Arts, Architecture & Design Books

With extensive photographs and audio recordings, this guide to Balinese music showcases the history, culture and art of the gamelan ceremony. Bali has developed and nourished an astonishing variety of musical ensembles-called gamelan-comprising dozens of...

A singer once said 'his pitch was right on the nose: his word enunciation letter perfect: his understanding of a song thorough. He will be missed very much, not only by myself, but by his fans all over the world'. The singer was the legendary Frank...

What if we designed for all of our senses? Suppose for a moment that sound, touch, and odor were treated as the equals of sight, and emotion considered as important as cognition. What would our built environment be like if sensory response, sentiment,...

This volume offers the fruits of Peter Meineck and Paul Woodruff's dynamic collaboration on the plays of Sophocles' Theban cycle, presenting the translators' Oedipus Tyrannus (2000) along with Woodruff's Antigone (2001) and a muscular new Oedipus at...

In 1968, the New Yorker hired Ellen Willis as its first popular music critic. Her column, Rock, Etc., ran for seven years and established Willis as a leader in cultural commentary and a pioneer in the nascent and otherwise male-dominated field of rock...

In The Architecture of Madness, Carla Yanni tells a compelling story of therapeutic design, from America's earliest purpose-built institutions for the insane to the asylum construction frenzy in the second half of the century. At the centre of Yanni's...

Italian filmmaker Dario Argento's horror films have been described as a blend of Alfred Hitchcock and George Romero-psychologically rich, colorful, and at times garish, excelling at taking the best elements of the splatter and exploitation genres and...

Acclaimed as one of the best books ever published on the subject, A Complete Guide to Special Effects Makeup covers everything from basic facial makeup styles, and simple scars and gashes, to masks, molds and cast-making: everything you need to know to...

The late 1950s and early '60s were the golden age of science fiction, an era when the farthest reaches of imagination were fed by the technological breakthroughs of the postwar years. While science fiction writers expressed the dreams and nightmares of...

The long-awaited republication of this captivating account of the star's life.Louise Brooks left Wichita, Kansas, for New York City at age fifteen and lived the kind of life of which legends are made. From her beginnings as a dancer to her years in...

A self-described "song-hunter," the folklorist Alan Lomax traveled the Mississippi Delta in the 1930's and '40s, armed with primitive recording equipment and a keen love of the Delta's music heritage. Crisscrossing the towns and hamlets where the blues...

"Architect and author Chuck Durrett's recently released book Senior Cohousing Handbook comes at a time of high interest in greening, sustainable housing and affordable living concerns. Durrett's new book is a comprehensive guide for baby boomers wishing...

From contaminated urban lots to polluted waterways and massive oil spills, how can communities transform toxic landscapes and respond to environmental disasters positively and effectively? Earth Repair is packed with accessible, simple, and practical...

The cohousing "bible" by the US originators of the concept.

In the long-awaited sequel to his surprise bestseller, author and screenwriter Blake Snyder returns tohilarious form in Save the Cat Goes to the Movies, in which he dissects 50 top Hollywood and Independent films from the past 30 years. 'To paraphrase...

Dave Baranek (callsign "Bio") was one of 451 young men to receive his Wings of Gold in 1980 as a naval flight officer. Four years later, seasoned by intense training and deployments in the tense confrontations of the cold war, he became the only one of...

Talking heads are boring! Master Shots, Vol. 2 changes all that and gives you 100 inspiring ways to shoot dialogue. Each technique is taken from a popular movie, showing how to set up your camera and move your actors to give each scene the drama,...

For some, nothing is as pleasurable as the smell and taste of a great cigar. For them, Playboy The Book of Cigars will be the next best thing to lighting up. Whether you want to learn the ?ner points of cutters, cutting, or humidors, or want to...

Introducing two unique sets of folding papers featuring details of traditional Ukiyo-e prints, carefully selected to add beauty and authenticity to your folded origami models and craft paper projects. Beautiful Ukiyo-e prints ("pictures of the floating...

Exposes the charlatanry that fuels much academic art history today and leaks into the art world generally.

