Search results for ""Author Michel"
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
Kapon Editions Kapela Sistina, nea ermineutiki prosegisi meta thn apokatastasi ton toixografion: Greek language text
The Sistine Chapel enchants the visitor by the splendid harmony it radiates as a concept fully realised, by the unmatched artistic qualities of the individual works, the profound ideas that govern the planning of the paintings and the splendid, robust and lively figures created by Michelangelo and other artists. In this book, jointly produced by the Musei Vaticani and Libreria Editrice Vaticana, the chapel' s paintings are examined in relation to the theological interpretations prevailing in that period. Many of these works have already been presented in isolation by leading experts on the chapel, with detailed descriptions and comments. However, its recent restoration makes possible a new approach to interpreting the pictures, based among other factors on the symbolism of the colours. Greek language text. 186 illus., most colour.
£92.00
Marsilio Imagine: Italian Art 1959-1969
A seminal experience on the Italian art scene of the 1960s. At the height of the economic miracle of the 1960s, artistic experiments in Italy kept following one another, mixed and merged with an extraordinary speed and intensity.The common aim was to emerge from the disillusionment of the postwar period to build a new vocabulary of signs and images, able to restore the ferment of society and contemporary culture. The book is dedicated to the propositional wealth of that decade, based on a new perspective on the Italian art of those years.The artists represented include Franco Angeli, Domenico Gnoli, Giosetta Fioroni, Tano Festa, Michelangelo Pistoletto, and Mario Schifano, creators of a new and original direction that typified Italian art in that period, of which the book offers ideas, studies, and curiosities.
£35.09
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
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
Phaidon Press Ltd The River Cafe Look Book: Recipes for Kids of all Ages
‘A whimsical cookbook to delight young and old.’ - The New York Times The first cookbook from London's iconic River Cafe written with beginner cooks and children in mind - a collection of more than 50 delicious and easily achievable recipes, including a host of River Cafe classics that have been specially adapted for new cooks This highly anticipated cookbook is more accessible than any other to have come from the kitchen of Ruth Rogers' legendary Michelin-star restaurant The River Cafe, set on the banks of the Thames in London. With more than 50 iconic recipes, each of which has been masterfully adapted and revised by the River Cafe chefs specifically for those new to cooking, the fabulous dishes in this collection bring the warmth, beauty, and sumptuous ease of Italian family home-cooking to cooks of all levels of kitchen expertise - including your kids! The vivid and playful pages of this witty and innovative book showcase garden-fresh meals such as Smashed Broad Bean Bruschetta, Fusilli Zucchini, and Raspberry Sorbet, along with new versions of River Cafe classics, including a delectable lemon tart, a luxurious chocolate torte, and tasty pesto. The intriguing and inspirational images that open this book encourage readers to connect the food they will cook with the world around them in new and sometimes surprising ways. Part look-book, part cookbook, this sure-fire bestseller encourages kids of all ages to connect with food and achieve great results - with The River Cafe as their teacher and inspirational guide.
£22.46
Temple University Press,U.S. Understanding Muslim Political Life in America: Contested Citizenship in the Twenty-First Century
“Muslim Americans are at a political crossroads,” write editors Brian Calfano and Nazita Lajevardi. Whereas Muslims are now widely incorporated in American public life, there are increasing social and political pressures that disenfranchise them or prevent them from realizing the American Dream. Understanding Muslim Political Life in America brings clarity to the social, religious, and political dynamics that this diverse religious community faces.In this timely volume, leading scholars cover a variety of topics assessing the Muslim American experience in the post-9/11 and pre-Trump era, including law enforcement; identity labels used in Muslim surveys; the role of gender relations; recognition; and how discrimination, tolerance, and politics impact American Muslims.Understanding Muslim Political Life in America offers an update and reappraisal of what we know about Muslims in American political life. The editors and contributors also consider future directions and important methodological questions for research in Muslim American scholarship. Contributors include Matt A. Barreto, Alejandro Beutel, Tony Carey, Youssef Chouhoud, Karam Dana, Oz Dincer, Rachel Gillum, Kerem Ozan Kalkan, Anwar Manje, Valerie Martinez-Ebers, Dani McLaughlan, Melissa R. Michelson, Yusuf Sarfati, Ahmet Tekelioglu, Marianne Marar Yacobian, and the editors.
