Art & Photography
Beauty—and art—are in the eye of the beholder, who is sure to find at least one gem among this stunning selection.
Dora Maar
Edited by Damarice Amao, Amanda Maddox, and Karolina Ziebinska-Lewandowska (J. Paul Getty Museum)
ISBN 978-1-60606-629-4, $40
Dora Maar (1907–1997) was more than Picasso’s muse and mistress immortalized in his painting Weeping Woman. She was an influential artist in her own right, active at the height of surrealism in France. This volume accompanies the traveling exhibition that will be at the Getty in Los Angles in spring 2020. It features 240 works that showcase Maar’s acumen as a photographer and examines the full arc of her career for the first time. Subjects include her innovative commercial and fashion photography, approach to the nude and eroticism, engagement with political groups, interest in socially concerned photography, affiliation with the surrealist movement, and hitherto unknown work from her reclusive late career.
Ai Weiwei: Beijing Photographs, 1993–2003
Ai Weiwei, John Hancock, and Stephanie H. Tung (MIT)
ISBN 978-0-262-03915-4, $75
Ai Weiwei is China’s most celebrated contemporary artist, and one of its most outspoken domestic critics. Since April 2011, when Ai disappeared into police custody for three months, his critiques of China’s repressive regime have ranged from playful photographs of his raised middle finger in front of Tiananmen Square to searing memorials to the more than 5,000 schoolchildren who died in shoddy government construction in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. Against a backdrop of strict censorship (this book is prohibited from publication in China), Ai has become a hero on social media to millions of Chinese citizens. This book, containing more than 600 carefully sequenced images culled from an archive of more than 40,000 photographs taken by Ai, is an autobiography in pictures.
The Art of Looking Up
Catherine McCormack (White Lion)
ISBN 978-0-7112-4217-3, $40
Spanning centuries and the world, The Art of Looking Up surveys 40 spectacular ceilings around the globe that have been graced by the brushes of artists including Michelangelo, Marc Chagall, and Cy Twombly, among many others. From the floating women and lotus flowers of the Senso-ji Temple in Japan, first painted in the year 645 CE, to the religious iconography that adorns places of worship from Vienna to Istanbul, all the way to bold displays like the Chihuly glass flora suspended from the lobby ceiling of Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas, McCormack guides readers through the stories behind the artworks: their conception, execution, and the artists that visualized them. In many cases, these artworks also make bold but controlled political, religious, or cultural statements, revealing much about the society and times in which they were created.
Ashley Longshore: I Do Not Cook, I Do Not Clean, I Do Not Fly Commercial
Ashley Longshore (Rizzoli)
ISBN 978-0-8478-6646-5, $50
New Orleans–based self-taught pop artist Longshore, known for her bold fashionista portraits and larger-than-life personality, has a massive art-cult following and has been compared to Andy Warhol for her passion with pop culture figures. She tells her colorful life story, full of her audacious aphorisms that are almost as popular as her glittering art that is in full regalia on these pages. Actress Blake Lively, who sometimes paints with Longshore, contributes to the book, as does Linda Fargo, senior v-p of the fashion office and the director of women’s fashion and store presentation at Bergdorf Goodman.
Drag: The Complete Story
Simon Doonan (Laurence King)
ISBN 978-1-78627-423-6, $40
This is the first comprehensive survey of drag culture published in the 21st century. Author, bon vivant, and the creative ambassador at large for Barney’s, Doonan explores drag’s consistent appearance throughout the ages, charting the evolution of drag from ancient Egypt and Rome, to the Renaissance, up to the reign of RuPaul today. The book is both a flamboyant and poignant survey of drag culture, enlivened by dazzling photography.
Interior Worlds, Bonnard to Vuillard: The Nabi Collection of Vicki and Roger Sant
Elsa Smithgall et al. (Rizzoli Electa)
ISBN 978-0-8478-6681-6, $60
Accompanying an exhibition at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., this work is an invitation to the colorful, dynamic world of the Nabis, a circle of postimpressionist avant-garde artists whose members included Bonnard and Vuillard. Inspired by Gauguin in the last decade of the 19th century, the Nabis saw themselves as prophets of a new art. Included here are rarely seen paintings, prints, and decorative arts by the visionary artists associated with the Nabis. Essays by leading scholars of European modernism explore the relationship between Nabi art and intimacy, the influence of symbolist poetry and literature, and printmaking techniques, and delves into their artistic philosophies, collaborations, and creative methods.
