark matter’ that we can’t even see speed up the development of galaxies, and how does ‘dark energy’ work to speed up the expansion of the Universe? Why hasn’t the Universe collapsed in on itself – and will it one day? And finally, he offers a glimpse into the future old age of our Universe, and what it means for us all.


Posted on February 7, 2025

Keith Tyson: Iterations and Variations

The definitive survey of Keith Tyson’s thirty-year career.

British Turner Prize-winning artist Keith Tyson is known for a distinctive and diverse body of work including drawing, painting, installation and sculpture. Showing a wide range of influences, from mathematics and science through to poetry and mythology, he is interested in how art emerges from the combination of information systems and physical processes that surround us every day.

For over thirty years, Tyson has probed, dissected, explored and questioned reality. Not fixed to one artistic style, Tyson sets out to challenge himself and the audience, whilst working with diverse materials – paint, clay, metal, resin – to question our knowledge of the world we perceive as real, and art’s role in representing it.

With newly commissioned texts from an internationally diverse array of writers, and including a previously unpublished interview with the artist, this is the definitive survey of one of the most restless and adventurous creators working today.


Posted on February 7, 2025

The Unofficial Office Tarot

Do you have existential questions about your personal universe? Do you dream of becoming Assistant to the Assistant to the Regional Manager? Wonder if you should buy new chairs or a photocopier? Find answers to all your questions and manifest your destiny through this unofficial tarot deck, featuring the Scranton branch’s beloved team members.

And hey: if your quarterly sales predictions are in the red, just head to Chili’s (unless you’ve been banned like Pam).


Posted on February 7, 2025

The Neanderthals Rediscovered

There is a little Neanderthal in all of us. Although they have been extinct for 40,000 years, our genetic inheritance means that they are not entirely gone. Since the publication of the first Neanderthal genome in 2010, our understanding of the Neanderthals – and our connection to them – has changed dramatically. Once stereotyped as simple and brutish, recent discoveries by archaeologists and geneticists have painted a different picture of Neanderthals, and one more familiar to us: they buried their dead, cared for the sick, and even painted cave walls. We can now delve into their DNA to trace their evolution in Europe and movements across Asia, and piece together how they lived and died in amazing detail.

This fully updated edition presents cutting-edge research on our fascinating hominin relatives: their interbreeding with humans and other species including the recently discovered Denisovans, their social behaviours such as smiling to indicate friendliness, and the genes they have passed down to us that could be affecting our health. By confronting our differences and similarities to the Neanderthals, this book addresses the biggest question of all: what it means to be human.


Posted on February 7, 2025

Movies Quizpedia

These 450+ questions will put even the most knowledgeable cinephiles to the test!

The first Cannes Film Festival was held in which decade? Who starred as Norman Bates in Psycho? What planet is Yoda from? Who did win that Oscar: La La Land or Moonlight?

This interactive trivia book is the ultimate chance to showcase your knowledge of the silver screen, from comedy horrors to cop movies, body swaps to the Bechdel test, and everything in between. Grab the popcorn, it’s lights, questions, action!


Posted on February 7, 2025

Contemporary Art

A plain speaking, jargon-free account of contemporary art that identifies key themes and approaches, providing the reader with a clear understanding of the contexts in which art is being made today.

Since the 1960s contemporary art has overturned the accepted historical categorizations of what constitutes art, who creates it, and how it is represented and validated. This guide brings the subject right up-to-date, exploring the notion of ‘contemporary’ and what it means in the present as well as how it came about.

Curator and writer Natalie Rudd explains the many aspects of contemporary art, from its backstory to today, including different approaches, media and recurring themes. Each chapter addresses a core question, explored via an accessible narrative and supported by an analysis of six relevant works.

Rudd also looks at the role of the art market and its structures, including art fairs and biennales and how these have developed since the millennium; the expanded role of the contemporary artist as personality; how artists are untangling historical and contemporary narratives to expose inequalities; the ethics of making; and the potential for art to improve the world and effect political change. A ‘toolkit’ section offers advice on how to interpret contemporary art and where to access it.

Offering a more multi-narrative and international perspective, this guide discusses what motivates artists as they try to make sense of the world, and their place within it.


Posted on February 6, 2025

Ballet Confidential

“Ballet Confidential is not a no-holds-barred expose but rather a joyfully led and personal guide into the world of ballet.”- Megan O’Brien, Books+Publishing

Beyond the formidable combination of tulle and lycra, how much can an audience ever truly understand about the demands of being a ballet dancer? What really is the pain and pleasure of pointe shoes and jockstraps? Can a wardrobe malfunction derail a scene? What happens when injury sidelines a principal dancer mid-show?

Here is your tell-all guide, an all-access pass for ballet lovers and the ballet-curious by internationally acclaimed dancer and former artistic director of The Australian Ballet, David McAllister.

From toe acting, to the perils of partnering and onstage/offstage romances, David answers in intimate detail everything you have ever wanted to know about ballet but were too afraid to ask.

‘One of the most celebrated artists of our time lifts the curtain on ballet’s intoxicating pursuit of perfection. What a brilliant book! Filled with insider knowledge for the ballet lover or the newcomer, you will be whipping through the pages wanting to hear more of David’s wisdom and humour behind bringing the art of ballet to life.’ – Sarah Murdoch

‘Nijinsky did WHAT with a scarf? Who dared call Anna Pavlova ‘the broom’? Dancers stuff Chux Superwipes WHERE? For those of us who love the ballet but are too scared to ask the silly questions – David is our friend. Let him take you behind the velvet scrim for a pas de deus into ballet paradise.’ – Catriona Rowntree

*Ebook available through all major etailers*


Posted on February 6, 2025

Marr’s Guitars

‘A great book … fascinating’ Jools Holland, Later With Jools Holland, BBC2

‘If you are even remotely interested in guitars or the geniuses that play them you have to get a copy of Marr’s Guitars. A lush, mouthwatering masterpiece of a book’ Shaun Keaveny

‘What a love story this book is. The electric guitar – the greatest weapon ever given to the working class’ Gary Kemp

‘Guitars have been the obsession of my life … they’ve been a mission and sometimes a lifeline’ Johnny Marr

The guitarist’s guitarist, Johnny Marr redefined music for a generation. His ringing arpeggios and chordal innovations helped elevate The Smiths to be one of the most influential and important British bands of all time.

Tracing Marr’s career from his teenage years to his recent work on the Bond soundtrack, Marr’s Guitars showcases the most significant of Marr’s superb collection of electric and acoustic guitars, revealing through them the evolution of his iconic sound and style of playing. Each guitar is identified with a crucial moment, a specific song or a particular sound, and each embodies a key aspect of Marr’s lifelong passion.

Renowned photographer Pat Graham presents each instrument as a full portrait, supported by micro shots highlighting the specific details that make each one unique, while Johnny Marr himself reveals in his accompanying commentary on what tracks and at which shows the guitars were played. Many of the guitars are closely associated with Marr, such as the Rickenbacker 330, the Gibson ES-355 and the Johnny Marr Signature Fender Jaguar. Some were passed down to him, including Nile Rodgers’ Stratocaster, Bryan Ferry’s Roxy Music Hagstrom and Bert Jansch’s Yamaha. Others are guitars once owned by Marr that have since been passed on to the next generation of guitar heroes, including the Stratocaster used by Noel Gallagher on ‘Wonderwall’ and the Gibson Les Paul Goldtop used on In Rainbows by Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien.

Punctuating the photography of the guitars and the accompanying commentary are contextual studio, backstage and onstage shots. Together, they make Marr’s Guitars a unique cultural history of modern music and guitar playing told through the prism of Johnny Marr’s experiences and achievements.


Posted on February 6, 2025

Music Buff

You may know the lyrics to every song by Nirvana or Sinatra, but what about those lesser-known artists? You might be a BTS obsessive, but do you know who their first producer was?

If you think you know everything about music, Music Buff will put you to the test with over 1000 questions that will make even the most devoted music lover sweat. Divided into six categories, this game will put your knowledge to the test about Albums, Artists, Connections, Singles, Firsts, and Behind the Scenes Facts. Pop a vinyl on, roll the dice to pick a category, and set your game to play.


Posted on February 6, 2025

Film Buff

You may be able to list every one of Spielberg and Hitchcock’s movies, but what about those lesser-known directors? You might be a Meryl Street or Katherine Hepburn obsessive, but do you know what role they got their starts in?