£26.99
Abrams Under the Sign of the Moon
A gastronomic exploration of Mirazur, the “best restaurant in the world,” and the creative vision of chef Mauro Colagreco. Step into the magical and delicious world of chef Mauro Colagreco’s Mirazur, the three-Michelin–starred restaurant situated along the French Riviera at the foot of the mountains and overlooking the sea. Colagreco’s much-lauded cuisine takes its inspiration from the natural world and the terroir surrounding Mirazur; his personal garden, which brims with aromatic herbs and fragrant citrus trees just across from the restaurant; his Italian Argentinian heritage; and his background training with leading French chefs Bernard Louiseau, Alain Passard, Alain Ducasse, and Guy Martin. More than just a cookbook, Mauro and Laura Colagreco’s Mirazur: Under the Sign of the Moon unearths the chef’s unique vision and earth-honoring philosophy for food. The sustainable gastronomy transla
£49.50
Octopus Publishing Group Memories of Gascony
New edition of the award-winning cookbook Memories of Gascony from Michelin three-star chef Pierre KoffmannPierre Koffmann's Memories of Gascony is the story of how one of the most influential chefs of our time first learned to love food. With recipes and reminiscences from his grandparents' home in rural Gascony, this is an intimate account of school holidays spent on the farm helping his grandfather to harvest and hunt, and learning to treasure seasonality, simplicity and the best ingredients at his grandmother's side. The finest of Gascony produce is here, with a focus on simplicity. The recipes stand the test of time and speak to the food tastes and trends of today. While you read the charming stories of everyday life on the farm, you'll devour the cuisine as you go along - dandelion salad with bacon and poached egg, grilled chicken with shallots and vinaigrette, and greengages in armagnac in Spring;
£22.50
Giorgio Nada Editore Vignale: Masterpieces of Style
The history of Vignale, the coachbuilder that bodied the first unforgettable Ferraris of the 1950s – responsible for cars such as the 166 and 212 Inter, the 250 and the 340 MM – narrated through rare archive photos, many of which previously unpublished. The Masterpieces of Style series dedicated to the greats of Italian coachbuilding – including Zagato, Pininfarina Touring and Giugiaro – could hardly not have a title devoted to the Turinese atelier founded in 1946 by Alfredo Vignale. This book covers, model by model, the entire output of an illustrious marque that was at its peak in the Fifties and Sixties when, thanks above all to the extraordinary talent of Giovanni Michelotti, it produced numerous bodies for Ferrari chassis, along with diverse Fiats with special versions of the 500 and 600. Not to forget the various Lancias such as the Appia and the Flavia Convertible and the prolific collaboration with Triumph.
£48.00
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
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
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
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
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
Penguin Random House Children's UK Everything Under the Sun: a curious question for every day of the year
"The only thing better than the questions, in this delightful and informative book, is the answers." - Neil Gaiman"This book is GLORIOUS. It's heart-and-soul fabulous, page after page." - Stephen Fry"One of the best kids books I have ever had the pleasure of reading" - Pandora Sykes"This book is heaven on a stick" - Sophie DahlA collection of 366 curious questions asked by children from around the world, based on the award-winning podcast by original QI Elf, Molly Oldfield. How much bamboo can a giant panda eat?Do aliens exist?What we would do if we didn't have a prime minister?Why do hammerhead sharks have such strange-shaped heads?Find out the answers to these curious questions and much, much more!Ponder where ideas come from with award-winning illustrator, Rob Biddulph. Find out why you taste things differently when you have a cold with Michelin star chef, Heston Blumenthal. Learn about everything from how astronauts see in the dark to what the biggest dinosaur was with experts from the Natural History Museum.Fascinating facts are accompanied by gorgeous illustrations making the perfect gift for Christmas. Whether you read a question a day, or dip into it whenever you are feeling curious, this is a book to treasure and share all year round.Illustrated by Momoko Abe, Kelsey Buzzell, Beatrice Cerocchi, Alice