Sur Moderno: Journeys of Abstraction
Edited by Inés Katzenstein et al. (Museum of Modern Art)
ISBN 978-1-63345-070-7, $60
This book traces the ways in which abstraction developed and peaked in midcentury Latin America, radically transforming the story of modern art. Published in conjunction with a major exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York through March 2020, it features work by artists from Argentina, Brazil, , Uruguay, and Venezuela—including Lidy Prati, Tomás Maldonado, Rhod Rothfuss, Lygia Clark, Hélio Oiticica, Jesús Rafael Soto, and Alejandro Otero—who advanced the achievements of early-20th-century geometric abstraction and built a new modern vision of the region. This richly illustrated volume highlights a selection of works donated to MoMA by Patricia Phelps de Cisneros.
Richard Diebenkorn:A Retrospective
Sasha Nicholas (Rizzoli)
ISBN 978-0-8478-6621-2, $150
Revealing new scholarly research and firsthand reflections by fellow artists, friends, and relatives, this book takes a fresh look at West Coast artist Richard Diebenkorn. The hundreds of paintings, drawings, and prints—including lesser known and rarely published work—are culled from the five decades of his career in which he explored both abstract and figurative painting. Art historian Sasha Nicholas discusses Diebenkorn’s place in postwar American painting and his independence from art world trends. Steven Nash conducts an interview with close friend Wayne Thiebaud, giving an artist’s point of view. Other contributors include Tony Berlant and William Luers.
Air & Space
In addition to mankind’s ongoing fascination with flight, the 50th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing has inspired several gorgeous new books.
Airline Maps: A Century of Art and Design
Mark Ovenden and Maxwell Roberts (Penguin)
ISBN 978-0-14-313407-7, $30
In this illustrated collection of airline route maps, Ovenden and Roberts look to the skies and transport readers to another time. Hundreds of images span a century of passenger flight, from the rudimentary trajectory of routes to the most intricately detailed bird’s-eye views of the land to be flown over. Ovenden and Roberts recall a time when air travel was a glamorous affair, and their book celebrates graphic design and cartographic skills in a visual feast that reminds us to enjoy the journey as much as the destination.
Apollo’s Muse: The Moon in the Age of Photography
Mia Fineman and Beth Saunders (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
ISBN 978-1-58839-684-6, $45
Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, this volume surveys the role photography has played in the scientific study and artistic interpretation of the moon from the dawn of the medium to the present. Stunning photographs, as well as related prints, drawings, and paintings, illustrate the text. In his introduction, Tom Hanks, star of the Oscar-winning 1995 film Apollo 13, discusses how space travel has radically expanded the limits of human vision.
Champions of Flight: Clayton Knight and William Heaslip: Artists Who Chronicled Aviation from the Great War to Victory in WWII
Sheryl Fiegel and Theodore Hamady (Casemate)
ISBN 978-1-61200-779-3, $49.95
From the 1920s through the ’40s, aviation became deeply embedded in America’s culture. Experienced military men and formally trained artists Clayton Knight and William Heaslip captured this golden age of aviation, from Charles Lindbergh’s epochal transatlantic flight through the most devastating war in world history. Combining an authenticity of experience and an artistic mastery of illustration, they produced powerful artwork that graced the pages of a diverse range of publications and influenced a generation of Americans. The 400 illustrations and photos gathered here are a tribute to their legacy.
The Space-Age Presidency of John F. Kennedy: A Rare Photographic History
John Bisney and J.L. Pickering
(Univ. of New Mexico)
ISBN 978-0-8263-5809-7, $45
In this collection of more than 500 rarely seen or previously unpublished photographs, Bisney and Pickering document the space program “through the eyes of the young and bold president,” from 1961 until
Nov. 21, 1963—the day before his assassination. In that short amount of time, Kennedy witnessed America’s first manned spaceflight; toured the space centers in Alabama, Florida, and Texas; delivered his indelible “we choose to go to the moon” speech; and viewed demonstration launches at White Sands Missile Range. Through images and detailed captions, this book captures both milestones and everyday moments of this era. The book also features historical documents, including excerpts from Kennedy’s speeches, handwritten letters and administrative notes to the president, commemorative albums, and other memorabilia, gathered from NASA, the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, and other archives.
Space Exploration: A History in 100 Objects
Sten Odenwald (The Experiment)
ISBN 978-1-61519-614-2, $25
The 100 objects gathered in this eclectic pop history showcase “the workhorse tools and game-changing technologies that have altered the course of space history... the tools and devices that, taken together, represent the major scientific discoveries—and celebrate the human ingenuity—of space technology,” says Odenwald, director of citizen science for the NASA Space Science Education Consortium. Among the wide ranging selections are the bronze Nebra sky disk (1600 BCE), which featured the first realistic depiction of the sun, moon, and stars; the Lunar Laser Ranging RetroReflector, which finally showed us how far we are from the moon in 1969; and the Event Horizon Telescope, which gave us our first glimpse of a black hole in 2019.