If you think you know everything about film, Movie Buff will put you to the test with over 1000 questions that will make even the most devoted cinephile sweat. Divided into six categories, this game will put your knowledge to the test about Quotes, Actors, Awards Winners and Losers, Directors and Film Makers, Behind the Scenes Facts, and Connections. Pop some corn, roll the dice to pick a category, and get your game night rolling.


Posted on February 6, 2025

90s TV & Movies Quizpedia

Sunnydale High School was attended by which stake-wielding teen? Edwina and Patsy are the champagne-guzzling duo from which hit TV show? Which bible verse does Samuel L Jackson quote in Pulp Fiction?

Showcase your knowledge of the silver screen, from comedy horrors to the Bechdel test, and everything in between. Grab the popcorn, it’s lights, questions, action!


Posted on February 6, 2025

The Aztec Myths

The essential guide to the world of Aztec mythology, based on Nahuatl-language sources that challenge the colonial history passed down to us by the Spanish.

How did the jaguar get his spots? What happened to the four suns that came before our own? Where was Aztlan, mythical homeland of the Aztecs?

For decades, the popular image of the Mexica people – better known today as the Aztecs – has been defined by the Spaniards who conquered them. Their salacious stories of pet snakes, human sacrifice and towering skull racks have masked a complex world of religious belief.

To reveal the rich mythic tapestry of the Aztecs, Camilla Townsend returns to the original tales, told at the fireside by generations of Indigenous Nahuatl-speakers. Through their voices we learn the contested histories of the Mexica and their neighbours in the Valley of Mexico – the foundations of great cities, the making and breaking of political alliances, the meddling of sometimes bloodthirsty gods – and understand more clearly how they saw their world and their place in it. The divine principle of Ipalnemoani connected humans with all of nature and spiritual beliefs were woven through the fabric of Aztec life, from the sacred ministrations of the ticitl, midwives whose rituals saw women through childbirth, to the inevitable passage to Mictlan, ‘our place of disappearing together’ – the land of the dead.


Posted on February 6, 2025

Music Quizpedia

Whether you’re a punk rocker, a classical aficionado or singing along to the top of the charts, music is our universal language. From The Beatles to Whitney, Tupac to Billie Eilish, it’s impossible not to love music. But how well do we know our modern music history?

With questions on your favourite artists, songs, albums, and more, this interactive trivia book is perfect to play with friends and family of all ages. With 450 questions about the most iconic musicians and musical moments of our time, Music Quizpedia will have even the Grammy geeks on their toes.


Posted on February 6, 2025

90s Movies Quizpedia

It’s been two decades since Y2K, and our nostalgia for the humanity’s best decade is stronger than ever. Between Titanic, Thelma and Louise, The Joy Luck Club, and The Goodfellas, it’s hard (impossible?) not to love the 90s. But how well do we really remember those years?

With pop-culture-focused questions, this interactive trivia book is perfect to play with friends or family. (Or, for the truly 90s obsessed … solo!) With 450 questions about the raddest films, actors, and directors of the decade, 90s Movies Quizpedia will have even the most devoted movie buffs exclaiming “Ugh, as if!”


Posted on February 6, 2025

The Seventy Wonders of the Ancient World

Expands on the traditional ‘Seven Wonders’ to examine an impressive number of ancient marvels from around the globe.

The traditional list of seven wonders was derived from ancient Greek guidebooks, designed for sightseers in the Hellenic world. The Seventy Wonders of the Ancient World broadens those horizons, incorporating architectural marvels from across the globe, from the walled medieval city of Great Zimbabwe to the pre-Aztec Pyramid of the Sun.

These awe-inspiring monuments provoke profound questions about the communities who built them. How were they able to complete such feats of engineering? What prompted people to take on these projects, knowing the human costs involved, and how were the monuments viewed after their completion? In this new and updated edition, seventeen leading experts answer these questions. In doing so, they provide a testament to the skill of ancient engineers, and bring us closer to the communities they lived in.


Posted on February 6, 2025

TV Buff

You might be able to list the six Friends, but who created the show? Who composed the dramatic theme tune for Succession? And a small-time drug dealer and a high school chemistry teacher teaming up is the plot of which show?

If you think you know everything about the TV industry, TV Buff will put you to the test with 1200 questions that will make even the most devoted binge watcher sweat. Divided into six categories, this game will put your knowledge to the test about Quotes, Characters and Actors, Plot Lines, Behind the Scenes, TV Music, and TV Connections. So park the remote, roll the dice to pick a category, and get your game night started.


Posted on February 6, 2025

Mindful Dinosaurs

Help your little one feel calm, grounded and focused with this boxed deck of 30 mindfulness activity cards, inspired by Dr Diplo and his friends.

Full-colour illustrations on both sides of the cards break down each practice into easy-to-follow steps. A booklet is also included to help guide carers through the activities.

More in the Series
If you enjoyed these activity cards, discover ten read-aloud stories from Dr Diplo and ten of his Jurassic friends.

Guide your child through their emotions with Little Dinosaurs, Big Feelings.

Help them answer life’s difficult questions with Little Dinosaurs, Big Questions.

Featuring more mindfulness tools and exercises from Australian child psychologist Amber Owen.


Posted on February 6, 2025

Small Stories of Great Artists

It’s been thirty years since Laurence Anholt began his beloved series about great artists and the real children who knew them. Since then, these classic tales of Vincent van Gogh, Frida Kahlo, Pablo Picasso, Leonardo da Vinci, and many other geniuses of Western art have provided a springboard into a lifetime’s love of art, selling millions of copies around the world. The stories have been adapted in many forms including ballet, opera, Braille editions for blind and partially sighted children, and a full-scale stage musical in Korea.

Alongside Anholt’s dazzling watercolor illustrations, this anniversary edition includes dozens of high-quality reproductions of the artists’ work, child-friendly biographies of the artists, and interactive questions for young readers. Each story is closely based on historical events and extensive research. In many cases, Anholt visited the artists’ homes and studios, walking in their footsteps and interviewing their relatives. He was granted private access to Monet’s house in Giverny and became close friends with Sylvette David (now Lydia Corbett), Picasso’s famous Girl with a Ponytail.

In order to make the artists and their worlds accessible to young readers, Anholt employs a unique device in which the events are seen through the eyes of a child protagonist who actually knew the artist. In this way, readers are able to “piggyback” through the story, and artists who might otherwise be inaccessible become humanized. On a subconscious level, the reader absorbs many inspirational themes such as kindness, self-esteem, perseverance, creativity, and courage.

Perhaps it is Anholt’s gentle storytelling or his handcrafted illustrations. Perhaps it is his love for children and passion for his subject. One way or another, a whole generation of readers have found a lifelong love of art through his stories. And now they are passing that precious gift to their own children. The gift of art is golden.This volume features the following artists and their stories: Van Gogh and the Sunflowers, Frida Kahlo and the Bravest Girl in the World, Cézanne and the Apple Boy, Picasso and the Girl with a Ponytail, The Magical Garden of Claude Monet, Tell Us a Story, Papa Chagall, Degas and the Little Dancer, Leonardo and the Flying Boy.


Posted on February 6, 2025

Tarot. The Library of Esoterica

To explore the Tarot is to explore ourselves, to be reminded of the universality of our longing for meaning, for purpose and for a connection to the divine. This 600-year-old tradition reflects not only a history of seekers, but our journey of artistic expression and the ways we communicate our collective human story.

For many in the West, Tarot exists in the shadow place of our cultural consciousness, a metaphysical tradition assigned to the dusty glass cabinets of the arcane. Its history, long and obscure, has been passed down through secret writing, oral tradition, and the scholarly tomes of philosophers and sages. Hundreds of years and hundreds of creative hands-mystics and artists often working in collaboration-have transformed what was essentially a parlor game into a source of divination and system of self-exploration, as each new generation has sought to evolve the form and reinterpret the medium.

Author Jessica Hundley traces this fascinating history in this pocket-sized edition of Tarot from TASCHEN’s Library of Esoterica series. The book explores the symbolic meaning behind hundreds of cards and works of original art, spanning from Medieval to modern, and artfully arranged according to the sequencing of the 78 cards of the Major and Minor Arcana. It explores the powerful influence of Tarot as muse to artists like Salvador Dalí and Niki de Saint Phalle and includes the decks of dozens of contemporary artists from around the world, all of whom have embraced the medium for its capacity to push cultural identity forward.