Courtley, Sandra de la Prada, Grace Easton, Manuela Montoya Escobar, Richard Jones, Lisa Koesterke, Gwen Millward, Sally Mullaney, and Laurie Stansfield.Praise for Everything Under the Sun:'Trivia fans will relish Everything Under the Sun' - The Guardian"A wonderful gift for families" - Evening Standard"This is a book to treasure all year round" - My Baba"As cute as it is educational" - Babyccino Kids "A wonderful collection of 366 curious questions about everything from science to nature, dinosaurs to space" - Scottish Sun "Simply mesmerising compendium" - Waterstones"A beautiful gem of a book" - BookTrust"Fascinating for anyone who opens it" - Red magazine"An absolute delight" - David Walliams
£25.00
Clearview Open Kitchen: Top Chefs share Inspirational Recipes to try at Home
From the team behind Great British Chefs comes Open Kitchen, a book which raises the curtain on some of the most innovative restaurants in the UK. Learn from the country's top chefs through 50 exclusive recipes ranging from weekday suppers to special weekend dinners, all showcased through specially commissioned photography. Open Kitchen reveals the diversity of Britain's professional kitchens, with recipes ranging from traditional Malaysian street food, home-style Chinese dishes and British pub grub, to ultra-refined desserts and forward-thinking creations from multiple Michelin-starred chefs, including Simon Rogan, Lisa Goodwin-Allen and Tommy Banks. With all recipes adapted for the home cook, at any level, Open Kitchen offers a chance to experience the very best restaurants from the other side of the pass.
£22.50
Orion Publishing Co Written in History: Letters that Changed the World
INCLUDES NEW MATERIALWRITTEN IN HISTORY celebrates the great letters of world history, creative culture and personal life. Acclaimed historian Simon Sebag Montefiore selects over one hundred letters from ancient times to the twenty-first century: some are noble and inspiring, some despicable and unsettling; some are exquisite works of literature, others brutal, coarse and frankly outrageous; many are erotic, others heartbreaking. The writers vary from Elizabeth I, Rameses the Great and Leonard Cohen to Emmeline Pankhurst, Mandela, Stalin, Michelangelo, Suleiman the Magnificent and unknown people in extraordinary circumstances - from love letters to calls for liberation, declarations of war to reflections on death. In the colourful, accessible style of a master storyteller, Montefiore shows why these letters are essential reading: how they enlighten our past, enrich the way we live now - and illuminate tomorrow.
£9.99
Little, Brown & Company MOTO: The Cookbook
MOTO : THE COOKBOOK is Homaro Cantu's magnum opus. The definitive cookbook from a culinary genius. The world renowned Michelin Star restaurant Moto is home to the ultimate meeting of art and science with dishes that hold the world's imagination. From edible paper menus that richly taste of the foot picture to carbonated fruit to small table-top boxes that cook fish before the guests eyes, the restaurant reimagines what food is.Homaro's unexpected death in April 2015 shocked the culinary world and brought light to Homaro's unique story. He grew up homeless and later became a drug addict. Through hard work in the kitchen of the legendary Charlie Palmer, Homaro found his calling. MOTO: THE COOKBOOK represents the decade he ran the restaurant - 2004 until 2014 - with ten inventive dishes from each year. The book includes hundreds of incredible photographs and stop motion video of every recipe, animated with sophistication and allure.
£40.00
Octopus Publishing Group Fish for Dinner: Delicious Seafood Recipes to Cook at Home
'Simply delicious recipes by the master of fish.' Jamie Oliver'No one cooks fish like Nathan, one of the most talented chefs in the UK. This book brings all his talent to the home cook.' Angela HartnettA BRAND NEW collection from the UK's most celebrated fish chef that explains what fish to cook and how to cook it, and provides tasty and inspiring ways to cook seasonal and sustainable fish for dinner.In Fish for Dinner, Michelin-starred seafood chef Nathan Outlaw gives his expert advice on what fish to cook and how to cook it, alongside more than 70 of his best seafood recipes. With illustrated preparation techniques, all of Nathan's top tips and species substitutes for every recipe, it is easy to cook delicious fish at home. From hearty stews to delicate soups, moreish snacks to perfect pan-fried dinners and super seafood salads to smoky barbecue specials, there is a fish dish for every occasion.