Moonbound: Apollo 11 and the Dream of Spaceflight
Jonathan Fetter-Vorm
(Hill and Wang)
ISBN 978-0-374-90451-7, $35
The 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission is given a gloriously epic and even philosophical treatment in this standout graphic history by Fetter-Vorm. Starting with portraits of Neil Armstrong (terse, cerebral) and Buzz Aldrin (emotive, voluble) as they wrestle the Lunar Module to the moon’s surface, Fetter-Vorm shuffles adeptly between the Apollo 11 crew’s nail-biter of a moon walk and capsule histories of inventors. The understated text (“Put three men on top of nearly six million pounds of explosives, aim them at the moon, and light the fuse”) plays nicely with the accessible illustrations. Fetter-Vorm pays neat homage to a brief, shining achievement and the centuries of painstaking endeavors needed to accomplish it.
Luca Missoni: Moon Atlas
Luca Missoni and Maurizio Bortolotti (Damiani)
ISBN 978-88-86208-685-1, $50
Missoni, artistic director of the Missoni Archive who has been infatuated with the moon since childhood, gives us a sumptuous photographic study of the moon. Moon Atlas is structured in two sections: a photographic study of the moon in each of its phases, followed by playful renderings of the moon in various colors and compositions, highlighting the tension between the bright visible face and the hidden dark side. The result is Missoni’s personal interpretation of our closest heavenly body, a journey through his lifelong appreciation of Earth’s satellite, and a beautiful book capturing the obsession of artists throughout history from the perspective of a seasoned eye.
Bookish Books
For the booklover, a book about books is a treat with whipped cream—and a cherry on top.
100 Postcards from Austen to Zola
(Penguin Classics)
ISBN 978-0-241-39681-0, $19.99
Anyone who loves books is familiar with the artistically designed covers of the well-known Penguin Classics imprint. Gathered here is a collection of 100 postcards, each with a different cover, and packaged in a beautifully designed box. Among the featured covers are books by Shakespeare, Austen, Balzac, Bronte, Chekhov, Confucius, Dickens, Gaskell, Ibsen, Keats, Keko, Nietzsche, Virgil, Wells, and more.
A Booklover’s Guide to New York
Cleo Le-Tan, illus. by Pierre-Le Tan (Rizzoli)
ISBN 978-0-8478-6366-2, $29.95
This illustrated guide to New York City, tailored for the book-obsessed explorer, showcases the city’s best bookshops, libraries, homes and haunts of world-famous writers, and scenes from literary classics. Equal parts guide, sophisticated scrapbook, and objet d’art, the book includes contributions by Marc Jacobs, Hamish Bowles, and Tavi Gevinson. The book is layered with New Yorker cover artist Pierre Le-Tans’s drawings and photographs of some of these bookish locations.
Bibliostyle: How We Live at Home with Books
Nina Freudenberger and Sadie Stein (Clarkson Potter)
ISBN 978-0-525-57544-3, $35
Interior designer Nina Freudenberger, New Yorker writer Sadie Stein, and Architectural Digest photographer Shade Degges give readers a peek at the private libraries and bookshelves of passionate readers all over the world, including Larry McMurtry, Silvia Whitman of Shakespeare and Co., Gay and Nan Talese, and Emma Straub. The photographs of rooms with rare collections, floor-to-ceiling shelves, and stacks upon stacks of books will inspire readers to live better with their own collections.
The I Wonder Bookstore
Shinsuke Yoshitake (Chronicle)
ISBN 978-1-4521-7651-2, $16.95
Yoshitake presents a vision of bibliophilia in an increasingly paperless world in this charming collection of comics, which entirely ignores story in favor of constructing and examining the many facets of its imaginary literary haven. The book features a store with an array of objects, including a guide to book-centric jobs, a robot that will mark a reader’s place as readily as it will plug someone’s ears to better facilitate reading, and a toaster that changes trashier choices into erudite volumes of philosophy. The store only sells books about books, and there’s nothing within that category that its staff cannot supply. Yoshitake’s gentle depiction of the bookstore and its surroundings defines this book: beauty is found and catalogued in carefully drawn tire treads, cardboard boxes, and crumbling old pages as readily as in sweeping mountain vistas.
Fashion
From Barbie to the best dressed, from shoes to hats, these books are sensational sartorial treats.