Posted on June 21, 2025

Tarot. La Bibliothèque de l’Ésotérisme

To explore the Tarot is to explore ourselves, to be reminded of the universality of our longing for meaning, for purpose and for a connection to the divine. This 600-year-old tradition reflects not only a history of seekers, but our journey of artistic expression and the ways we communicate our collective human story.

For many in the West, Tarot exists in the shadow place of our cultural consciousness, a metaphysical tradition assigned to the dusty glass cabinets of the arcane. Its history, long and obscure, has been passed down through secret writing, oral tradition, and the scholarly tomes of philosophers and sages. Hundreds of years and hundreds of creative hands-mystics and artists often working in collaboration-have transformed what was essentially a parlor game into a source of divination and system of self-exploration, as each new generation has sought to evolve the form and reinterpret the medium.

Author Jessica Hundley traces this fascinating history in this pocket-sized edition of Tarot from TASCHEN’s Library of Esoterica series. The book explores the symbolic meaning behind hundreds of cards and works of original art, spanning from Medieval to modern, and artfully arranged according to the sequencing of the 78 cards of the Major and Minor Arcana. It explores the powerful influence of Tarot as muse to artists like Salvador Dalí and Niki de Saint Phalle and includes the decks of dozens of contemporary artists from around the world, all of whom have embraced the medium for its capacity to push cultural identity forward.


Posted on June 21, 2025

Tarot. La Biblioteca de Esoterismo

To explore the Tarot is to explore ourselves, to be reminded of the universality of our longing for meaning, for purpose and for a connection to the divine. This 600-year-old tradition reflects not only a history of seekers, but our journey of artistic expression and the ways we communicate our collective human story.

For many in the West, Tarot exists in the shadow place of our cultural consciousness, a metaphysical tradition assigned to the dusty glass cabinets of the arcane. Its history, long and obscure, has been passed down through secret writing, oral tradition, and the scholarly tomes of philosophers and sages. Hundreds of years and hundreds of creative hands-mystics and artists often working in collaboration-have transformed what was essentially a parlor game into a source of divination and system of self-exploration, as each new generation has sought to evolve the form and reinterpret the medium.

Author Jessica Hundley traces this fascinating history in this pocket-sized edition of Tarot from TASCHEN’s Library of Esoterica series. The book explores the symbolic meaning behind hundreds of cards and works of original art, spanning from Medieval to modern, and artfully arranged according to the sequencing of the 78 cards of the Major and Minor Arcana. It explores the powerful influence of Tarot as muse to artists like Salvador Dalí and Niki de Saint Phalle and includes the decks of dozens of contemporary artists from around the world, all of whom have embraced the medium for its capacity to push cultural identity forward.


Posted on June 21, 2025

Museums and Social Justice

A manifesto for museological change that examines the outcome when acquisitions policies, permanent collections and exhibitions become increasingly important battlegrounds for social justice.

Museums are facing a reckoning. Thrust to the forefront of difficult conversations around toxic philanthropy, increased corporatization, decolonization, repatriation and legacies of theft and looting, many of our cultural institutions are undergoing a period of radical transformation, seemingly redefining their very function and mission to address new public concerns. But who owns the past? How bloody is too bloody? And whose museum is this, truly?

Museums and Social Justice addresses these questions and more, shedding light on pressing issues such as why an oil giant attempted to sponsor an arctic exhibition at the British Museum; why Berlin’s Humbolt Forum is exhibiting British-looted objects from Benin; and why the Baltimore Museum of Art has made a public commitment to acquire more works by women artists. Using such events as case studies, Dr. Maura Reilly engages with pioneering arguments in and around matters of diversity, access to heritage, decolonization, patrimony and racial equality, and outlines specific action plans to confront these challenges, avoid reputational controversy and maintain confidence in our public institutions.


Posted on June 21, 2025

Edward Hillel (Bilingual edition)

In 1987, The Main: Portrait of a Neighborhood celebrated tolerance and the urban immigrant experience around Montreal’s Boulevard Saint Laurent. This 2025 reimagining investigates belonging, identity and memory in a globalized world.

In 1987 The Main: Portrait of a Neighborhood was published and quickly sold out. The critically acclaimed project celebrated the communities around Montreal’s Boulevard Saint Laurent and contributed to the eventual designation of “The Main” as a Canadian heritage landmark. In 2017 to celebrate the city’s 375th anniversary, the author was invited to re-imagine the original book. Returning to his former neighbourhood, his new book weaves old and new photographs with texts and archives, inviting us on a journey into his creative process to reflect on questions of home, identity, time, memory, and the evolving urban landscape, and asking: in a globalized world where people and cities are in constant movement, what happens to places and memories? Can we go home again?


Posted on June 1, 2025

New Deal Art

A fresh and vibrant account of the USA’s New Deal art programmes, highlighting diversity, activism, social justice, and urgent lessons for today.

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s landslide victory in the USA’s 1932 presidential election gave him a mandate to institute a ‘New Deal’ for US citizens, and by so doing offer them ‘a more abundant life’. For a decade between 1933 and 1943 the New Deal art programs marked the largest federal investment in the arts in the history of the country. Tens of thousands of artists and artisans across the country produced some 2,500 murals, 100,000 easel paintings, 17,000 sculptures, and 200,000 prints.

How should we understand the history and legacy of the New Deal art programs today? Marshalling new scholarship and original research, New Deal Art highlights the contributions of a diverse range of women, immigrant, working class, Indigenous, Black, Asian, Jewish, Latinx and LGBTQ+ artists. While previous studies have focused on the personalities and politics of government administrators, this book offers a ‘history from below’ that stresses the role of artists as activists through collective efforts such as the Artists Union and the American Artists Congress. It explores topics that traditionally fall outside the purview of art history: art as therapy in prisons and hospitals, children’s art, community art centres and art education, and the place of handicrafts and applied arts. Above all, New Deal Art centres the question of art and democracy: What if art was treated as a natural resource to which all citizens had an equal right?


Posted on May 27, 2025

Gather Up Your World in One Long Breath

A fearless, tender memoir from the prize-winning writer of Counting and Cracking.

Shakthi lives with his family, in the house his great-grandparents built in Colombo, Sri Lanka, before the civil war. Carried across the seas to Australia, on the strength of his grandmother’s will, this house breathes the joy and grief that has passed through generations. And it’s here Shakthi writes about the people he loves, all of whom come together to form a portrait of Shakthi himself.
Gather Up Your World in One Long Breath is a story of fallibility, forgiveness and grace. It’s a paean to fatherhood and family, and the love and conflicts that make us.

‘Raw, unflinching, poetic and profound – an artist’s journey and a son’s’ Shankari Chandran

‘A rich exploration of the mystery of finding Australia … I loved it’ Aravind Adiga

‘An intimate, tender voyage into history, hunger and home’ Omar Musa

‘A beautiful and powerful exploration of the intensity and immutability of being a part of a family’ Alice Pung


Posted on May 27, 2025

Closer to Vermeer

The successor to the international bestseller Vermeer, featuring groundbreaking research on the Dutch master.

Even 350 years after his death, Johannes Vermeer remains an inexhaustible source of fascination for art lovers and researchers alike. Closer to Vermeer provides a captivating analysis of research conducted during and after the Rijksmuseum’s blockbuster 2023 Vermeer exhibition.

The book reveals new insights into Vermeer’s creative process, materials and painting techniques, exploring the meaning of his works and his evolving fame. It also addresses intriguing questions about the maps in his interiors, the role of the camera obscura, his choice of materials and newly discovered documents about his patrons.

Richly illustrated, this book offers both art historians and passionate art lovers a unique glimpse into Vermeer’s life and work and serves as an essential reference for future research on Vermeer.


Posted on May 27, 2025

Cat Tales

The first book to explore from an archaeological perspective the incredible and improbable history of our relationship with cats, from fearsome foe to purring pet.

Feared, revered and respected, cats have left an indelible pawprint on the histories and civilizations of humankind. In Britain a third of all households have a cat, as of 2021, some 45 million American households owned one or more cats, making them one of the most popular pets in the world. Over the last two million years, cats and people have interacted in diverse and unexpected ways, but the predecessors of your furry friend were predators, not pets.

