Search results for ""Author Michel"
Princeton University Press The Grace of the Italian Renaissance
How grace shaped the Renaissance in Italy"Grace" emerges as a keyword in the culture and society of sixteenth-century Italy. The Grace of the Italian Renaissance explores how it conveys and connects the most pressing ethical, social and aesthetic concerns of an age concerned with the reactivation of ancient ideas in a changing world. The book reassesses artists such as Francesco del Cossa, Raphael and Michelangelo and explores anew writers like Castiglione, Ariosto, Tullia d'Aragona and Vittoria Colonna. It shows how these artists and writers put grace at the heart of their work.Grace, Ita Mac Carthy argues, came to be as contested as it was prized across a range of Renaissance Italian contexts. It characterised emerging styles in literature and the visual arts, shaped ideas about how best to behave at court and sparked controversy about social harmony and human salvation. For all these reasons, grace abounded in the Italian Renaissance, yet it remained hard to define. Mac Carthy explores what grace meant to theologians, artists, writers and philosophers, showing how it influenced their thinking about themselves, each other and the world.Ambitiously conceived and elegantly written, this book portrays grace not as a stable formula of expression but as a web of interventions in culture and society.
£31.50
Quarto Publishing PLC How Art is Made: The Craft Behind the Masterpieces
How Art Is Made looks at renowned works of art from across the centuries and around the globe and asks the intriguingly simple question – how were these works actually made? Divided into two sections – materials and methods – each chapter showcases a single work of art which demonstrates the mastery and innovative use of a single material or method, from oil paint, pastel and pencil, to woodcut, litho and impasto. Each work is presented as the centerpiece of a capsule history, while comparative works are also included to help amplify our understanding. How, for example, did Michelangelo paint the Sistine Chapel fresco, or Turner become such a master of watercolour? How did Warhol turn so effectively to screen printing, and how does Yayoi Kusama create such beguiling 'infinity rooms'? The book enhances the experience of looking at great works of art and guides us to a deeper understanding of how they were created and why we regard them as so important.
£23.39
Edinburgh University Press Uncontainable Legacies: Theses on Intellectual, Cultural, and Political Inheritance
How do our ceaseless conversations with what has passed and with those who have passed something on to us propel us into a precarious future? In a series of evocatively titled theses, including 'Wrinkles', 'Inheriting a Feeling', 'Weight of the World' and 'Making Treasures Speak', Gerhard Richter engages the quintessentially human dilemma of how to receive an intellectual, cultural or political inheritance. In dialogue with philosophers including Heraclitus, Arendt and Derrida; writers such as Montaigne, Holderlin, Kafka and Knausgaard; artists such as Michelangelo, Picasso, Anselm Kiefer and Art Spiegelman; filmmakers such as Jean-Marie Straub; scholars and scientists Freud and Einstein; and pop-cultural phenomena the rock band The Who and the Broadway play The Inheritance, Richter contemplates the problem of interpreting an inheritance that resists full transparency. Richter argues that inheriting is not the same as yearning for a former presence or nostalgically striving to preserve an identity. At once philosophical and poetic, his aphoristic theses illuminate how the constantly shifting nature of our relationship to what we inherit from others makes us who we are.
£19.99
Princeton University Press Italo Calvino: Letters, 1941-1985 - Updated Edition
This is the first collection in English of the extraordinary letters of one of the great writers of the twentieth century. Italy's most important postwar novelist, Italo Calvino (1923-1985) achieved worldwide fame with such books as Cosmicomics, Invisible Cities, and If on a Winter's Night a Traveler. But he was also an influential literary critic, an important literary editor, and a masterful letter writer whose correspondents included Umberto Eco, Primo Levi, Gore Vidal, Leonardo Sciascia, Natalia Ginzburg, Michelangelo Antonioni, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Luciano Berio. This book includes a generous selection of about 650 letters, written between World War II and the end of Calvino's life. Selected and introduced by Michael Wood, the letters are expertly rendered into English and annotated by well-known Calvino translator Martin McLaughlin. The letters are filled with insights about Calvino's writing and that of others; about Italian, American, English, and French literature; about literary criticism and literature in general; and about culture and politics. The book also provides a kind of autobiography, documenting Calvino's Communism and his resignation from the party in 1957, his eye-opening trip to the United States in 1959-60, his move to Paris (where he lived from 1967 to 1980), and his trip to his birthplace in Cuba (where he met Che Guevara). Some lengthy letters amount almost to critical essays, while one is an appropriately brief defense of brevity, and there is an even shorter, reassuring note to his parents written on a scrap of paper while he and his brother were in hiding during the antifascist Resistance. This is a book that will fascinate and delight Calvino fans and anyone else interested in a remarkable portrait of a great writer at work.
£31.50
Phaidon Press Ltd Ikoyi: A Journey Through Bold Heat with Recipes
‘In what seems like only a brief moment, Ikoyi has shaken the world of cooking.' – René Redzepi, chef & co-owner of noma The exciting debut cookbook from the acclaimed chef of the two-Michelin-starred London restaurant Ikoyi Ikoyi, named as one of the World's 50 Best Restaurants in 2022, is one of the most original, flavor-driven restaurants of its time. Run by childhood-friend duo Iré Hassan-Odukale and chef Jeremy Chan, the innovative culinary mind behind the unique tasting menu, its menu is inspired by the spices of Sub-Saharan West Africa and produce from local farms and artisan producers. The book includes narratives throughout illustrating Ikoyi’s inspiration and inception, as influenced by Chan’s experiences living, cooking, and traveling in Hong Kong, Canada, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Europe. Each recipe in this fascinating book features a story about how the dish was developed, plus the influences of seasonality and produce from local producers. This debut cookbook tells the compelling story and journey of Chan and Ikoyi, with 80 recipes that Chan has carefully developed to encapsulate bold heat: his signature style.
£44.95
University of California Press Figures Traced in Light: On Cinematic Staging
A film tells its story not only through dialogue and actors' performances but also through the director's control of movement and shot design. Figures Traced in Light is a detailed consideration of how cinematic staging carries the story, expresses emotion, and beguiles the audience through pictorial composition. Ranging over the entire history of cinema, David Bordwell focuses on four filmmakers' unique contributions to the technique. In-depth chapters examine Louis Feuillade, master of the 1910s serial; Kenji Mizoguchi, the great Japanese director who worked from the 1920s to the 1950s; Theo Angelopoulos, who began his career as a political modernist in the late 1960s; and Hou Hsiao-hsien, the Taiwanese filmmaker who in the 1980s became the preeminent Asian director. For comparison, Bordwell draws on films by Howard Hawks, Michelangelo Antonioni, Yasujiro Ozu, Takeshi Kitano, and many other directors. Superbly illustrated with more than 500 frame enlargements and 16 color illustrations, Figures Traced in Light situates its close analysis of model sequences in the context of the technological, industrial, and cultural trends that shaped the directors' approaches to staging.