Dressing Barbie
Carol Spencer (Harper Design)
ISBN 978-0-06-280244-6, $35
This is a celebration of the fashions of America’s favorite doll and the woman who created them. During her 35-year reign as Barbie’s fashion designer at Mattel, Spencer created thousands of designs for the doll, of which more than 100—many of them rare and one-of-a-kind pieces have been culled from Spencer’s personal archives. Woven throughout are stories of Spencer’s time at Mattel working with such greats as Ruth Handler, creator of Barbie, and Charlotte Johnson, the original Barbie designer.
The International Best Dressed List
Amy Fine Collins (Rizzoli)
ISBN 978-0-8478-6413-3, $75
Since Eleanor Lambert, known as the “Godmother of Fashion,” launched the International Best Dressed List in 1940, it has become a barometer of style and the highest honor a sartorial savant can receive. Today it is an ongoing record of the world’s most glamorous women and men from society, royalty, Hollywood, celebrity, fashion, art, culture, sports, and media. After more than 60 years as the czarina of the list, in 2002 Lambert passed the baton to Graydon Carter, Amy Fine Collins, Reinaldo Herrera, and Aimée Bell. This lavishly illustrated history— written by Collins and with an introduction by Carter and a foreword by designer Carolina Herrera—gathers the who’s who of men and women around the world renowned for their style, elegance, and taste over the past 75 years.
Our Shoes, Our Selves: 40 Women, 40 Stories, 40 Pairs of Shoes
Bridget Moynahan and Amanda Benchley (Abrams)
ISBN 978-1-4197-3453-3, $29.99
Actress Moynahan and journalist Benchley asked 40 accomplished women to recount the memories behind their most meaningful pair of shoes. Among the pairings of women and their shoes are children’s author Kate DiCamillo and her western boots, American Ballet Theater principal ballerina Misty Copeland and her beaten-up pointe shoes, CNN’s chief international anchor Christine Amanpour and well-worn Tod’s suede boots, Sen. Susan Collins and Brooks Brothers high heels, and poet Rupi Kaur and Punjabi Juttia (boldly colored leather-crafted shoes). The book features a portrait of each of the 40 women with their shoes. The stories explore the concept that what we wear can have power and significance beyond merely clothing our bodies.
The Style of Movement: Fashion and Dance
Ken Browar and Deborah Ory (Rizzoli)
ISBN 978-0-8478-6408-9, $75
From photographers Browar and Ory, the husband-and-wife team behind the N.Y.C. Dance Project
and the popular photography book The Art of Movement, comes their follow-up book for fans of dance, fashion, and photography. Spotlighting 80 of today’s top dancers—from ballet to modern—in clothing by today’s and yesterday’s most celebrated designers, this volume covers the relationship between style, fashion, and dance. Whether in couture gowns from Dior, Valentino, Oscar de la Renta, vintage Halston, Moschino, and Bill Blass, or in costumes designed by Martha Graham herself, the world-renowned dancers featured—including Misty Copeland, Xander Parish, Tiler Peck, Christine Shevchenko, Daniil Simkin, and Olga Smirnova—bring movement to style.
Supreme Glamour
Mary Wilson (Thames & Hudson)
ISBN 978-0-500-02200-9, $40
In this lavishly illustrated book, Wilson tells the story of the Supremes alongside photographs of the Mary Wilson Gown Collection, which comprises the memorable outfits created and worn by one of Motown’s leading acts of the 1960s. Thirty-two of their most show-stopping gowns have been meticulously reassembled and photographed on the stage of the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles. Detailed captions that accompany each photograph describe the design, fabric, and embellishments of each ensemble, as well as the occasion on which each was first worn. Enhancing the book is a foreword by Whoopi Goldberg and hundreds of archival photos of the trio.
This Guy
Jamie Ferguson (Hardie Grant)
ISBN 978-1-78488-252-5, $45
In this celebration of modern menswear, photographer Ferguson profiles men from the fashion industry, covering a range of ages, geographical locations, and personal styles. Each of the men profiled works in menswear, but enjoys passions of his own. Tommaso Capozzoli is a rower who belongs to an exclusive club whose headquarters sit below the Ponte Vecchio in Florence; Hooman Majd is a world-renowned Iranian-American journalist and author; Michael Hill is the founder and creative genius behind Drake’s haberdashery in London, New York, Seoul, and Tokyo; Simon Crompton is a keen cyclist, and Antonio Ciongoli a gifted skateboarder. This volume captures not only their impeccable style but also the lives that made them.