Here, for the first time, the path from deadly enemy to improbable roommate is set out through an archaeological lens by Professor of Anthropology Jerry Moore. Starting with the terrifying prehistorical scimitar-toothed cat of the Pliocene and the lion drawings of the Palaeolithic Chauvet caves, Moore journeys through our complicated history with these charismatic creatures. He travels along the Nile and across the Mediterranean, sailing on to South America, exploring pet cemeteries, cat mummies and exquisite statuary across continents and centuries.

However, our attempts to bring cats in from the cold have not always had happy endings, as Moore explores through such famous feline fanciers as Joe Exotic, Siegfried Fischbacher and Roy Horn. Combining incredible archaeological finds with contemporary media, Cat Tales surveys ancient and modern interactions between humans and cats, wild and domestic, to ask a simple but profound question: who domesticated whom?


Posted on May 27, 2025

Aviary

A thought-provoking overview of contemporary bird photography, featuring the work of more than 50 internationally recognized photographers in an enthralling odyssey that both captures the splendour of birds and highlights the complex relationship between humans and animals

Photographs of birds feature rarely in the early decades of photography: birds were too fast to be captured in flight, and could not be depicted in colour, issues that took many years to rectify. Today, however, with superb technical means at their disposal, photographers have taken to the subject with great enthusiasm, inspired by our ever-increasing understanding and appreciation of avian complexity.

Aviary features the work of more than fifty internationally recognized photographers who explore our relationship with birds, questioning how we observe them and respond to their presence – and vice versa. Taking an eclectic curatorial approach, Danaé Panchaud and William A. Ewing weave together photography from the diverse fields of art, documentary, fashion, portraiture, ornithology and wildlife photography, proposing intriguing new dialogues and visual theatre between these different modes of photographic expression. Rather than being organized by field of study or species, Aviary surveys the symbiotic relationship between animals and humans through six thematic chapters imagined as ‘acts’ in a theatrical pageant.

Both a visual celebration of the wonders of nature and a stark reminder of its fragility, Aviary presents a compelling portrait of our relationship with birds through the work of contemporary photographers such as Leila Jeffreys, Sarah Moon, Roger Ballen, Charles Fréger, Vik Muniz, Tim Flach, Viviane Sassen, Robert Clark and Nadav Kander, among many others.


Posted on May 27, 2025

Are You Looking for Trouble?

Crocodile has woken up with a frog in his throat. He heads out on a walk and asks the same question to every animal he meets: “Are you looking for trouble?” No one is up for the challenge – that is, until he comes across an enormous elephant.

A fantastically funny picture book, Are You Looking for Trouble? is the perfect read aloud story to share with your little one. With bold illustrations by Delphine Durand, and a hilarious twist to look forward to, this is a book to come back to again and again.


Posted on April 25, 2025

William Kentridge: Self-Portrait as a Coffee Pot

William Kentridge reimagines his film series Self-Portrait as a Coffee-Pot through text and image in this striking artist’s book.

William Kentridge reimagines his film series ‘Self-Portrait as a Coffee Pot’ that premiered during the 2024 Venice Biennale in this comprehensive artist’s book. The artist enters into a rich dialogue with himself in the studio, hashing out questions of art, work, memory, history, and time in magnitudes ranging from the intimate to the universal. Created in close collaboration with the artist, this publication translates his multidisciplinary approach to his films-combining film with performance, collage, drawing, and music-into book form, richly illustrated, with exquisite special features such as tipped-in drawings and transparent interleaves bringing the vivid materiality of the artist’s studio into the hands of the reader.


Posted on April 25, 2025

Tavares Strachan: There is Light Somewhere

Major monograph accompanying the first UK exhibition of the Bahamian contemporary artist Tavares Strachan (b. 1979), one of the most urgently compelling, innovative and accomplished artists of his generation.

‘Strachan’s work is filled with astonishments and surprise.’ – The best art and architecture shows to visit in 2024, The Guardian

This major monograph will focus on the highly inventive ways in which the Bahamian artist Tavares Strachan (b. 1979) has engaged with questions of cultural visibility and social inequity, through painting, sculpture and installation. A new interview with Ralph Rugoff and essays by Ekow Eshun and Maggie Cao will examine three key areas of Tavares’ work, each of which turns upside down conventional models of knowledge and education: ‘Exploration’ deals with the artist’s own role as an explorer as well as works that pay homage to pioneers who navigated unknown ideas and uncharted territories. ‘Invisibilty’ is centred on Strachan’s The Encyclopedia of Invisibility – an ongoing, 3,000-page publication and related sculptures and paintings that spotlight figures forgotten by history. ‘Remapping’ presents recent works that imaginatively remap the lost cultural connections between African diaspora people and traditional African societies. Designed in close collaboration with the artist, the book also includes an Index of Characters, Chronology and Exhibition History.


Posted on April 16, 2025

La Mesa Mexicana

La Mesa Mexicana is the follow-up cookbook to CDMX and Comida Mexicana by Rosa Cienfuegos and features more than 120 recipes that showcase the diversity, breadth and influence of Mexican ingredients and cuisine on the global stage.

La Mesa Mexicana begins in the north of Mexico with the original recipes for Chile con queso, Carne asada and traditional Tacos de pescad. Rosa then takes us to the central heart where we discover ‘drowned’ Tortas, local Goat tacos, and unique desserts like Ixtete and Uvate, before ending in the south where we learn the secrets to a classic mole negro, tlayudas and more.

Filled with stunning food and location photography, and stories from each of the regions that explore the history, ingredients, and cultures of this breathtaking country, La Mesa Mexicana is an ode to one of the oldest cuisines in the world; a celebration of the globally recognised and lesser-known indigenous recipes that have been passed down through the generations.


Posted on March 31, 2025

The Japanese Art of Pickling & Fermenting

In The Japanese Art of Pickling and Fermenting, preserving expert Yoko Nakazawa shares her lifelong passion of pickling and fermenting ingredients using age-old techniques that have been passed down the generations.
Yoko grew up in rural Japan and helped her parents preserve the glut of their vegetable patch every season using ancient Japanese fermenting techniques. Upon moving to Australia, Yoko started to grow and preserve her own vegetables and began sharing her knowledge and recipes for pickling and fermenting all kinds of produce.
In this book Yoko explains the difference between pickles and ferments, and guides us through the preserving process, from salt ratios and chopping techniques to fermenting times and storage. Along the way, Yoko shares personal stories from her childhood and experiences growing and fermenting vegetables in Australia, making this book not only a practical guide filled valuable knowledge, but also a book filled with love.


Posted on March 27, 2025

Mughal Glass

With a comprehensive catalog of Mughal Glass objects gathered from both public and private collections around the world, this books stands as a definitive work, offering an authentic account that sheds light on a long-neglected aspect of Indian history.

The history of Mughal glass has been predominantly neglected, leading scholars to speculate as to whether these spectacular specimens are European imports, made from European glass but decorated in India, or of entirely Indian manufacture. Mughal Glass: A History of Glassmaking in India delves into these questions while simultaneously exploring the development of new glass recipes, the impact of increased maritime trade, the Mughal emperors’ penchant for luxury goods, and the influence of colonial consumption in India. With a comprehensive catalog of Mughal glass objects gathered from both public and private collections around the world, this book stands as a definitive work, offering an authentic account that sheds light on a long-neglected aspect of Indian history.


Posted on March 19, 2025

Araki. Tokyo Lucky Hole

It started in 1978 with an ordinary coffee shop near Kyoto. Word spread that the waitresses wore no panties under their miniskirts. Similar establishments popped up across the country. Men waited in line outside to pay three times the usual coffee price just to be served by a panty-free young woman.

Within a few years, a new craze took hold: the no-panties “massage” parlor. Increasingly bizarre services followed, from fondling clients through holes in coffins to commuter-train fetishists. One particularly popular destination was a Tokyo club called “Lucky Hole” where clients stood on one side of a plywood partition, a hostess on the other. In between them was a hole big enough for a certain part of the male anatomy.

Taking the Lucky Hole as his title, Nobuyoshi Araki captures Japan’s sex industry in full flower, documenting in more than 800 photos the pleasure-seekers and providers of Tokyo’s Shinjuku neighborhood before the February 1985 New Amusement Business Control and Improvement Act put a stop to many of the country’s sex locales. Through mirrored walls, bed sheets, the bondage and the orgies, this is the last word on an age of bacchanalia, infused with moments of humor, precise poetry, and questioning interjections.