£27.00
Watkins Media Limited The Secret Language of the Renaissance: Decoding the Hidden Symbolism of Italian Art
We may never know what the Mona Lisa is really smiling about, but we do know that there's much more to the masterpieces of Renaissance art than the beauty that meets the eye. There are layers of significance hidden below the surface of the works of Leonardo da Vinci, Fra Angelico, Donatello, Michelangelo and many others. This magnificently illustrated guide by expert art historian, Richard Stemp, gives you the key to unlock those secrets for yourself. Split into three parts, Part One is a vivid immersion into the culture of this remarkable period, tracing the profusion of innovations in literature, painting, sculpture and the decorative arts that date to this time. Part Two offers a wide-ranging guide to the essential elements of symbolic language in Renaissance art, including colour, geometry, light and shade, proportion, perspective and body language. In Part Three, the heart of the book, Richard Stemp analyzes more than 40 works grouped around a dozen themes, including mythology, war and peace, and death and eternity. Each work is shown in full colour and each is then deconstructed to reveal the symbols it contains and the enigmatic meanings behind them.
£19.99
Plough Publishing House Plough Quarterly No. 23 - In Search of a City
The future of humanity is urban. It might seem a bad move for a magazine named after a farm tool to bring out an issue on cities. Especially if that magazine is published by an Anabaptist community that originated in a back-to-the-land movement and still has the whiff of hayfield and woodlot to it. Why not stick to what you’re good at? Why jump lanes? Because the future of humanity, pretty clearly, is urban. Urbanization is arguably the biggest change of habitat our species has ever undergone. For anyone who cares about the common good of humanity, then, cities need to matter. The modern city is an electrifying concentration of creativity, energy, and cultural dynamism. It’s also still the “cauldron of unholy loves” that Saint Augustine discovered in Carthage one and a half millennia ago. It’s the place where the cruelties of mammon, the hubris of power, and the perversions of lust manifest themselves most crassly. But cities have also given birth to culture and community and to remarkable movements of revival and renewal. In this issue, visit: - Belfast with Jenny McCartney - New York City with James Macklin - Medellín with Adriano Cirino - Pittsburgh with Brandon McGinley - Guatemala City with José Corpas - Philadelphia with Clare Coffey - Chicago with John Thornton Jr. - Paris with Jason Landsel You’ll also find: - Insights on cities from Jane Jacobs, Eberhard Arnold, Augustine, and Philip Britts - reviews of books by Jonathan Foiles, Bethany McKinney Fox, J. Malcolm Garcia, Tatiana Schlossberg, Tim Gautreaux, Philip Bess, and Frederic Morton - art by Gail Brodholt, Michelangelo Buonarroti, Ben Ibebe, Brian Peterson, Chota, Raphael, Gertrude Hermes, Valentino Belloni, Tony Taj, and Aristarkh Lentulov Plough Quarterly features stories, ideas, and culture for people eager to put their faith into action. Each issue brings you in-depth articles, interviews, poetry, book reviews, and art to help you put Jesus’ message into practice and find common cause with others.
£8.50
The History Press Ltd Ships of Splendour: Passenger Liners in Colour
The great passenger liners of the twentieth century make for iconic images of maritime history and design. Ships of Splendour presents the development of passenger ships across the twentieth century, from the 1920s, through the 1940s, and the heyday of the 1950s and ’60s, until the onset of the jet age.The fleet includes famous passenger ships, such as the great Cunarders; titans of the North Atlantic, like the United States, France *and *Michelangelo; and other icons, including the Southern Cross, Windsor Castle, Canberra *and *Oriana. Homage is also paid to the smaller liners, which were just as important in shaping the history of modern seafaring – ships such as the Aureol, Batory, Guglielmo Marconi, Hanseatic, Queen of Bermuda and Willem Ruys. Replete with notes, facts and anecdotes about these ships, the history of the passenger liner is broken down ship-by-ship and decade-by-decade. These ships return to the high seas once again in superb detail and vibrant colour.
£20.69
HarperCollins Publishers Inc Boundless: The Rise, Fall, and Escape of Carlos Ghosn
Now an Apple TV+ limited series, Wanted: The Escape of Carlos GhosnThe unprecedented rise and catastrophic fall of one of the world’s most feared and admired business executives—Carlos Ghosn—a remarkable story of innovation, hubris, alleged crimes, and daring international escape, as chronicled by two Wall Street Journal reporters.Carlos Ghosn always wanted more. Born in the Amazon, raised by a well-off—if scandalized—family in Beirut, and educated in Paris, Ghosn rose to prominence at Michelin in the United States, Renault in France, and Nissan in Japan. Along the way he earned monikers of Le Cost Killer, for his incisive business savvy, and Mr. 7-Eleven, for the hours he devoted to his work.Initially Ghosn thrived, becoming a poster boy for globalization and multinational corporations. Employees believed him to be among the greatest business minds of his generation, and the press hailed him a financial genius. The trouble started when Ghosn began to believe them. His power rose in tandem with an increasing certainty that he was underpaid and undervalued at his multiple posts. Executives grew unhappy with Ghosn’s talk of a merger with Renault, calling his loyalty to Nissan into question. Resentments brewed, enough so that a group of Nissan executives set out to uncover the truth about the man who many throughout Nissan and Japan perceived as a savior. Eventually, Ghosn was accused of financial misconduct and arrested for a bevy of alleged crimes—all of which he vehemently denied. Yet even as he insisted his financial transactions were above board, Ghosn was planning an astounding escape, one that would either smuggle him out of Tokyo and back to his ancestral homeland of Lebanon; or land him in a Japanese prison for life. Drawing from intensive investigative reporting, and including never-before-seen insider details from key players in Ghosn’s life and the investigations into him, Nick Kostov and Sean McLain piece together this fallen icon’s life and actions across the globe. Their sensational globetrotting adventure reveals the complexity of a man who watched for decades as contemporaries with far less talent amassed far greater wealth, and who took drastic measures to ensure he would finally get his due.
£18.00
Getty Trust Publications European Art of the Sixteenth Century
In the sixteenth century, the humanist values and admiration for classical antiquity that marked the early Renaissance spread from Italy throughout the rest of the continent, resulting in the development of a number of local artistic styles in other countries. Artists were highly valued and richly compensated during this period, with many receiving lucrative commissions from papal, royal, and private patrons. Among the sixty artists whose works are presented in this volume are towering figures of Western art, such as Michelangelo, Raphael, El Greco, and Titian. Venetian painters led the way, as oil on canvas supplanted fresco as the most popular medium. Italian Mannerists, such as Pontormo, deviated from classical forms, creating figures with elongated proportions and exaggerated poses. In countries that experienced the Protestant Reformation, such as England, many artists turned to portraiture and other secular subjects. This second volume in the "Art through the Centuries" series is divided into three sections that discuss the important people, concepts, and artistic centres of this innovative period. Important facts are summarized in the margins of each entry, and key facets of the illustrations are identified and discussed. New in the "Art Through the Centuries" series, it contains 400 full colour illustrations.