Worn on This Day: The Clothes That Made History
Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell (Running Press)
ISBN 978-0-7624-9357-9, $28
Fashion historian and journalist Chrisman-Campbell offers a visual guide through fashion’s fascinating history, one day at a time. Beginning on January 1 and ending on December 31, Worn on This Day looks at garments worn on monumental occasions across centuries, offering capsule fashion histories of everything from space suits to wedding gowns, Olympics uniforms, and armor. It creates thought-provoking juxtapositions, like Wallis Simpson’s June wedding and Queen Elizabeth’s June coronation, or the battered shoes worn by Marie-Antoinette and, centuries later, those worn by a World Trade Center survivor to escape certain death. Newsworthy narratives accompany the illustrations and photographs. Prominent figures like Abraham Lincoln, Marilyn Monroe, and the Duchess of Cambridge are represented alongside ordinary people caught up in extraordinary events. Beautifully illustrated throughout, Worn on This Day presents a revelatory mash-up of styles, stories, and personalities.
The Great Outdoors
The magnificent books in this list celebrate our national parks.
National Parks Conservation Association: A Century of Impact
Tom McCarthy and Whit Stiles (Grandin Hood)
ISBN 978-1-7339304-0-6, $49.95
This book celebrates the National Parks Conservation Association’s 100 years of protecting and serving America’s national parks and monuments. More than 300 breathtaking color photographs by a variety of photographers capture the astonishing beauty of the national parks. Included are little-known tales of park protection, such as saving Olympic’s old-growth forests from WWII lumber production; restoring the endangered Florida panther in the greater Everglades ecosystem; keeping the nation’s largest landfill from the doorstep of Joshua Tree; defeating a proposed casino to be within cannon range of the hallowed ground of Gettysburg, as well as an inside look at how persistent advocacy led to the creation of parks.
The Grand Canyon: Unseen Beauty: Running the Colorado
Thomas Blagden Jr. (Rizzoli)
ISBN 978-0-8478-6640-3, $50
Of the six million visitors who visit this wonder of the world, only a small fraction experience the canyon by rafting down the Colorado River. While Blagden was taking pictures, Roderick Nash, who wrote the foreword, was at the oars. Blagden’s images and Nash’s essay reveal the canyon from a different perspective, portraying what it’s like to be on the river and immersed a mile deep, surrounded by rock almost half the age of the earth. This work evokes the power of that journey, from the drama of the rapids and the immeasurable scale of the canyon walls to the subtle rock patterns and varied life forms.
Comfortably Wild: The Best Glamping Destinations in North America
Mike and Anne Howard (Falcon Guides)
ISBN 978-1-4930-3779-7, $29.95
The Howards left on their honeymoon in January 2012 and never came home. They created the website HoneyTrek to chronicle their journey across all seven continents and to help people mobilize their travel dreams. Now they have put together a guide to glamping, which is more luxurious than traditional camping. Each chapter offers a unique way to vacation, like the boutique farm stays in “Cultivate,” and action-packed journeys of “In Motion.” Alongside hundreds of photographs and stories from the Howards’ 73,000-mile glamping quest, this guide offers practical tips to find destinations and pursue adventure.
The Nature of Yosemite: A Visual Journey
Robb Hirsch (Yosemite Conservancy)
ISBN 978-1-930238-91-6, $35
Scientist and photographer Hirsch offers images of Yosemite accompanied by essays from 13 experts, including park rangers, artists, naturalists, and ecologists. The book brings together important voices from the Sierra Nevada environmental community sharing insights into the wonders of the region, and covers subjects ranging from the park’s fire ecology, plant and animal diversity, and even the role of art in Yosemite. The book is printed on environmentally friendly recycled paper and sales directly support Yosemite National Park.
Hollywood
All right, Mr. DeMille, all these books are ready for their close-ups.
Forbidden Hollywood: The Pre-code Era (1930–1934): When Sin Ruled the Movies
Mark A. Vieira (Running Press)
ISBN 978-0-7624-6677-1, $30
Filled with rare images and untold stories from filmmakers, exhibitors, and moviegoers, Forbidden Hollywood is a guide to a gloriously entertaining era when a lax code of censorship let sin rule the movies. This volume allows the reader to eavesdrop on production conferences, read nervous telegrams from executives to censors, and hear Americans argue about “immoral” movies. More than 200 newly restored (and some never-before-published) photographs illustrate pivotal moments in the careers of Clara Bow, Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo, and Norma Shearer, and the pre-Code stardom of James Cagney, Claudette Colbert, Marlene Dietrich, Cary Grant, and Mae West.