Posted on March 14, 2025

Picasso/Asia

Published to accompany a major exhibition at M+, Hong Kong, this catalogue places more than sixty Picasso masterpieces alongside works by Asian and Asian-diasporic artists selected from the M+ collections.

Why is Pablo Picasso so famous the world over? How does Picasso, the quintessential modern artist of the 20th century but also undeniably a European, relate to the work of contemporary artists in other parts of the world, such as Asia? And what do Picasso and his legacy mean in an age and a place that are far from his own? These are some of the fundamental questions explored by this book, which accompanies a major exhibition at M+, Hong Kong, and the Musée National Picasso-Paris.

At its heart are two intertwined narratives. First, Picasso’s life and artistic practice are interpreted through the four archetypes of the creative genius, the outsider looking in, the consummate magician and the endlessly inquisitive student of art history. Secondly, the fresh interpretation of Picasso’s oeuvre is placed ‘in conversation’ with the works of Asian artists, thereby revealing what Picasso’s art can tell us about artistic practice today, and vice versa. A visual timeline shows how Asian art and artists migrated to Europe during Picasso’s lifetime and became an unavoidable part of his cultural context and milieu while also describing Picasso’s reception in Asia from the 1910s up to the end of the 20th century.

A bold exploration of complex relationships between origin and reception, invention and adaptation, and West and East, this book enriches the discourse on transnational contemporary Asian art and visual culture, while contributing to the growing critical literature on global art history.


Posted on February 18, 2025

Black Earth Rising

A vibrant contemporary art anthology that explores the complex ties between race, climate crisis and colonialism by 100 leading artists of African diasporic, Latin American and Native American identity.

Black Earth Rising presents works by artists of African diasporic, Latin American and Native American identity that address vital questions of land, presence, climate crisis, and social and environmental justice against the historical backdrop of European settlement of the New World. Supported by an exhibition at the Baltimore Museum of Art curated by the author, this timely publication invites us to trace and make the connections between race, the climate crisis and colonialism.

Works by 100 contemporary artists are presented in three thematic sections: Reckoning, Reimagining and Reclaiming. Complex and intertwined concepts are explored: forced migration and slavery, the environmental consequences of colonialism, the occupation of Native lands, the urban plight of Black and Brown communities, and how cultural practices and knowledge systems of indigenous peoples can change our perspectives of the natural world.

Compelling and thought-provoking, Black Earth Rising presents a discourse around climate change that situates the voices of people of colour at the active centre rather than on the passive periphery and expands our understanding of aesthetic perspectives on climate change through artworks that reach to the poetic and lyrical rather than the didactic.

Learn more about the exhibition at artbma.org


Posted on February 18, 2025

Blow Up!

A non-fiction graphic novel that tells the story of a century of revolutionary contemporary art.

How did a urinal become art? And a can of tomato soup, a tent, a pickled shark… How do you get at one of the world’s most powerful governments by smashing an old vase? How did what seemed like a prank at the New York Armory Show of 1917 explode to become today’s global multi-billion dollar art world? This graphic novel answers these questions by following the lives of seminal contemporary artists and the stories behind their groundbreaking works.

Against a backdrop of armed conflict and rapid societal change, this book tells the story of contemporary art from Marcel Duchamp’s repurposed urinal to Maurizio Cattelan’s taped banana. Literal bombs explode and conventions go up in flames as a series of art objects shock and electrify society: canned excrement, a pickled shark, a stuffed hare, human blood.

The story moves from Paris to New York and London, and then captures the geographical spread of a rapidly globalizing cultural scene by jumping to events in Tokyo, Belgrade, Rio de Janeiro, Lagos and Beijing, and culminating in Miami – and in the ether, everywhere and nowhere, on the internet.

Chapters follow a series of chain reactions as artists meet or inspire each other across the generations and decades. Over a period of 100 years everything changes – and yet the cry of ‘It’s not art!’ never goes away. No matter how long people have had to get used to it, contemporary art continues to upset expectations and disrupt conventions – and inspire anew.


Posted on February 18, 2025

Walter Chandoha. Cats. Photographs 1942–2018

On a winter’s night in 1949 in New York City, young marketing student and budding photographer Walter Chandoha spotted a stray kitten in the snow, bundled it into his coat, and brought it home. Little did he know he had just met the muse that would determine the course of his life. Chandoha turned his lens on his new feline friend-which he named Loco-and was so inspired by the results that he started photographing kittens from a local shelter. These images marked the start of an extraordinary career that would span seven decades.

Long before the Internet and #catsofinstagram, Chandoha was enrapturing the public with his fuzzy subjects. From advertisements to greetings cards, jigsaw puzzles to pet-food packaging, his images combined a genuine affection for the creatures, a strong work ethic, and flawless technique. Chandoha’s trademark glamorous lighting, which made each cat’s fur stand out in sharp relief, would define the visual vocabulary of animal portraiture for generations and inspire such masters as Andy Warhol, who took cues from Chandoha’s charming portraits in his illustrated cat book.

Cats leaps into the archives of this genre-defining artist, spanning color studio and environmental portraits, black-and-white street photography, images from vintage cat shows, tender pictures that combine his children with cats and more. This is a fitting tribute not just to these beguiling creatures but also to a remarkable photographer who passed away in 2019 at the age of 98; and whose compassion can be felt in each and every frame.


Posted on February 9, 2025

Van Gogh

Placing the artist in the context of his time, Melissa McQuillan looks at the influences on his life and work and discusses his paintings in depth. Van Gogh’s letters to his brother Theo and other artists, particularly Gauguin, are also examined.

The author argues that Van Gogh’s works were products of his deliberate engagement with contemporary artistic questions and of his experience as an art dealer. His subsequent reputation, the mythology that grew up after his death, the debates between naturalism and modernity and the social implications of Van Gogh’s imagery – all are studied in full in this lucid account of an artist who sold only one painting during his lifetime but whose works now command the highest prices in the world.


Posted on February 9, 2025

Henri Cartier-Bresson: Mexican Notebooks

‘We are passive onlookers in a world that moves perpetually’, wrote Henri Cartier-Bresson. From his earliest days as a photographer, Cartier-Bresson roamed the world in his quest to record the people, places and scenery that fascinated him most. Spanning a distinguished career of over sixty years, his photographs are testimony to his extraordinary skill at capturing the spontaneity, the mystery, the humour and the universality of the events that passed before him – images that earned him the reputation as perhaps the greatest photographer of all time.

This book brings together for the first time a collection of photographs taken on two separate visits to Mexico – the first in 1934, just as the young twenty-seven-year-old was embarking on his photographic career, and the second some thirty years later. The dramatic images, preceded by a thought-provoking commentary from Carlos Fuentes, record with brutal accuracy the panorama of everyday life – an execution wall; crowded markets; stark, dusty landscapes; children playing in alleys – a unique record of a country and its people that includes some of the most famous and powerful photographic images of the twentieth century.


Posted on February 9, 2025

Architecture after Modernism

Since the Modern Movement began to be challenge in the late 1960s, architecture has followed a number of widely divergent paths. In this thoughtful and eloquent book, Diane Ghirardo examines the architectural world of the last quarter-century and its theories in the crucial context of social and political issues. Within a survey of a broad range of buildings, she focuses on specific ‘megaprojects’ as paradigms for discussion. In the realm of public space, she argues, the key questions are raised by the Disney empire and its amusement parks; in domestic space, by the IBA in Berlin, with projects ranging from new structures to rehabilitation and residents’ self-build. When it comes to reconfiguring the urban sphere, the megaproject is London’s Docklands, the most ambitious and politically sensitive development in postwar Britain.
Her text ranges world-wide, and she considers the work of lesser-known designers and women architects as well as famous international stars.


Posted on February 9, 2025

Kilim: The Complete Guide

In recent years, demand for kilims (flatwoven textiles) in the West has reached unprecedented levels. Kilim: The Complete Guide unravels the complex questions surrounding the origins and history of these unique flatweaves and of the peoples who make them. Hundreds of illustrations, many in colour and many specially taken, show them in all their glory. A detailed account of techniques – materials, dyes and dyeing, tools, kilim structures and weaving – is followed by a systematic analysis of motifs and symbolism. Here, the complex relationship between Islam and the animistic or shamanistic traditions that preceded it is explored.