£21.99
Taschen GmbH Menu Design in Europe
Menu Design in Europe is a mouthwatering feast for the eyes, featuring hundreds of European menus from the early 19th century to the end of the millennium. At once a history of continental cuisine and a sprawling survey of graphic styles, Menu Design in Europe satisfies the craving for foodies and design enthusiasts alike. The dominance of French cuisine provided the template for the culinary delights that spread throughout (and beyond) the continent. As restaurants and dining experiences increased in the 19th century, the need for a more formal presentation of available items resulted in a range of printed menus that could be both extravagant and simple. The 1891 menu from Paris’s Le Grand Vefour, with its intricate die-cut design, evokes a bustling Belle Epoque bistro, while the 1932 menu from London’s Royal Palace Hotel transports you to the bar at a spirited, Jazz Age nightspot. On the opposite side of the design spectrum, the menu for the mid-century Lasserre restaurant expresses a surrealistic simplicity. A range of stylistic decades is represented, from masterpieces of Art Nouveau and Art Deco to the graphic appropriations of the German Democratic Republic. Also showcased are the Michelin awarded restaurants of the celebrity chef–era and rarities such as a German military menu from World War II. More than just bills of fare, these menus often represent a memorable dining experience, at times being presented with as much care and attention to detail as the meal itself. So, although one cannot sit in La Tour D’Argent in 1952 and sample its famous duck dish Le Caneton Tour d’Argent, we can surely imagine what it was like when looking at the waterfowl-themed illustration displaying the night’s offerings. Featuring an essay by graphic design historian Steven Heller and captions by ephemerist and antiquarian book dealer Marc Selvaggio, Menu Design In Europe features menus from leading collectors and institutions, providing a sumptuous visual banquet and historical document of two centuries of culinary traditions.
£50.00
Taschen GmbH William Blake. Dante’s ‘Divine Comedy’. The Complete Drawings
Celebrated around the world as a literary monument, The Divine Comedy, completed in 1321 and written by Dante Alighieri (1265–1321), is widely considered the greatest work ever composed in the Italian language. The epic poem describes Dante’s journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, representing, on a deeper level, the soul’s path towards salvation. In the last few years of his life, Romantic poet and artist William Blake (1757–1827) produced 102 illustrations for Dante’s masterwork, from pencil sketches to finished watercolors. Like Dante’s sweeping poem, Blake’s drawings range from scenes of infernal suffering to celestial light, from horrifying human disfigurement to the perfection of physical form. While faithful to the text, Blake also brought his own perspective to some of Dante’s central themes. Today, Blake’s illustrations, left in various stages of completion at the time of his death, are dispersed among seven different institutions. This TASCHEN edition brings these works together again, alongside key excerpts from Dante’s masterpiece. Two introductory essays consider Dante and Blake, as well as other major artists who have been inspired by The Divine Comedy, including Sandro Botticelli, Michelangelo, Eugène Delacroix, Gustave Doré, and Auguste Rodin. With an intimate reading of Blake’s illustrations, and many close-ups to allow the most delicate of details to dazzle, this is a breathtaking encounter with two of the finest artistic talents in history, as well as with such universal themes as love, guilt, punishment, revenge, and redemption.
£27.00
The University of Chicago Press Georg Simmel: Essays on Art and Aesthetics
Georg Simmel is one of the most original German thinkers of the twentieth century and is considered a founding architect of the modern discipline of sociology. Ranging over fundamental questions of the relationship of self and society, his influential writings on money, modernity, and the metropolis continue to provoke debate today. Fascinated by the relationship between culture, society, and economic life, Simmel took an interest in myriad phenomena of aesthetics and the arts. A friend of writers and artists such as Auguste Rodin, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Stefan George, he wrote dozens of pieces engaging with topics such as the work of Michelangelo, Rembrandt, and Rodin, Japanese art, naturalism and symbolism, Goethe, "art for art's sake", art exhibitions, and the aesthetics of the picture frame. This is the first collection to bring together Simmel's finest writing on art and aesthetics, and many of the items appear in English in this volume for the first time. The more than forty essays show the protean breadth of Simmel's reflections, covering landscape painting, portraiture, sculpture, poetry, theater, form, style, and representation. An extensive introduction by Austin Harrington gives an overview of Simmel's themes and elucidates the significance of his work for the many theorists who would be inspired by his ideas. Something of an outsider to the formal academic world of his day, Simmel wrote creatively with the flair of an essayist. This expansive collection of translations, many of them prepared by the editor, preserves the narrative ease of Simmel's prose and will be a vital source for readers with an interest in Simmel's trailblazing ideas in modern European philosophy, sociology, and cultural theory.
£86.80
Workman Publishing "It Always Seems Impossible Until It's Done.": Motivation for Dreamers & Doers
Pursuing a dream is hard work, but the right words delivered at the right time—by people who’ve been there and done that—can give us just the motivation we need. The right words can rekindle our enthusiasm, re-energize our efforts, dispel doubt, let us know we’re not alone, and show us that the fight is worth it—and winnable. Kathryn and Ross Petras are masters at choosing and delivering just the right words. Their books—such as “Age Doesn’t Matter Unless You’re a Cheese” and “Dance First. Think Later.”—and bestselling calendar, The 365 Stupidest Things Ever Said, have over 5.2 million copies in print. Now comes a book for dreamers and doers, plus writers, entrepreneurs, graduates, artists, future movers and shakers. Collecting the hard-won, brilliantly expressed advice from pioneers who have paved the way, including everyone from Rumi to Steve Jobs, Michelangelo to Oprah to Tina Fey, “It Always Seems Impossible Until It’s Done” is like a rousing locker-room speech, inspiring courage, commitment, and perseverance.“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” —Michael Jordan“Go for it, baby! Life ain’t no dress rehearsal.” —Tallulah Bankhead “Perfection is like chasing the horizon. Keep moving.” —Neil Gaiman“If you aren’t in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?” —T. S. Eliot“It always seems impossible until it’s done.” —Nelson Mandela
£10.04
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Christmas Wishes at Pudding Hall: A gorgeous Christmas romance to sweep you off of your feet!
Wrap yourself in the taste of Christmas with this fantastic festive romance! Christa Playfoot is looking for a fresh start after her divorce. Having lost her Michelin-starred restaurant, she hadn't expected to be job hunting and single just before Christmas. When her best friend says she's recommended Christa for a gig as a private chef over the Christmas period, Christa can't think of a reason to say no. Christa has no idea what to expect but it's certainly not grumpy billionaire divorcee Marc Ferrier and his rambunctious twin sons, or the beautiful but cheerless country estate, Pudding Hall, that they inhabit. With her knack for pouring love into her cooking, Christa is determined to make this Christmas sparkle for the Ferrier family and maybe get her life back on track in the process...