Hollywood Black: The Stars, the Films, the Filmmakers
Donald Bogle (Running Press)
ISBN 978-0-7624-9141-4, $35
A noted historian and leading authority on African-Americans in film, Donald Bogle offers a riveting chronicle of black performers and filmmakers through lively, informed text and images that illustrate the struggles and triumphs of more than a century of cinema. The story opens in the silent film era and recounts the decades of change right up to the millennium and such movies as Black Panther. Bogle was a special commentator and consultant for Turner Classic Movies’ award-winning series “Race and Hollywood.”
Letters from Hollywood: Inside the Private World of Classic American Moviemaking
Compiled and edited by Rocky Lang and Barbara Hall (Abrams)
ISBN 978-1-4197-3809-8, $40
Here are rare notes, memos, telegrams, and other correspondence from some of Hollywood’s greatest legends. The full-color reproductions are annotated by the editors to provide backstories and further context. As Peter Bogdanovich writes in his foreword: “Who wouldn’t want to read what John Barrymore wrote in praise to Edward G. Robinson in 1932? Or what Mary Pickford wrote to Gloria Swanson in 1937? Or Garbo, for Pete’s sake, to Marion Davies a year later?”
Rick Baker: Metamorphosis: Vol. 1: 1950–1989; Vol. 2: 1990–2019
J.W. Rinzler et al. (Cameron)
ISBN 978-1-944903-43-5, $250
This deluxe two-volume set explores seven-time Academy Award–winner Rick Baker’s 50-year profession as a special effects makeup artist. John Landis, Peter Jackson, and Rick Baker himself provide essays. The more than 1,600 images and original sketches illustrate Baker’s career, from the gory zombies of Michael Jackson’s Thriller and lifelike Bigfoot in Harry and the Hendersons to the creative builds in Men in Black.
Lair: Radical Homes and Hideouts of Movie Villains
Edited by Chad Oppenheim and Andrea Gollin (Tra)
ISBN 978-1-7322978-6-9, $75
Like evil itself, the abodes of movie villains are frequently compelling and seductive. From Atlantis in The Spy Who Loved Me to Nathan Bateman’s ultramodern abode in Ex Machina, big-screen villains tend to live in architectural splendor. The villain’s lair, as popularized in many of our favorite movies, is much more than where the megalomaniac goes to get some rest. The homes of villains are places where evil is plotted. From a design standpoint, they tend to be stunning, sophisticated, envy-inducing expressions of the warped drives and desires of their occupants. Lair examines several famed villain’s lairs from recent film history. Strikingly designed in silver ink on black paper, the book explores these structures through architectural illustrations and renderings, photographs, essays, film analyses, interviews, and more.
Interior Design
A range of design advice, from how to personalize a color palette to how to create a bodacious bar cart, fills these lushly illustrated books.
Americana: Farmhouses and Manors of Long Island
Kyle Williams (Schiffer)
ISBN 978-0-7643-5786-2, $39.99
The first book by Williams, creative director for designer Bunny Williams, is a feast of maverick Americana design. Set between the sound and the sea, Long Island, N.Y., is home to some of America’s most intriguing country houses from the 17th to the 20th centuries. The book’s 140 color photos focus on the comforting, vernacular qualities of homes both large and small. Americana will satiate architecture and interiors enthusiasts and inspire both amateur and professional decorators.
Atmosphere: The Seven Elements of Great Design
James Michael Howard (Abrams)
ISBN 978-1-4197-3076-4, $50
Read any shelter magazine or website, or listen to interior designers, and they all use seven words that make up the ingredients of great design: style, scale, rhythm, texture, light, color, and sound. But what do they mean and how are they made to work? Howard organizes the book into sections according to these terms and shows by explanation—and example—how to use them to design luxurious home interiors.
Interiors: The Greatest Rooms of the Century
Phaidon Editors and William Norwich (Phaidon)
ISBN 978-0-7148-7979-6, $79.50
Organized by designer from A–Z, here are 450 luxurious photographs of 400 exquisite rooms in more than 25 countries. Norwich, a New York–based interior design and fashion editor and journalist formerly at Vogue and the New York Times, introduces this collection of residential interiors created by 300 decorators, fashion designers, artists, style icons, architects, and film stars. Spanning all of the last century to today, it features homes by Bill Blass, Pierre Cardin, Coco Chanel, and Gianni Versace, as well as artists Georgia O’Keeffe, Pablo Picasso, and Cy Twombly. The book is available in four different color covers, making it a customizable gift.
Living with Color: Inspiration and How-tos to Brighten Up Your Home
Rebecca Atwood (Clarkson Potter)
ISBN 978-1-5247-6345-9, $35
Textile designer Atwood’s follow-up to Living Pattern for the lay designer guides readers through one of the most important decisions a person makes when designing a home—personalizing the color palette. By way of a tour of beautifully designed homes that display interesting uses of the entire color spectrum, Atwood shows how to notice color in the world, and to be inspired by it. She also offers practical advice by way of an illustrated overview of color theory.