The core of the book is devoted to the specific characteristics of region, tribe and kilim type. Four major sections present much original research, fully informing the reader about kilims from Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia; Anatolia; Persia and the Caucasus; and Afghanistan and Central Asia. Chapters on new kilims and the use of kilims as bags or trappings as well as rugs – together with a reference guide to collecting, care and further study, conclude what has become the standard work on this widely appealing subject.


Posted on February 9, 2025

Secret Knowledge

Secret Knowledge created a sensation when it was first published. David Hockney’s enthralling story of how some of the great works of Western art were created with the help of mirrors and lenses and how the optical look came to dominate painting attracted major media attention around the world and generated intense debate in the fields of science and art history. Now in this expanded edition, Hockney takes his thesis even further, revealing for the first time new and exciting discoveries.

Hockney’s voyage of discovery began when he became gripped by a desire to find out how the artists of the past had managed to depict the world around them so accurately and vividly. As a painter faced with similar technical problems, he asked himself: ‘How did they do this?’ For the next two years, he sacrificed his own time as an artist to follow this mystery trail, obsessively tracking down the hidden secrets of the Old Masters. As news of his controversial investigations spread, he enlisted the support of scientists and art historians worldwide.

In Secret Knowledge, Hockney recounts the story of his quest as it unfolded. He explains how he uncovered piece after piece of scientific and visual evidence, each one yielding further revelations about the past. With the benefit of his painter’s eye, he examines the major works of art history and reveals the truth of how artists such as Caravaggio, Velazquez, van Eyck, Holbein and Ingres used mirrors and lenses to help them create their famous masterpieces. For this new edition, Hockney demonstrates, with the aid of drawings, paintings and photographs of his own experiments, how Renaissance artists used mirrors and lenses to develop perspective and chiaroscuro – radically challenging our view of how these two foundations of Western art were established.

Hundreds of paintings and drawings – among them the best-known and best-loved works in the history of Western art – are reproduced and accompanied by Hockney’s infectious and enthusiastic descriptions. His own photographs and drawings illustrate the various methods used by past artists to capture accurate likenesses, and present the results they would have achieved. In addition, extracts from the many historical and modern documents that he uncovered offer further intriguing evidence, while correspondence between himself and an array of international experts provides an exciting account of the remarkable story as it happened.

Secret Knowledge is not just about the lost techniques of the Old Masters. It is also about how we see, treat and make images in an age of computer manipulation. Taking nothing for granted, questioning received ideas and practice, Hockney opens our eyes to the way we perceive and represent the world – a privileged insight into the history of art by an outstandingly prolific and original artist.


Posted on February 9, 2025

Koudelka

Stark, impassioned and singularly intense, Josef Koudelka’s work has received deserved acclaim over the past three decades as a uniquely significant contribution to the language of photography. Koudelka is the first book to present over 150 of his most eloquent images in a single volume, from his earliest images – published here for the first time – to his most recent panoramic landscape studies.

Whether photographing avant-garde theatre, gypsies throughout Eastern Europe, resistance to Soviet guns and tanks advancing on Prague, or the environmental degradation of a post-industrial world, Koudelka has consistently produced images that provoke a connection to the larger questions of human existence. As John Szarkowski comments in the opening pages of Koudelka’s first monograph, Gypsies, his pictures ‘seem to concern themselves with prototypical rituals, and a theatre of ancient and unchangeable fables… Perhaps they describe not the small and cherished differences that distinguish each of us from all others, but the prevailing circumstance that encloses us.’

Robert Delpire, Koudelka’s longtime publisher, collaborated with the artist in conceiving and producing this title. ‘His images and their precise compositions stand outside time and place,’ writes Delpire. ‘Koudelka brings an intense eye and full heart to each place, object and person. This work proves once again that he is a photographer with a unique personality and power.’ The other essayists in Koudelka each explore a different aspect of the artist’s work, illustrating his constant evolution and intensity.


Posted on February 9, 2025

The Story of Measurement

Anyone interested in the role of science in everyday life will find in this marvellous book accessible, intelligent, visual and often entertaining answers to the questions we all ask about how we measure ourselves, or planet and the Universe.

Part fascinating history, part cutting-edge science, it explores everything measurable, from temperature, earthquakes and radioactivity to music, blood and social attitudes, as well as the origins of the metric system in the French Revolution.


Posted on February 9, 2025

Guy Bourdin

Guy Bourdin (1928-1991) was a fashion photographer whose talent and strength of vision were apparent even in his earliest works. He shared Helmut Newton’s taste for controversy and stylization, but Bourdin’s formal daring and the narrative power of his images exceeded the bounds of conventional advertising photography. Shattering expectations and questioning boundaries, he set the stage for a new kind of fashion photography.


Posted on February 9, 2025

Gerhard Richter – Text

Gerhard Richter, born in Dresden in 1932, is one of the foremost painters of his generation. A great deal has been written about the remarkable heterogeneity of Richter’s work, his seemingly wilful and defiant movement between abstract and figurative modes of representation, and his use of a variety of methods of applying paint to canvas. Central to his work is a strong set of values which throughout his career he has expressed in extensive notes and writings, and in provocative and memorable public declarations in which he shows himself to be the master of the paradoxical statement.

This volume makes available a comprehensive selection of Richter’s texts, several published for the first time. These texts come from all periods of his career: letters and interviews; public statements about specific exhibitions; private reflections drawn from personal correspondence; answers to questions posed by critics; and excerpts from journals discussing the intentions, subjects, methods and sources of his work from various periods.

Complete with a comprehensive appendix, and accompanied by over a hundred photographs of artworks, works in progress, exhibition installations, colleagues and family, this book forms a brilliantly illuminating commentary on Richter’s art, as well as providing a thought-provoking discussion on the status of art and the artist in society today.


Posted on February 9, 2025

What Makes a Masterpiece?

Over the course of history there sometimes emerge works of art of such quality that they transcend boundaries of period and place. In this exploration of the idea of the masterpiece, distinguished artists, critics and art historians write about their personal encounters with the greatest artworks of all time, representing cultures from all over the world, and stretching from prehistory and the birth of art to Cézanne at the cusp of Cubism.

What Makes a Masterpiece? begins with the forms of animals inscribed on the walls of Chauvet Cave in France, and travels through the worlds of the ancient Egyptians, Assyrians, Greeks and Romans, embodied by images of royal or martial potency and mysterious religious rites. Medieval representations of Christ are celebrated alongside images of Vishnu, the Buddha and his priests, and the royal figures of South American and African civilizations. The jewels of the Quattrocento are on show beside the lesser-known triumphs of Aztec and Japanese court artists, while the masters of the European Renaissance and Baroque mingle with Mughal, Arab and Chinese virtuosos. The journey ends with the 19th century, depicted as an age of revolution, introspection and modernization.

This collection of famous works is more than the sum of its parts: it presents a remarkable cultural chronicle, showing how artists throughout history have seen their world and chosen to represent it. Here are seventy answers to the question, ‘What makes a masterpiece?’


Posted on February 9, 2025

BIG. Yes is More. An Archicomic on Architectural Evolution

Yes is More is the easily accessible but unremittingly radical manifesto of Copenhagen-based architectural practice Bjarke Ingels Group, or BIG.Unlike a typical architectural monograph, this book uses the comic book format to express its groundbreaking agenda for contemporary architecture. It is also the first comprehensive documentation of BIG’s trailblazing practice-where method, process, instruments, and concepts are constantly questioned and redefined. Or, as the group itself says:

“Historically, architecture has been dominated by two opposing extremes: an avant-garde full of crazy ideas, originating from philosophy or mysticism; and the well organized corporate consultants that build predictable and boring boxes of high standard. Architecture seems entrenched: naively utopian or petrifyingly pragmatic. We believe there is a third way between these diametric opposites: a pragmatic utopian architecture that creates socially, economically, and environmentally perfect places as a practical objective. At BIG we are devoted to investing in the overlap between radical and reality. In all our actions we try to move the focus from the little details to the BIG picture.”

Bjarke Ingels attracts highly talented coworkers, but also gifted and ambitious clients from all over the world. He then creates intelligent synergies from wild energies and unforeseen dynamics, and transforms them into surprising, functional, valuable, and beautiful solutions to the specific and complex challenges in each task.

BIG projects have won awards from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, and the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Architecture Biennale, as well as many other international prizes. Yes is More is a play on words that represents the company’s ethos and sums up its irreverent attitude towards excessive formalism, and its determination to involve the population at large in its creations. As an extension of its methods and results, its debut monograph uses the most approachable and populist means of communication available-the comic.