£8.99
Vintage Publishing The Families Who Made Rome: A History and a Guide
How often does a visitor to Rome drift towards some landmark and wonder who created it? Why? What was their story? This fascinating book provides the answers. At once a history and a guide, it divides Rome into the districts dominated by the fabulously rich families of the Popes: the Colonna, della Rovere, Farnese, Borghese, Barberini and others. In each case we learn their story - powerful, bloody and vivid - with all the scandals and intrigues as well as their relationships with artists like Bernini and Michelangelo. As we stroll through Rome's history - either literally or in the imagination - we discover it afresh. Famous sites like the Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps and St Peter's take on new significance as we watch the city rise from cramped medieval streets to become a glorious panorama of piazzas and palaces, fountains, towers and domes.
£16.99
Prestel The Renaissance Cities: Art in Florence, Rome and Venice
The idea of “renaissance,” or rebirth, arose in Italy as a way of reviving the art, science, and scholarship of the Classical era. It was also powered by a quest to document artistic “reality” according to newly discovered scientific and mathematical principles. By the late 15th century, Italy had become the recognised European leader in the fields of painting, architecture, and sculpture. But why was Florence the centre of this burgeoning creativity, and how did it spread to other Italian cities? Brimming with vivid reproductions of works by Leonardo, Michelangelo, Botticelli, Raphael, Titian, and others, this book showcases the creative achievements that traveled from Florence to Rome to Venice. Art historian Norbert Wolf explores the influence of secular and religious patronage on artistic development; how the urban structure and way of life allowed for such a rich exchange of ideas; and how ideas of humanism informed artists reaching toward the future while clinging to the ideals of the past. Insightful, accessible, and fascinating, this thoroughly researched book highlights the connections and mutual influences of Florence, Rome, and Venice as well as their intriguing rivalries and interdependencies.
£89.10
Stanford University Press The Afterlife of Moses: Exile, Democracy, Renewal
In this elegant and personal new work, Michael P. Steinberg reflects on the story of Moses and the Exodus as a foundational myth of politics—of the formation not of a nation but of a political community grounded in universal law. Modern renderings of the story of Moses, from Michelangelo to Spinoza to Freud to Schoenberg to Derrida, have seized on the story's ambivalences, its critical and self-critical power. These literal returns form the first level of the afterlife of Moses. They spin a persistent critical and self-critical thread of European and transatlantic art and argument. And they enable the second strand of Steinberg's argument, namely the depersonalization of the Moses and Exodus story, its evolving abstraction and modulation into a varied modern history of political beginnings. Beginnings, as distinct from origins, are human and historical, writes Steinberg. Political constitutions, as a form of beginning, imply the eventuality of their own renewals and their own reconstitutions. Motivated in part by recent reactionary insurgencies in the US, Europe, and Israel, this astute work of intellectual history posits the critique of myths of origin as a key principle of democratic government, affect, and citizenship, of their endurance as well as their fragility.
£23.99
Taylor & Francis Ltd Artistic Practices and Cultural Transfer in Early Modern Italy: Essays in Honour of Deborah Howard
For too long, the ’centre’ of the Renaissance has been considered to be Rome and the art produced in, or inspired by it. This collection of essays dedicated to Deborah Howard brings together an impressive group of internationally recognised scholars of art and architecture to showcase both the diversity within and the porosity between the ’centre’ and ’periphery’ in Renaissance art. Without abandoning Rome, but together with other centres of art production, the essays both shift their focus away from conventional categories and bring together recent trends in Renaissance studies, notably a focus on cultural contact, material culture and historiography. They explore the material mechanisms for the transmission and evolution of ideas, artistic training and networks, as well as the dynamics of collaboration and exchange between artists, theorists and patrons. The chapters, each with a wealth of groundbreaking research and previously unpublished documentary evidence, as well as innovative methodologies, reinterpret Italian art relating to canonical sites and artists such as Michelangelo, Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese, and Sebastiano del Piombo, in addition to showcasing the work of several hitherto neglected architects, painters, and an inimitable engineer-inventor.
£130.00
John Murray Press Lapidarium: The Secret Lives of Stones
'A delightful storybook . . . a portrait of our whole world created from the contents of the ground' Literary Review'A real cabinet of curiosities' Sunday TimesFrom the hematite used in cave paintings to the moldavite that became a TikTok sensation; from the stolen sandstone of Scone to the unexpected acoustics of Stonehenge; from crystal balls to compasses, rocks and minerals have always been central to our story.3,000 years ago Babylonians constructed lapidaries - books that tried to pin down the magical secrets of rocks. In Lapidarium, renowned art critic Hettie Judah explores the unexpected stories behind sixty stones that have shaped and inspired human history, from Dorset fossil-hunters to Chinese philosophers, Catherine the Great to Michelangelo.Discover why alchemists sought cinnabar and sulphur. Unearth the mystery of the tuff statues of Rapa Nui, the lost amber room of Frederick of Prussia and the scandal of Flint Jack. Find out how a Greek monster created coral, moon rock explains the history of Earth's only satellite and obsidian inspired the world's favourite computer game. Stone by stone, story by fascinating story, Lapidarium builds into a dazzling, epoch-spanning adventure through human culture, and beyond.
£20.00
Taschen GmbH Titian
Immerse yourself in the rich shades and textures of Tiziano Vecellio (c. 1488–1576), commonly known as Titian, and the figurehead of 16th-century Venetian painting. With his bold approach to form and startling, opulent colors, Titian worked with a number of prestigious commissions and left behind an astonishing repertoire of portraits, mythological scenes, altarpieces, and landscapes that remains one of the most important legacies of Renaissance art. This dependable artist introduction traces Titian’s complete career and its trailblazing influence on successive generations of artists, from Diego Velázquez to van Dyck. From the rippling sensuality of Venus of Urbino (c. 1488–1576) to the airborne dynamism of Bacchus and Ariadne (1520–1523), all the major works are here, charting the artist’s stylistic experimentation over time as well as his consistent and unique ability to work across genres and to bring a defining new level of emotional and spiritual aspect to his subjects. “Titian has the finest talent and a very pleasant, vivacious manner.” — Michelangelo.