Bar Cart Style: Creating Super-Chic Cocktail Stations
Emily Henson (Ryland Peters & Small)
ISBN 978-1-78879-160-1, $14.95
Bar carts have come roaring back into vogue, as popular as they were in the 1950s and ’60s, when they were the epitome of domestic style and taste. Interior stylist Hensen reveals how to put together these carts to make a variety of style statements and mood including jazz age, art deco, tropical tiki, midcentury, Mexican fiesta, and more. She shows what glassware, shakers, stirrers, and other cocktail accouterments are needed and includes recipes for classic cocktails, from an aviation royale to a mai tai.
Music
Big names, one big event, and artsy audio are music to the eyes.
Bowie by O’Neill: The Definitive Collection with Unseen Images
Terry O’Neill (Cassell)
ISBN 978-1-78840-101-2, $50
Elton John by O’Neill: The Definitive Portrait with Unseen Images
Terry O’Neill (Cassell)
ISBN 978-1-78840-148-7, $34.99
For 60 years, world-renowned photographer O’Neill has been snapping major celebrities, public figures, and rock stars, and now gives us more David Bowie and Elton John. O’Neill and Bowie had a creative relationship that spanned many years, yielding an archive of images from the last Ziggy Stardust performance, recording sessions for Young Americans and studio portraits for Diamond Dogs, as well as live shows, film shoots, and backstage moments. Many of the 200 photographs gathered here have never been seen before.
As with Bowie, O’Neill has a long-term working relationship with Elton John that has produced more than 5,000 photographs. John says, “Looking at Terry’s photographs is like gazing through a window at the most extraordinary and exciting moments of my life. I’m so glad he was with us throughout the madness: in his evocative and stylish photos he captured those moments as no other photographer could.” The photographs collected here are standouts from the archive.
Freddie Mercury: The Great Pretender
Sean O’Hagan (Carlton)
ISBN 978-1-78739-258-8, $35
Remi Malek, who won an Academy Award for his portrayal of Freddy Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody, provides an introduction to this volume, filled with rare images and insightful text that recounts all aspects of Mercury’s life. It follows his childhood in Zanzibar, his fame as Queen’s lead singer, his solo career, and beyond. The photographs are culled from the private collections of his parents, bandmate Brian May, and many notable contemporary photographers.
Hi-Fi: The History of High-End Audio Design
Gideon Schwartz (Phaidon)
ISBN 978-0-7148-7808-9, $79
A self-described “audio nut” and former attorney who retired from law to pursue his passion for audio equipment, Schwartz is founder of the high-end audio equipment company Audioarts. In his ongoing quest for “musical truth,” he takes a look at top-tier audio design from the 1950s to today. This richly illustrated, chronological history reeks of coolness and arrives at a time when sales of vinyl records have hit a 25-year high, and analog technologies are providing the kind of extraordinary audio experiences that our increasingly digital world has been eliminating.
Morning Glory on the Vine: Early Songs and Drawings
Joni Mitchell (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
ISBN 978-0-358-18172-9, $40
Before Mitchell earned her place as one of the greatest singer-songwriters of her generation, she was a visual artist. In 1971, as her album Blue topped music charts around the world, Joni created an unforgettable holiday gift for her closest friends: an exquisite selection of her handwritten lyrics and poems, accompanied by more than 30 full-color drawings, paintings, and watercolors. The book was hand-produced in Los Angeles and limited to 100 signed and numbered copies. This faithfully reproduced facsimile edition makes the collection widely available for the first time, including new works and an introduction by Mitchell.
My Name Is Prince
Randee St. Nicholas (Amistad)
ISBN 978-0-06-293923-4, $90
For 25 years, St. Nicholas, one of Hollywood’s most acclaimed photographers, worked closely with the enigmatic Prince, capturing some of his most intimate and revealing moments both on and off stage. My Name Is Prince is an up-close look at the artist featuring hundreds of photographs taken at his home, on tour, and on his many adventures around the world. Accompanying the images are behind-the-scenes stories, and St. Nicholas’s personal insights on the big and small moments she shared with Prince.
The Queen Next Door: Aretha Franklin, an Intimate Portrait
Linda Solomon (Wayne State Univ.)