£25.20
Universe Publishing This is Rome: A Children's Classic
Like the other Sasek classics, this is a facsimile edition of the original book. The brilliant, vibrant illustrations have been meticulously preserved, remaining true to his vision more than 40 years later. Facts have been updated for the 21st-century, appearing on a "This is . . . Today" page at the back of the book. These charming illustrations, coupled with Sasek's witty, playful narrative, make for a perfect souvenir that will delight both children and their parents, many of whom will remember the series from their own childhoods. This is Rome, first published in 1960, traces the history of Roman civilization to bring to life the Rome of the 60's. Sasek navigates Rome's busy, winding streets to visit such glorious historical landmarks as the statues of Michelangelo, Vatican City, the Pantheon, and the Fontana di Trevi-and to show us the eccentricities of modern Roman life, from its colorful trains, trams, and taxis to its chic espresso bars and pasta houses.
£13.99
Vanderbilt University Press Women's Work: How Culinary Cultures Shaped Modern Spain
We are living a moment in which famous chefs, Michelin stars, culinary techniques, and gastronomical accolades attract moneyed tourists to Spain from all over the world. This has prompted the Spanish government to declare its cuisine as part of Spanish patrimony.Yet even with this widespread global attention, we know little about how Spanish cooking became a litmus test for demonstrating Spain’s modernity and, in relation, the roles ascribed to the modern Spanish women responsible for daily cooking. Efforts to articulate a new, modern Spain infiltrated writing in multiple genres and media. Women’s Work places these efforts in their historical context to yield a better understanding of the roles of food within an inherently uneven modernization process. Further, the book reveals the paradoxical messages women have navigated, even in texts about a daily practice that shaped their domestic and work lives. This argument is significant because of the degree to which domestic activities, including cooking, occupied women’s daily lives, even while issues like their fitness as citizens and participation in the public sphere were hotly debated. At the same time, progressive intellectuals from diverse backgrounds began to invoke Spanish cooking and eating as one measure of Spanish modernity.Women’s Work shows how culinary writing engaged these debates and reached women at the site of much of their daily labor—the kitchen—and, in this way, shaped their thinking about their roles in modernizing Spain.
£86.57
Vanderbilt University Press Women's Work: How Culinary Cultures Shaped Modern Spain
We are living a moment in which famous chefs, Michelin stars, culinary techniques, and gastronomical accolades attract moneyed tourists to Spain from all over the world. This has prompted the Spanish government to declare its cuisine as part of Spanish patrimony.Yet even with this widespread global attention, we know little about how Spanish cooking became a litmus test for demonstrating Spain’s modernity and, in relation, the roles ascribed to the modern Spanish women responsible for daily cooking. Efforts to articulate a new, modern Spain infiltrated writing in multiple genres and media. Women’s Work places these efforts in their historical context to yield a better understanding of the roles of food within an inherently uneven modernization process. Further, the book reveals the paradoxical messages women have navigated, even in texts about a daily practice that shaped their domestic and work lives. This argument is significant because of the degree to which domestic activities, including cooking, occupied women’s daily lives, even while issues like their fitness as citizens and participation in the public sphere were hotly debated. At the same time, progressive intellectuals from diverse backgrounds began to invoke Spanish cooking and eating as one measure of Spanish modernity.Women’s Work shows how culinary writing engaged these debates and reached women at the site of much of their daily labor—the kitchen—and, in this way, shaped their thinking about their roles in modernizing Spain.
£32.47
University of Minnesota Press Italian Locations: Reinhabiting the Past in Postwar Cinema
Fascism and the Second World War left Italy indelibly changed, and cinema was arguably the art that most rigorously confronted the devastated nation. In this examination of four Italian filmmakers, Noa Steimatsky brilliantly maps their forceful negotiation of Italy’s identity and posits that the cinematic forms they employ constitute an imaginary reinhabiting of Italy-one that is inextricably linked with the political, physical, and symbolic predicament of reconstruction. A dynamic intersection of pictorial and photographic, architectural and literary discourses inform Steimatsky’s revisionist interrogation of exemplary works from the 1940s to the mid–1960s. From the earliest documentary work of Michelangelo Antonioni on the River Po to Pier Paolo Pasolini’s re-siting of the Gospel in the arid, peripheral landscape of the Italian south, and from Roberto Rossellini’s tracing of a neorealist project in ruinous Berlin to Luchino Visconti’s wrought grandeur visited upon a humble Sicilian fishing village, Italian Locations probes the historical experience of displacement, anachronism, and a thoroughly contemporary anxiety in the cinematic arena. For Steimatsky, Antonioni’s modernist achievement, informed by his native landscape, Rossellini’s neorealist image of Italy as a nation of ruins, Visconti’s reaching back to the nineteenth century and even more archaic pasts, and Pasolini’s ambivalence about modernity-all partake in a search for a politically and culturally redeemed Italy. Noa Steimatsky is associate professor of the history of art and film studies at Yale University.