£15.00
Duke University Press The Vanishing: Shakespeare, the Subject, and Early Modern Culture
In The Vanishing Christopher Pye combines psychoanalytic and cultural theory to advance an innovative interpretation of Renaissance history and subjectivity. Locating the emergence of the modern subject in the era’s transition from feudalism to a modern societal state, Pye supports his argument with interpretations of diverse cultural and literary phenomena, including Shakespeare’s Hamlet and King Lear, witchcraft and demonism, anatomy theaters, and the paintings of Michelangelo. Pye explores the emergence of the early modern subject in terms of a range of subjectivizing mechanisms tied to the birth of a modern conception of history, one that is structured around a spatial and temporal horizon—a vanishing point. He also discusses the distinctly economic character of early modern subjectivity and how this, too, is implicated in our own modern modes of historical understanding. After explaining how the aims of New Historicist and Foucauldian approaches to the Renaissance are inseparably linked to such a historical conception, Pye demonstrates how the early modern subject can be understood in terms of a Lacanian and Zizekian account of the emerging social sphere. By focusing on the Renaissance as a period of remarkable artistic and cultural production, he is able to illustrate his points with discussions of a number of uniquely fascinating topics—for instance, how demonism was intimately related to a significant shift in law and symbolic order and how there existed at the time a “demonic” preoccupation with certain erotic dimensions of the emergent social subject.Highly sophisticated and elegantly crafted, The Vanishing will be of interest to students of Shakespeare and early modern culture, Renaissance visual art, and cultural and psychoanalytic theory.
£81.00
Taschen GmbH Massimo Listri. The World’s Most Beautiful Libraries
From the mighty halls of ancient Alexandria to the coffered ceilings of the Morgan Library in New York, human beings have had a long, enraptured relationship with libraries. Like no other concept and like no other space, the collection of knowledge, learning, and imagination offers a sense of infinite possibility. It’s the unrivaled realm of discovery, where every faded manuscript or mighty clothbound tome might reveal a provocative new idea, a far-flung fantasy, an ancient belief, a religious conviction, or a whole new way of being in the world. In this new photographic journey, Massimo Listri travels to some of the oldest and finest libraries to reveal their architectural, historical, and imaginative wonder. Through great wooden doors, up spiraling staircases, and along exquisite, shelf-lined corridors, he leads us through outstanding private, public, educational, and monastic libraries, dating as far back as 766. Between them, these medieval, classical, baroque, rococo, and 19th-century institutions hold some of the most precious records of human thought and deed, inscribed and printed in manuscripts, volumes, papyrus scrolls, and incunabula. In each, Listri’s poised images capture the library’s unique atmosphere, as much as their most prized holdings and design details. Featured libraries include the papal collections of the Vatican Apostolic Library, Trinity College Library, home to the Book of Kells and Book of Durrow, and the holdings of the Laurentian Library in Florence, the private library of the powerful House of Medici, designed by Michelangelo. With meticulous descriptions accompanying each featured library, we learn not only of the libraries’ astonishing holdings—from which highlights are illustrated—but also of their often lively, turbulent, or controversial pasts. Like Altenburg Abbey in Austria, an outpost of imperial Catholicism repeatedly destroyed during the European wars of religion, or the Franciscan monastery in Lima, Peru, with its horde of archival Inquisition documents. At once a bibliophile beauty pageant, an ode to knowledge, and an evocation of the particular magic of print, Massimo Listri. The World’s Most Beautiful Libraries is above all a cultural-historical pilgrimage to the heart of our halls of learning, to the stories they tell, as much as those they gather in printed matter along polished shelves.
£135.00
McFarland & Co Inc The Artist as Murderer: An Enduring Legend from Ancient Greece to the Modern Day
The 4th century BC Greek painter Parrhasius murdered his model--an old man who was his slave--to achieve, so the story goes, a more lifelike depiction of nature. The tale has inspired similar, more elaborate stories about both well known and obscure artists--including da Vinci, Michelangelo and Rubens. Elements of it have appeared in theater, literature and film, as well as in comments by painters, historians, critics and anatomists. Challenging the archetype of the artist as a sympathetic lover of nature, this book examines the artist as cruel and murderous in service of art and ambition, and indirectly addresses a different understanding of the relationship between art and life.
£35.96
Everyman Love Speaks Its Name: Gay and Lesbian Love Poems
From Sappho to Shakespeare to Cole Porter – a marvellous and wide-ranging collection of classic gay and lesbian love poetry. The poets represented here include Walt Whitman, Hart Crane, Gertrude Stein, Federico García Lorca, Djuna Barnes, Constantine Cavafy, Elizabeth Bishop, W. H. Auden, and James Merrill. Their poems of love are among the most perceptive, the most passionate, the wittiest, and the most moving we have. From Michelangelo’s ‘‘Love Misinterpreted’’ to Noël Coward’s ‘‘Mad About the Boy,’’ from May Swenson’s ‘‘Symmetrical Companion’’ to Muriel Rukeyser’s ‘‘Looking at Each Other,’’ these poems take on both desire and its higher power: love in all its tender or taunting variety.
£12.00
Grub Street Publishing Casa Cacao
El Celler de Can Roca is the restaurant in Girona, Spain opened in 1986 by the Roca brothers: Joan, Josep and Jordi. It holds three Michelin stars and in 2013, 2015, 2018 it was named the best restaurant in the world by Restaurant magazine. Jordi Roca is currently one of the world's most advanced chocolatiers, and was proclaimed best pastry chef in the world in the 2014, 50 Best Awards. This book shows Jordi's search for the origins of cocoa and his journey to discover how to master chocolate for the creation of new, totally revolutionary desserts. He travels through cocoa fields in Colombia, Peru and Ecuador to meet producers both in the interior of the jungle and in the new areas that produce some of the most prestigious cocoa on the market. He learns about the nature of the so called creole cacao, native to the Amazon rainforest, the characteristics of the crop and the way in which the cocoa cob ends up being transformed into the fermented and dry bean from which we obtain our chocolate. With this background, Jordi returns to his chocolate workshop in Girona and gives a new twist to his creative work, undertaking unique creations with the cocoas that he has collected over the course of his travels through the different countries of Latin America. The book includes 40 recipes, formulas and totally new creative ideas with cocoa as the mainstay of desserts, chocolates and ice cream. A National Geographic documentary on Jordi Roca's research into the world of cocoa in Latin America is currently being filmed.
£31.50
Penguin Books Ltd The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini
Benvenuto Cellini was a celebrated Renaissance sculptor and goldsmith - a passionate craftsman who was admired and resented by the most powerful political and artistic personalities in sixteenth-century Florence, Rome and Paris. He was also a murderer and a braggart, a shameless adventurer who at different times experienced both papal persecution and imprisonment, and the adulation of the royal court. Inn-keepers and prostitutes, kings and cardinals, artists and soldiers rub shoulders in the pages of his notorious autobiography: a vivid portrait of the manners and morals of both the rulers of the day and of their subjects. Written with supreme powers of invective and an irrepressible sense of humour, this is an unrivalled glimpse into the palaces and prisons of the Italy of Michelangelo and the Medici.