ISBN 978-0-8143-4728-7, $34.99
Photojournalist and author Solomon met Aretha Franklin in Detroit in 1983 and won her trust. Franklin’s brother and business manager arranged for Solomon to capture the singer’s major career events just as she was coming back home to Detroit from California, while Franklin requested that Solomon document everything else—and she did just that. The Queen Next Door is a book full of firsts as Solomon not only captured Aretha’s music career but joined the Franklin family’s most intimate and cherished moments.
Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace and Music
Michael Lang (Reel Art)
ISBN 978-1-909526-62-4, $59.95
The festival’s cocreator and cofounder offers a 50th-anniversary celebration of Woodstock, with hundreds of photographs and documents accompanied by Lang’s memories and insights. The book features ephemera from Lang’s archive including set lists and information on artists’ fees, as well as photographs from the archive of Henry Diltz, the only official photographer at the festival.
New York, New York
These three picture-perfect books are for anyone who lives, has lived, or wants to live in the great metropolis.
New York City in Bloom
Georgianna Lane (Abrams Image)
ISBN 978-1-4197-3079-5, $19.95
Lane follows up her popular Paris in Bloom with her collection of photographs that lead the reader on a floral tour of the city. The book is organized into four sections—“Parks and Gardens,” “Floral Studios,” “Market Flowers,” and “Floral Displays”—that display a wide range of stylish arrangements, courtesy of mother nature, floral shop owners, and talented florists. Also included are field guides to locating and identifying common spring blooms, a list of recommended locations and vendors, and a tutorial on how to create your own New York–style floral bouquet.
Hotel Chelsea: Living in the Last Bohemian Haven
Ray Mock, photos by Colin Miller (Monacelli)
ISBN 978-1-58093-525-8, $50
Stories of the Hotel Chelsea are legendary, as are its former residents, whose ranks include William S. Burroughs, Arthur C. Clarke, R. Crumb, Bob Dylan, Jasper Johns, Janis Joplin, Robert Mapplethorpe, Arthur Miller, Eugene O’Neill, Jackson Pollock, Patti Smith, Dylan Thomas, Andy Warhol, and Thomas Wolfe. In this book, Miller and Mock take an immersive photographic tour of the landmark building in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood. Its current residents share their spaces, their stories, and a delirious collective history of the hotel. As documented in Miller’s photographs, these apartments project the quirky decorating sensibilities of urban aesthetes who largely work in film, theater, and the visual arts, resulting in rambling ornamental spaces with a kitschy edge.
Only in New York
The photography staff of the New York Times (Rizzoli)
ISBN 978-0-7893-3655-2, $39.95
As much as it is an international news organization, the New York Times is also a hometown newspaper whose photographers have covered countless New York moments from catastrophes to intimate celebrations. With an introduction by former New York Times reporter David W. Dunlap, here are 500 photographs from the Times’s archives, paired in clever, humorous, and poignant diptychs that bring the city to life. The photos cover every nook and cranny of the city that never sleeps, from Broadway to Yankee Stadium, nightlife to street life, and skyscrapers to subways.
TV Inspired
Richly illustrated books take four favorite TV shows from screen to page.
Mister Rogers Neighborhood: A Visual History
Fred Rogers Productions, with Tim Lybarger et al. (Clarkson Potter)
ISBN 978-1-9848-2621-3, $35
With hundreds of photographs, this book chronicles the 50-year history of the much revered television show, from its humble beginnings to the new film that will be released in November. It includes a guide to the characters, puppets, and episodes, as well as original interviews with Yo-Yo Ma and the cast and crew.
Fargo: This Is a True Story
Noah Hawley (Grand Central)
ISBN 978-1-5387-3130-7, $35
Hawley, a screenwriter, producer, and 2017 Edgar Award winner for Before the Fall, goes behind the scenes to tell the story of the making of the Emmy award–winning show for which he is executive producer. This companion to the first three seasons includes script selections, photographs, and interviews with the cast and crew.
Inside ‘Family Guy’
Frazier Moore (Dey Street)
ISBN 978-0-06-211252-1, $34.99
Moore, a TV critic for the Associated Press, celebrates the 20th anniversary of Fox’s prime time animated series Family Guy. The lavishly illustrated book features a behind-the-scenes look at Seth McFarlane’s creation, with commentary from the crew, storyboards, costume designs, and background paintings. McFarlane provides an introduction.
Our Planet
Alastair Fotherhill and Keith Scholey (Ten Speed)
ISBN 978-0-399-58154-0, $35
The companion book to Netflix’s eight-part documentary series Our Planet gathers 400 photographs along with text that expand on the urgent messages about precious species and fragile habitats. David Attenborough, who narrates the series, provides an introduction. The keepsake package features debossing and foil stamping.