Posted on February 9, 2025

World Architecture

A world of beauty and genius is unveiled in over 350 photographs which take you on an epic journey celebrating the finest examples of architecture from over 2,000 years of civilization.

Deftly splitting the history of architecture into two parts at AD1500, World Architecture: The Masterworks contains over 80 buildings, over 40 of which are featured in detailed photo essays. The book includes both the acknowledged stars – the Pantheon; Hagia Sophia; the great cathedrals of Europe; Islamic masterpieces at Isfahan and Samarkand; the Sydney Opera House – and the unfamiliar – the Hindu temple of Prambanan in Java; the Pilgrimage church of Sainte-Foy at Conques, France; and Santa Maria della Consolazione at Todi, Italy, among others.

World Architecture: The Masterworks is the perfect volume for anyone with even a passing interest in architecture and its crowning achievements.


Posted on February 9, 2025

The Art of Not Making

Can an artist claim that an object is a work of art if it has been made for him or her by someone else? If so, who is the ‘author’ of such a work? And just what is the difference between a work of art and a work of craft?

The Art of Not Making tackles these questions head on, exploring the concepts of authorship, artistic originality, skill, craftsmanship and the creative act, and highlighting the vital role that skills from craft and industrial production play in the creation of some of today’s most innovative and sought-after works of art.

Michael Petry presents the art of over 115 contemporary artists – including Takashi Murakami, Matthew Barney, Tony Cragg, Cornelia Parker, Grayson Perry, Ai Weiwei, Daniel Buren and Carsten Höller – all of whom have one thing in common: they do not always make their own work. Instead, they often either employ others to produce it on their behalf, or appropriate objects made by someone else. Original interviews with the artists and artisans offer insights into this creative collaboration, which often produces works breathtaking in their scope and ambition.

This is a fresh, controversial and enlightening approach to many of the most influential artworks of our time.


Posted on February 9, 2025

Great Family Wine Estates of France

An intimate visual journey inspired by the internationally renowned photographer Solvi dos Santos, this book allows the reader unparalleled access to the private homes at the heart of the revered French wine industry. Throughout France, each major wine business is rooted in an estate that has been occupied for generations. Until now, though, we have had little idea of the lives and sumptuous lifestyles behind some of the world’s best-known wine labels. These photographs, taken with grace and sensitivity, reveal both grand formality and the distinctive domesticity of the time-honoured estates of the families to whom we owe the finest wine traditions on the planet.

This magnificent volume encompasses all the wine-producing regions of France, from the Taittinger champagne cellars housed in 4th-century Roman chalk caves in Reims, to Château de Pennautier, the ‘Versailles of Languedoc’. The wide variety of grapes means an extensive range of wine is produced, from champagne in the north to the highly prized and complex reds of Bordeaux. Wine expert Florence Brutton brings the unique character of each estate to life, explaining the idea of terroir (the idiosyncratic growing conditions that define and distinguish each area of cultivation) and the importance of local wine-related customs. Her informed texts offer us personal insights and anecdotes from the wine makers themselves.

With details on the wines produced by each estate and information for the would-be visitor, this book will appeal to wine lovers, Francophiles, travellers and anyone in search of a wide range of interiors, sanctified by lifestyles that have passed the test of time.


Posted on February 9, 2025

The Fashion Resource Book

This book shows students and professional designers how to use visual research to develop a personal aesthetic as a fashion designer in a global industry.

Fashion design is a process of investigating, researching and constantly questioning what you are doing and why. The first section of this comprehensive guide demonstrates the research process underpinning the work of design icons from Coco Chanel and Jean Paul Gaultier to Vivienne Westwood and Alexander McQueen. It reveals the many different areas of inspiration upon which they draw, from historical precursors such as Christian Dior’s ‘New Look’ to traditional textiles from around the world.

The second section introduces a wide range of themes that often inform fashion design research, including vintage and retro, the use of archives and the influence of art movements such as op art and surrealism. Finally, a series of detailed case studies investigates the research process in the work of designers such as Paul Smith, Comme des Garçons and Anna Sui, among others. Many visual examples are included and the influences on their work are analysed.


Posted on February 9, 2025

Art + Science Now

In the 21st century, some of the most dynamic works of art are now being produced not in the studio but in the laboratory, where artists probe cultural, philosophical and social questions connected with cutting-edge scientific and technological research. Their work ranges across disciplines – microbiology, the physical sciences, information technologies, human biology and living systems, kinetics and robotics – taking in everything from eugenics and climate change to virtual reality and artificial intelligence.

Art + Science Now provides a dazzling overview of this new strand of contemporary art, showcasing the best international work produced since 2000. Featuring around 250 artists from the UK, Germany, France, the Netherlands, the US, Japan, Australia and elsewhere, it presents a broad range of fascinating projects, from body art to bioengineering, from music, dance and computer-controlled video performances to large-scale visual and sound installations, all of which challenge our assumptions about our relations with science, technology and the world around us.

Stephen Wilson, a leading authority in the field, neatly summarizes the latest scientific research for the lay reader, and supplements his text with a reading list and extensive online resources, highlighting the museums, festivals, research centres and educational programmes that support this new work.

Presenting a comprehensive guide to contemporary art inspired or driven by scientific and technological innovation, Art + Science Now points to intriguing new directions for the visual arts and traces a key strand in 21st-century aesthetics.


Posted on February 9, 2025

Medieval Modern

This groundbreaking book offers a radical new reading of art since the Middle Ages and sheds fresh light on the deep connections between modern and pre-modern art. Moving across the familiar lines set out in conventional histories, Alexander Nagel offers a radical new reading of art since the Middle Ages. Rich collisions and fresh perspectives reveal ideas and practices across centuries of artistic practice, and provide a new set of reference points that reframe the history of art itself.

The author reconsiders key issues in the history of art, from iconoclasm and idolatry to installation and the museum as institution. He shows how the central tenets of modernism – serial production, site-specificity, collage, the readymade and the questioning of the nature of art and authorship – were all features of earlier times, now revived by recent generations.

The book examines, among a host of other topics, the importance of medieval cathedrals to the 1920s Bauhaus movement; the parallels between Renaissance altarpieces and modern preoccupations with surface and structure; the relevance of Byzantine models to Minimalist artists; the affinities between ancient holy sites and earthworks; the sacred relic and the modern readymade.

Alongside the work of leading twentieth-century medievalist writers such as Walter Benjamin, Marshall McLuhan, Leo Steinberg and Umberto Eco, Nagel considers a wide range of celebrated artists, from Giotto, Leonardo, Michelangelo and Caravaggio to Marcel Duchamp, Kurt Schwitters, Robert Smithson and Damien Hirst.


Posted on February 9, 2025

Architecture: A Modern View

The crisis of modern architecture is part of a much larger crisis involving the whole question of the way we live and how we use the resources of our planet. Poor design, monotony, and inhuman scale are the results not of lack of talent nor the failures of the Modern Movement, but of a surrender to selfish interests and short-sighted economies.

Richard Rogers, perhaps the most original and inventive architect at work today, is a frequent commentator on the contemporary scene. In this book, available again after some years out of print, it is especially valuable to have his philosophy of design so succinctly summarized. As a practising architect, he is in the best possible position to appreciate how economic forces can create – or frustrate – good design. His book is illustrated largely by examples drawn from his own work, making it a professional record as well as a manifesto for the future.


Posted on February 9, 2025

100 Works of Art That Will Define Our Age

Just as Picasso’s ‘Guernica’ or Géricault’s ‘Raft of the Medusa’ survive as powerful cultural documents of their time, there will be works from our own era that will endure for generations to come. But which ones? This bold and engaging book, written by one of the freshest and most exciting voices in cultural criticism, predicts which artists and artworks from the past two decades will come to define our age through their power to question, provoke and inspire.

100 Works of Art That Will Define Our Age is essential and enjoyable reading for all those working with and studying contemporary culture, as well as for the general art-lover keen to find a clear path through the maze of global contemporary art.


Posted on February 9, 2025

Grayson Perry

An essential companion to one of the key contemporary art works of the last decade, Grayson Perry’s series of tapestries, The Vanity of Small Differences.

Telling a story of class and taste, aspiration and identity, tapestry series The Vanity of Small Differences saw Turner Prize-winning artist Grayson Perry travel the length and breadth of the UK, ‘on safari amongst the taste tribes of Britain’. In his BAFTA award winning three-part documentary series All in the Best Possible Taste (Channel 4), Perry explores the ’emotional investment we make in the things we choose to live with, wear, eat, read or drive.’