£14.99
Prestel The National Menagerie of Art: Masterpieces from Vincent Van Goat to Lionhardo da Stinki
Even the greatest works of art will often fail to enthrall young children. But insert a funny, loveable animal into the scene, and it’s a whole different story. This delightful picture book takes artistic license as it reimagines the world’s most famous paintings for a young audience. A teddy bear surfs Hokusai’s Great Wave; a charming pig changes Mona Lisa’s smile from cryptic to comic; Munch’s scream is far less angsty on a panda’s face, while Whistler’s mother–the elephant–gives new meaning to Arrangement in Grey and Black. While it covers every major artistic school in art history, from Michelangelo and Velázquez to Kahlo and Rothko, each snort and guffaw offers an opportunity to explore the paintings in ways that will help kids remember them for the rest of their lives.
£8.99
John Wiley and Sons Ltd Splendors and Miseries of the Brain: Love, Creativity, and the Quest for Human Happiness
Splendors and Miseries of the Brain examines the elegant and efficient machinery of the brain, showing that by studying music, art, literature, and love, we can reach important conclusions about how the brain functions. discusses creativity and the search for perfection in the brain examines the power of the unfinished and why it has such a powerful hold on the imagination discusses Platonic concepts in light of the brain shows that aesthetic theories are best understood in terms of the brain discusses the inherited concept of unity-in-love using evidence derived from the world literature of love addresses the role of the synthetic concept in the brain (the synthesis of many experiences) in relation to art, using examples taken from the work of Michelangelo, Cézanne, Balzac, Dante, and others
£25.95
Encounter Books,USA David's Sling: A History of Democracy in Ten Works of Art
Throughout Western history, the societies that have made the greatest contributions to the spread of freedom have created iconic works of art to celebrate their achievements. Yet despite the enduring appeal of these works--from the Parthenon to Michelangelo's David to Picasso's Guernica--histories of both art and democracy have ignored this phenomenon. Millions have admired the artworks covered in this book but relatively few know why they were commissioned, what was happening in the culture that produced them, or what they were meant to achieve. Even scholars who have studied them for decades often miss the big picture by viewing them in isolation from a larger story of human striving. David's Sling places into context ten canonical works of art executed to commemorate the successes of free societies that exerted political and economic influence far beyond what might have been expected of them. Fusing political and art history with a judicious dose of creative reconstruction, Victoria Coates has crafted a lively narrative around each artistic object and the free system that inspired it. This book integrates the themes of creative excellence and political freedom to bring a fresh, new perspective to both. In telling the stories of ten masterpieces, David's Sling invites reflection on the synergy between liberty and human achievement.
£19.99
Profile Books Ltd What's the Use?: The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics
'Stewart is Britain's most brilliant and prolific populariser of maths' Alex Bellos 'The instructive equivalent of a Michelin-starred tasting menu' Tim Radford Many people think mathematics is useless. They're wrong. In the UK, the 2.8 million people employed in mathematical science occupations contributed £208 billion to the economy in a single year - that's 10 per cent of the workforce contributing 16 per cent of the economy. What's the Use? asks why there is such a vast gulf between public perceptions of mathematics and reality. It shows how mathematics is vital, often in surprising ways, behind the scenes of daily life. How politicians pick their voters. How an absurd little puzzle solved 300 years ago leads to efficient methods for kidney transplants. And how a bizarre, infinitely wiggly curve helps to optimise deliveries to your door.
£10.99
Prestel A Year in Art: A Painting A Day
As functional as it is beautiful, this substantial book presents some of the world’s greatest art in an elegant package that will look good at home or in the office. Every day offers a different, exquisitely reproduced artwork from a variety of eras, genres, and media; quotations to ponder, surprise, and delight; and ample space to record birthdays, anniversaries, and other important dates as well as personal notes and reflections. There’s art for every taste and from every period: prehistory and ancient Egypt; Medieval and Renaissance; Impressionist, Abstract, and Modern. Featured artists include, Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli, Raphael, Michelangelo, Albrecht Dürer, Caravaggio, Titian, Hiroshige, El Greco, Vermeer, Turner, Monet, van Gogh, Cassatt, Kandinsky, Klee, Picasso, and others. This book’s global and historical collection of images makes it the perfect gift for lovers of art and will offer inspiration every day of the year.
£17.99
Thames & Hudson Ltd The Self-Portrait: A Cultural History
In this broad cultural survey, James Hall brilliantly maps the history of self-portraiture, from the earliest myths of Narcissus and the Christian tradition of ‘bearing witness’ to the prolific self-image-making of today’s contemporary artists. Along the way he reveals the importance of the medieval ‘mirror craze’; the confessional self-portraits of Titian and Michelangelo; the role of biography for serial self-portraitists such as Courbet and van Gogh; themes of sex and genius in works by Munch and Bonnard; and the latest developments in our globalized age. Hall covers the full range of self-portraits, from comic and caricature self-portraits to ‘invented’ or imaginary ones, and looks deeply into the worlds and mindsets of the artists who have created them. Offering a rich and lively history, this is an essential read for all those interested in this most enduringly popular and humane of art forms.
£18.00
Hachette Books Godard On Godard
Jean-Luc Godard, like many of his European contemporaries, came to filmmaking through film criticism. This collection of essays and interviews, ranging from his early efforts for La Gazette du Cinéma to his later writings for Cahiers du Cinéma, reflects his dazzling intelligence, biting wit, maddening judgments, and complete unpredictability. In writing about Hitchcock, Welles, Bergman, Truffaut, Bresson, and Renoir, Godard is also writing about himself,his own experiments, obsessions, discoveries. This book offers evidence that he may be even more original as a thinker about film than as a director. Covering the period of 1950-1967, the years of Breathless, A Woman Is a Woman, My Life to Live, Alphaville, La Chinoise, and Weekend, this book of writings is an important document and a fascinating study of a vital stage in Godard's career. With commentary by Tom Milne and Richard Roud, and an extensive new foreword by Annette Michelson that reassesses Godard in light of his later films, here is an outrageous self-portrait by a director who, even now, continues to amaze and bedevil, and to chart new directions for cinema and for critical thought about its history.
£14.99
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Ekstedt: The Nordic Art of Analogue Cooking: Special edition
‘With equal parts of birch wood and passion, we keep the flames alive. We cook all our ingredients over an open fire. Charcoal and smoke are our most powerful tools. No electric griddle, no gas stove – only natural heat, soot, ash, smoke and fire. We have chosen these ways to prepare our food as a tribute to the ancient way of cooking. At Ekstedt it is the flames that are superior.’ Through his bold flavours at the eponymous Michelin-starred restaurant, Niklas Ekstedt ignites our primal fire-side instincts. His abandonment of modern technology may be a little difficult to replicate in your own kitchen, but his spirit will convince you to get back to basics where you can. The restaurant, Ekstedt, is at the very heart and centre of the book, providing the foundation for Niklas’ stories of seasonal, and regional, traditional Swedish cooking. Dishes from the restaurant, and in the pages of this sumptuous book, include braised lamb shoulder with seaweed butter and wild garlic capers, juniper-smoked pike and perch, ember-baked leeks with charcoal cream, pine-smoked mussels, and wood-oven baked almond cake. Stunning photography from David Loftus brings Niklas’ recipes and the Nordic seasons to life. This special is uniquely and sumptuously packaged and signed by Niklas.