Fans of bird watching will rejoice with Backyard Bird Photography, a guide for learning how to set up your backyard in order to take the best photographs of your local birds. In addition to guiding you through the first steps of setting...

The Holy Bible is complex; sometimes dark, and other times joyous, and Smith s masterful work is a far cry from what a small child might build. The beauty of The Brick Bible is that everyone, from the devout to nonbelievers, will find something...

With the hilarious 'instant cult classic' "Seagalogy", Vern wrote a book that shook the very foundations of film criticism. Now he's back, and this time he's got all of 'the films of badass cinema' in his sights! From "Die Hard" to "The Discrete Charm of...

Drew Struzan has created some of the most iconic movie poster images of the last 30 years, from "Raiders of the Lost Ark" to "Star Wars: Episode III". This is the first book to cover his movie work in depth. Featuring over 300 pieces of artwork,...

To ensure food security and restore the health of the planet, we need to move beyond industrial agriculture and return to the practice of small-scale, local farming. Bioshelter Market Garden: A Permaculture Farm describes the creation of a sustainable...

This is the first full-length book to present the built work and conceptual ideas of the internationally renowned Japanese design firm Super Potato, founded by Takashi Sugimoto. Super Potato's powerful designs for the interiors of restaurants, shops and...

Finding community is as critical as obtaining food and shelter, since the need to belong is what makes us human. The isolation and loneliness of modern life have led many people to search for deeper connection, which has resulted in a renewed interest in...

From mean beginnings 'wretched accommodation, no comfortable houses, no soft beds', visiting French knights complained in 1341 the city of Edinburgh went on to become one of the architectural wonders of the world. But over the centuries many of those...

Portraits of families from around the world by this acclaimed documentary photographer.Seventy duotones portray people acclaimed documentary photographer Milton Rogovin met as he traveled the world. These are not glitzy celebrities seen in magazines;...

"Marcello Geppetti . . . found a startling new style of shooting celebrities that would change the nature of journalism and the public's relationship with the rich and famous."-David Schonauer, American Photo magazine Originally published in Italy, this...

For over 60 years Successful Drawing has provided a superb resource covering all the techniques needed to master three-dimensional drawing. From the fundamentals of proportion, placement, perspective, planes and pattern, through a...

Sure to be a classic, Donald Richie's concise, profound insights into the mysteries of Japanese Aesthetics.This provocative book is a tractate-a treatise-on beauty in Japanese art, written in the manner of a zuihitsu, a free-ranging assortment of ideas...

A comprehensive volume on major directors in the history of Japanese film.This important work fills the need for a reasonably priced yet comprehensive volume on major directors in the history of Japanese film. With clear insight and without academic...

This revised and expanded second edition of Timon Screech's definitive Sexand the Floating World offers a new assessment of the genre of erotic Japanese paintings and prints known as shunga. Changes in Japanese law in the 1990s enabled such images to be...

From Cutie Honey and Sailor Moon to Nausica of the Valley of the Wind, the worlds of Japanese anime and manga teem with prepubescent girls toting deadly weapons. Sometimes overtly sexual, always intensely cute, the beautiful fighting girl has been both...

The third in a trilogy of lavishly illustrated graphic novels set in the "Assassin's Creed "universe. Plunging in his genetic memory, Desmond acquires new skills, Desmond. In the Animus he sees Aquilus seeking revenge for his father's murder. His thirst...

For most of human history, people have lived in durable, comfortable buildings made from natural materials such as soil, sand, rocks, and fiber. All over the globe, these ancient traditions persist; a quarter to a third of the world's population today...

"A Photographic Guide to the Birds of Southeast Asia" is the first comprehensive photographic guide to the birds of mainland Southeast Asia, the Philippines and Borneo. It covers important bird species found in Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia and...

Paris Is Burning (Jennie Livingston, 1991) captures the energy,ambition, wit, and struggle of African-American and Latino participants in the1980s New York drag ball scene, an underground movement that inspired Madonna's"Vogue" and other pop culture...