The Vanity of Small Differences is the beautiful publication, covered with real cloth, accompanying the Hayward Touring exhibition with the same name. The book features Perry’s six vibrant and highly detailed tapestries bearing the influence both of early Renaissance painting and of William Hogarth’s moralising series, literally weaving characters, incidents and objects from the artist’s research into a modern day version of Hogarth’s A Rake’s Progress (1733).

With an inventive and elegant design from Pony Ltd, this fascinating publication includes an extensive array of full-colour reproductions of Perry’s tapestries, complete with photos of the artist’s sketches and preparatory material for the tapestries themselves.

Journalist Suzanne Moore (Guardian, Mail on Sunday) contributes to the book with an incisive, moving and highly personal reflection on questions of class, taste and their relative values. Also featuring a new text by Grayson Perry, alongside extensive commentary on each of the tapestries, while curator Adam Lowe’s essay explores the process of their making and their place in the digital age, The Vanity of Small Differences is an essential guide to the work of one of Britain’s best-loved artists.


Posted on February 9, 2025

The Earth From Space

From space, Earth is an amazing sight splashed with vivid colours, patterns, textures and abstract forms. In addition, our planet seen from above can provide telling information about the health of our home and its ecosystems.

This book features more than 150 breathtaking satellite photographs, provided by Astrium, a global leader in satellite photography. Yann Arthus-Bertrand, the renowned aerial photographer and devoted environmental activist, introduces the collection by exploring some of the serious issues facing our planet, all visible from space: deforestation, urban sprawl, intensive farming, pollution, natural disasters, and much more.

The striking high-resolution images are made meaningful by texts that reveal fascinating information about a wide range of environmental issues, such as the evolution of vegetation around the Chernobyl nuclear disaster site, snow loss on Mount Kilimanjaro, and the health of penguin populations.

Interviews with scientists, activists and experts offer cutting-edge information on critical environmental and sociological issues, and suggest the many exciting, newly developed methods for using satellite images to predict and prevent problems, rather than simply documenting their impact.

The Earth from Space‘s revelatory selection of photographs raises important questions about our future, while also showcasing the planet’s beauty – leaving us in no doubt that it is something crucial to protect.


Posted on February 9, 2025

Body Art

Body art is the most intimate art form, linking the self, the senses, and the social and political. Today, in almost any major city worldwide, you will encounter tattoos, piercings, henna painting and elaborate hairstyles. In recent years, body art has proliferated in an unprecedented way, borrowing motifs and practices from many different traditions. What is it that new and borrowed body arts do, and what do they tell us about the global culture that we now inhabit?

Anthropologist and art historian Nicholas Thomas explores these questions and many more in this wide-ranging survey of body arts from prehistoric origins to the present.

He illuminates their role in expressing personal and cultural identity; their longstanding associations with ritual, theatricality, criminality and beauty; and their recent resurgence via the Modern Primitive movement and the work of contemporary artists such as Marc Quinn and Rebecca Belmore.

More than 180 illustrations chronicle the extraordinary diversity of body arts, from Australian and African traditions of painting and scarification to Chinese footbinding, Russian prison tattoos, Harlem drag balls and the inked designs worn by celebrities such as Tupac Shakur and David Beckham. For anyone with a personal or professional interest in the subject, Body Art offers a timely and intelligent celebration of this quintessentially human art form.


Posted on February 9, 2025

Window-Shopping Through the Iron Curtain

Communist shop windows may long have passed from history into irony, but their distinctive style, handmade charm and implicit critique of modern commercial culture have won them a new generation of fans. This is a wonderfully deadpan celebration of a unique commercial aesthetic that flourished under the crumbling totalitarian Communist regimes of 20th-century Europe.

More than 170 images, mainly shop window displays, shot by artist David Hlynsky during the final years of the collapsing Soviet empire in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, East Germany and Russia, using a Hasselblad camera to capture the slow, undramatic moments of daily life on the streets.

The photographs are accompanied by essays by art historian Martha Langford and cultural studies specialist Jody Berland, as well as Hlynsky’s own account of his time as a flâneur in the shopping plazas of the collapsing Soviet empire, ‘a vast ad-hoc museum of a failing utopia’ that in 1989 began to close for ever.


Posted on February 9, 2025

Elephants

Why do elephants flap their ears? How much do they eat? Why do they roll in mud? This book answers these questions and many more, including intriguing facts about elephants’ trunks, tusks and tails, their families and friends, what they get up to from dawn to dusk, and the special relationship between elephants and humans and elephants and other animals.


Posted on February 9, 2025

The Thames & Hudson Dictionary of Photography

In one single, elegant volume, this publication features over 300 iconic photographs and contains more than 1,200 concise yet fully detailed entries on all aspects of the subject. Though much information can today be found online, locating it takes time and sources can have questionable provenance and uncertain academic credentials. All previous dictionaries of photography are now outdated, as well, focusing either on the famous and influential practitioners of the genre or presented as mere glossaries of technical terms. This landmark publication is the culmination of ten years of development and research. Working with an international expert panel of 150 consultants and 77 researchers, Nathalie Herschdorfer has triumphed in creating the first source of information for all scholars, practitioners and collectors of photography to turn to in the future.

• The essential, definitive reference on more than 180 years of photography in one authoritative volume

• More than 1,200 concise yet highly informative and fully cross-referenced entries on the art, history, science, masters and proponents of photography – from ‘Abbas’ to ‘Zoom lens’

• Illustrated throughout with over 300 photographs and diagrams, including major works that have defined the genre

• Fresh scholarship by an international team of 77 researchers

• Elegant, modern design.


Posted on February 9, 2025

Bog Bodies Uncovered

The remains of prehistoric men, women and children – so well preserved that they are often mistaken for victims of modern crime – have periodically been revealed in the bogs of northern Europe. In many cases their skin, hair, nails, and marks of injury survive, betraying the violence that surrounded their deaths. Who were these unfortunate people, and why were they killed?

The number of known bodies is growing. Lindow Man, the famous ‘Pete Marsh’ discovered in Cheshire, has been joined by new finds from Ireland and elsewhere. Archaeologists, armed with the latest analytical techniques, are today investigating these cold cases to reveal much about our distant past. Forensic science allows us to deduce the age, physical condition, status, cause and time of death of these ancient victims, helping to answer the fundamental questions that they pose: Were these people executed, murdered, or victims of human sacrifice? Who selected them? Who delivered the killing blow, and why?

Drawing on the latest evidence and research, Miranda Aldhouse-Green, an acknowledged authority on the period, has written an engrossing detective story, uncovering the hidden truths behind these mysteries. In this book we come face-to-face with our ancestors and can begin to understand their ancient lives – and deaths.


Posted on February 9, 2025

Warhol

Andy Warhol (1928-1987) is hailed as the most important proponent of the Pop art movement. A critical and creative observer of American society, he explored key themes of consumerism, materialism, media, and celebrity.

Drawing on contemporary advertisements, comic strips, consumer products, and Hollywood’s most famous faces, Warhol proposed a radical reevaluation of what constituted artistic subject matter. Through Warhol, a Campbell’s soup can and Coca Cola bottle became as worthy of artistic status as any traditional still life. At the same time, Warhol reconfigured the role of the artist. Famously stating “I want to be a machine,” he systematically reduced the presence of his own authorship, working with mass-production methods and images, as well as dozens of assistants in a studio he dubbed the Factory.

This book introduces Warhol’s multifaceted, prolific oeuvre, which revolutionized distinctions between “high” and “low” art and integrated ideas of living, producing, and consuming that remain central questions of modern experience.


Posted on February 9, 2025

100 Works of Art That Will Define Our Age

Just as Picasso’s ‘Guernica’ or Géricault’s ‘Raft of the Medusa’ survive as powerful cultural documents of their time, there will be works from our own era that will endure for generations to come. But which ones? This bold and engaging book, written by one of the freshest and most exciting voices in cultural criticism, predicts which artists and artworks from the past two decades will come to define our age through their power to question, provoke and inspire.

100 Works of Art That Will Define Our Age is essential and enjoyable reading for all those working with and studying contemporary culture, as well as for the general art-lover keen to find a clear path through the maze of global contemporary art.


Posted on February 9, 2025