£225.00
Duke University Press Lost in Translation: Orientalism, Cinema, and the Enigmatic Signifier
In a nuanced exploration of how Western cinema has represented East Asia as a space of radical indecipherability, Homay King traces the long-standing association of the Orient with the enigmatic. The fantasy of an inscrutable East, she argues, is not merely a side note to film history, but rather a kernel of otherness that has shaped Hollywood cinema at its core. Through close readings of The Lady from Shanghai, Chinatown, Blade Runner, Lost in Translation, and other films, she develops a theory of the “Shanghai gesture,” a trope whereby orientalist curios and décor become saturated with mystery. These objects and signs come to bear the burden of explanation for riddles that escape the Western protagonist or cannot be otherwise resolved by the plot. Turning to visual texts from outside Hollywood which actively grapple with the association of the East and the unintelligible—such as Michelangelo Antonioni’s Chung Kuo: Cina, Wim Wenders’s Notebook on Cities and Clothes, and Sophie Calle’s Exquisite Pain—King suggests alternatives to the paranoid logic of the Shanghai gesture. She argues for the development of a process of cultural “de-translation” aimed at both untangling the psychic enigmas prompting the initial desire to separate the familiar from the foreign, and heightening attentiveness to the internal alterities underlying Western subjectivity.
£81.00
Vintage Publishing The Beauty and the Terror: An Alternative History of the Italian Renaissance
*A THE TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020*'Brilliant and gripping, here is the full true Renaissance in a history of compelling originality and freshness' Simon Sebag MontefioreThe Italian Renaissance shaped Western culture - but it was far stranger and darker than many of us realise. We know the Mona Lisa for her smile, but not that she was married to a slave-trader. We revere Leonardo da Vinci for his art, but few now appreciate his ingenious designs for weaponry. We visit Florence to see Michelangelo's David, but hear nothing of the massacre that forced the republic's surrender. In fact, many of the Renaissance's most celebrated artists and thinkers emerged not during the celebrated 'rebirth' of the fifteenth century but amidst the death and destruction of the sixteenth century.The Beauty and the Terror is an enrapturing narrative which includes the forgotten women writers, Jewish merchants, mercenaries, prostitutes, farmers and citizens who lived the Renaissance every day. Brimming with life, it takes us closer than ever before to the reality of this astonishing era, and its meaning for today.'Terrifying and fascinating' Sunday Times'Enlightening...exactly the alternative history you might wish for' Daily Telegraph
£12.99
University of Washington Press Stories in Stone: Travels through Urban Geology
Most people do not think to observe geology from the sidewalks of a major city, but all David B. Williams has to do is look at building stone in any urban center to find a range of rocks equal to any assembled by plate tectonics. In Stories in Stone, he takes you on explorations to find 3.5-billion-year-old rock that looks like swirled pink-and-black taffy, a gas station made of petrified wood, and a Florida fort that has withstood three hundred years of attacks and hurricanes, despite being made of a stone that has the consistency of a granola bar. Williams also weaves in the cultural history of stone, explaining why a white fossil-rich limestone from Indiana became the only building stone used in all fifty states; how in 1825, the construction of the Bunker Hill Monument led to America’s first commercial railroad; and why when the same kind of marble used by Michelangelo clad a Chicago skyscraper it warped so much after nineteen years that all 44,000 panels of it had to be replaced. This love letter to building stone brings to life the geology you can see in the structures of every city.
£21.99
Johns Hopkins University Press A Cinema of Poetry: Aesthetics of the Italian Art Film
A Cinema of Poetry brings Italian film studies into dialogue with fields outside its usual purview by showing how films can contribute to our understanding of aesthetic questions that stretch back to Homer. Joseph Luzzi considers the relation between film and literature, especially the cinematic adaptation of literary sources and, more generally, the fields of rhetoric, media studies, and modern Italian culture. The book balances theoretical inquiry with close readings of films by the masters of Italian cinema: Roberto Rossellini, Vittorio De Sica, Luchino Visconti, Michelangelo Antonioni, Federico Fellini, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Bernardo Bertolucci, and others. Luzzi's study is the first to show how Italian filmmakers address such crucial aesthetic issues as the nature of the chorus, the relation between symbol and allegory, the literary prehistory of montage, and the place of poetry in cinematic expression-what Pasolini called the "cinema of poetry." While Luzzi establishes how certain qualities of film-its link with technological processes, capacity for mass distribution, synthetic virtues (and vices) as the so-called total art-have reshaped centuries-long debates, A Cinema of Poetry also explores what is specific to the Italian art film and, more broadly, Italian cinematic history. In other words, what makes this version of the art film recognizably "Italian"?
£43.00
Duke University Press Lost in Translation: Orientalism, Cinema, and the Enigmatic Signifier
In a nuanced exploration of how Western cinema has represented East Asia as a space of radical indecipherability, Homay King traces the long-standing association of the Orient with the enigmatic. The fantasy of an inscrutable East, she argues, is not merely a side note to film history, but rather a kernel of otherness that has shaped Hollywood cinema at its core. Through close readings of The Lady from Shanghai, Chinatown, Blade Runner, Lost in Translation, and other films, she develops a theory of the “Shanghai gesture,” a trope whereby orientalist curios and décor become saturated with mystery. These objects and signs come to bear the burden of explanation for riddles that escape the Western protagonist or cannot be otherwise resolved by the plot. Turning to visual texts from outside Hollywood which actively grapple with the association of the East and the unintelligible—such as Michelangelo Antonioni’s Chung Kuo: Cina, Wim Wenders’s Notebook on Cities and Clothes, and Sophie Calle’s Exquisite Pain—King suggests alternatives to the paranoid logic of the Shanghai gesture. She argues for the development of a process of cultural “de-translation” aimed at both untangling the psychic enigmas prompting the initial desire to separate the familiar from the foreign, and heightening attentiveness to the internal alterities underlying Western subjectivity.
£21.99
Skyhorse Publishing The Plant-Based Cookbook: Vegan, Gluten-Free, Oil-Free Recipes for Lifelong Health
An essential resource for your health―if we are what we eat, let’s make every (delicious) bite count! This cookbook will no doubt transform your kitchen, bringing new plant-based, whole food ideas to the table and offering easy yet healthy recipe solutions for everything from celebratory meals to rushed weeknight dinners. Ashley Madden is a pharmacist turned plant-based chef, certified holistic nutritional consultant, and devoted health foodie. A diagnosis of multiple sclerosis changed her whole life and approach to food, eventually shaping a new food philosophy and inspiring this book.The Plant-Based Cookbook is especially helpful for those with dietary requirements or food allergies as all recipes are vegan, dairy-free, gluten-free, and oil-free without compromising on taste or relying on packaged and processed ingredients. All-natural recipes include: One-pot creamy pasta Vibrant nourish bowls Decadent no-bake cinnamon rolls A show-stopping cheese ball Life-changing carrot cake And so much more! Whether you consider yourself an amateur home cook or a Michelin Star chef, this collection of recipes will inspire you to turn whole foods into magical, mouthwatering meals and give you confidence to prepare plants in creative and health-supportive ways.
£20.87
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Restaurant Nathan Outlaw: Special Edition
In this deluxe edition, bound in fish leather, hand signed and beautifully slip cased, the King of Fish, Nathan Outlaw, presents seasonal recipes from his eponymous Port Isaac restaurant. Crowned Britain's number 1 restaurant by The Good Food Guide in 2017, Restaurant Nathan Outlaw is the only fish restaurant in the UK to hold 2 Michelin stars. In this cookbook, Nathan reveals the recipes behind his success and offers you a chance to cook his famous fish dishes at home. Built around the seasons in its Port Isaac home, the book celebrates a culinary year of the village, exploring the place, people and produce of a small but perfectly formed coastal landscape and their contribution to the culinary excellence of Restaurant Nathan Outlaw. Within these pages, Nathan has selected 80 of his favourite recipes that feature on the restaurant's menu. From early spring, recipes include crab and asparagus, cuttlefish fritters with a wild garlic soup, and plaice with mussels and samphire. From there, Nathan travels right through the seasonal offerings of the Cornish coastline through to late winter, when delights include turbot, champagne and caviar, and lemon sole with oysters, cucumber and dill. Photography from the legendary David Loftus brings Nathan’s recipes to life, offering you a chance to experience Restaurant Nathan Outlaw at home.
£225.00
Stanford University Press In Your Face: Professional Improprieties and the Art of Being Conspicuous in Sixteenth-Century Italy
In Your Face concentrates on the Renaissance concern with "self-fashioning" by examining how a group of Renaissance artists and writers encoded their own improprieties in their works of art. In the elitist court society of sixteenth-century Italy, where moderation, limitation, and discretion were generally held to be essential virtues, these men consistently sought to stand out and to underplay their conspicuousness at once. The heroes (or anti-heroes) of this book—Michelangelo Buonarroti, Benvenuto Cellini, Pietro Aretino, and Anton Francesco Doni—violated norms of decorum by promoting themselves aggressively and by using writing or artworks to memorialize their assertiveness and intractable delight in parading themselves as transgressive and insubordinate on a grand scale. Focusing on these sorts of writers and visual artists, Biow constructs a version of the Italian Renaissance that is neither the elegant one of Castiglione's and Vasari's courts—so recently favored in scholarly accounts—nor the dark, conspiratorial one of Niccolò Machiavelli's and Francesco Guicciardini's princely states.
£21.99
Faber & Faber Up Late
Nick Laird''s powerful new collection reflects on the strange and chaotic times we live in. Reeling in the face of collapsing systems and the banalities and distortions of modern life, the poet confronts age-old anxieties, questions of aloneness, friendship, illness and death, the push and pull of daily existence.Laird is a poet capable of heading off in any and every direction, where layers of association transport us from a harbour in County Cork to the library steps in New York's Washington Square, from a face-off between Freud and Michelangelo's Moses to one between the poet and a squirrel in a Kilburn garden. And at the heart of the collection lies the title sequence ''Up Late'', a profound meditation on a father's dying, and winner of the 2022 Forward Prize for Best Single Poem.There is conflation and conflagration, rage and fire, neither of which are seen as necessarily destructive. But there is great tenderness, too, a fondness for what grows between the crac
£12.99
Bradt Travel Guides Lille
WINNER: Best Guidebook of the Year (British Guild of Travel Writers)New from Bradt is the thoroughly updated fifth edition of Lille, the award-winning and critically acclaimed guidebook to this exciting, ever-changing and easily accessible city in Hauts-de-France - the ultimate destination for a city break. Lille''s architecture blends the 16th-century cobbled streets typical of old Flanders and the imposing fortress and parks of Louis XIV''s France with converted former factories now serving as modern cultural venues. Here history refuses to stand still, and the city has not stopped finding new ways to celebrate its traditions, routinely toasting contemporary innovations. One of France''s leading centres for gastronomy, Lille constantly re-invents itself with ever more exciting places to eat - whether you share a sandwich with artists in a former post office building or seek out tomorrow''s Michelin-starred chefs - plus new places to explore, relax and stay. Being elected European Cap
£14.99
Officina Libraria Studies in Tuscan Renaissance Painting/Studi sulla pittura toscana del Rinascimento
Everett Fahy’s writings are of fundamental importance to the study of Tuscan Renaissance painting from the late 14th to the 16th century. An endeavour that lasted 50 years, starting with his 1965 essay on Piero di Cosimo and ending with his contributions for the 2015 Florentine exhibition on the same artist. In between Fahy wrote on some of the most acclaimed and loved artists (from Beato Angelico to Botticelli, from Ghirlandaio to the young Michelangelo), but also on lesser known masters such as Lorenzo di Nicolò, Spinello Aretino, the Master of the Campana panels, the Master of the Fiesole Adoration of the Magi, etc., and through his pioneering studies rediscovered minor artistic schools, such as the Lucca school. Fahy reconstruction of Fra Bartolomeo’s early career is considered a classic of art historiography. The selected texts (vol. 1) are arranged in the order of appearance, while the plates (vol. 2), following chronological order, make up an atlas of two centuries of Tuscan painting. With texts in English (36), French (1), and Italian (10).
£81.00
HarperCollins Publishers Food from the Fire
The crackling of birch, the sizzle of the pot and the scent of wood smoke in the air the relaxed style that typifies Scandinavian open-fire cooking is explored in this cool new cookbook from Michelin-starred chef, Niklas Ekstedt, who is famed for cooking over wood only.This innovative selection of recipes highlights the best of modern Nordic food, themed around ancient cooking methods.Fire pits are easy and affordable to source, even portable types are available for those with limited outdoor space, and wood is re-emerging as a fuel source. Considering how little specialist equipment is required, the flavours achievable with this back to basics method of cooking are outstanding.Niklas' book naturally features plenty of fire-building tips, aromatic smoking recipes, pickling and preserving techniques, but he doesn't expect you to go foraging for ingredients or to give up cooking in a traditional kitchen a cast iron skillet over a gas flame will produce similar results. Easy to find ingr
£22.50