£21.99
National Geographic Society Food Journeys of a Lifetime 2nd Edition: 500 Extraordinary Places to Eat Around the Globe
Few experiences are as satisfying as a chance to explore the world through food. Compiled from the expert travel writers at National Geographic, Food Journeys of a Lifetime scours the globe for the world’s best dishes, markets, and restaurants that are worth travelling far and wide to savour.In this fully revised and updated edition, find the best of the best, including: Tokyo’s famed fish market and its 226 Michelin-starred restaurants--the most of any city in the world The ultimate Philly cheesesteak from the city of brotherly love The perfect cup of tea in China The spice markets of Marrakech The juiciest cuts of beef in Argentina The freshest pasta in Italy And the ultimate Swiss wine route Featuring more than 60 new bites and destinations, this book is the key to building a foodie traveler’s ultimate bucket list. Within the flavors and tastes of every cuisine, you’ll find unique stories about the places, cultures, climates, and chefs that produce these extraordinary dishes. A wide selection of recipes invite you to try new cooking techniques and obtain flavors from abroad at home; top 10 lists offer side trips from chocolate factories to champagne bars.Filled with a dazzling array of diverse recommendations, each page of this inspiring book will make your mouth water--and spur your next gourmet vacation.
£30.11
John Wiley and Sons Ltd Escoffier – Le Guide Culinaire Revised Cookery, REVISED, 2nd Edition
The culinary bible that first codified French cuisine--now in an updated English translation with Forewords from Chefs Heston Blumenthal and Tim Ryan When Georges Auguste Escoffier published the first edition of Le Guide Culinaire in 1903, it instantly became the must-have resource for understanding and preparing French cuisine. More than a century later, it remains the classic reference for professional chefs. This book is the only completely authentic, unabridged English translation of Escoffier's classic work. Translated from the 1921 Fourth Edition, this revision includes all-new Forewords by Heston Blumenthal, chef-owner of the Michelin three-star-rated Fat Duck restaurant, and Chef Tim Ryan, President of The Culinary Institute of America, along with Escoffier's original Forewords, a memoir of the great chef by his grandson Pierre, and more than 5,000 narrative recipes for all the staples of French cuisine. * Includes more than 5,000 recipes in narrative form for everything from sauces, soups, garnishes, and hors d?oeuvres to fish, meats, poultry, and desserts * Ideal for professional chefs, culinary students, serious home cooks, food history buffs, and unrepentant foodies * The only unabridged English translation of Escoffier's original text, in a sleek, modern design For anyone who is serious about French food, modern cooking, or culinary history, Escoffier's Complete Guide to the Art of Modern Cookery is the ultimate guide and cookbook.
£57.15
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
The Catholic University of America Press The Complementarity of Women and Men: Philosophy, Theology, Psychology, and Art
The Complementarity of Women and Men provides a Catholic Christian case that men and women are in certain respects quite different but also have a positive, synergistic complementary relationship. Although differences and their mutually supporting relationships are focused on throughout the volume, men and women are assumed to have equal dignity and value. This underlying interpretation comes from the familiar, basic theological position in Genesis that both sexes were made in the image of God.After a cogent philosophical introduction to complementary differences by J. Budziszewski, this position is developed from theological, philosophical, and historical perspectives by Sr. Prudence Allen. Next Deborah Savage, building upon the writings of St. John Paul II, gives a strong theological basis for complementarity. This is followed by Elizabeth Lev’s chapter presenting new and surprising art history evidence from the paintings of Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel supporting the complementarity interpretation. A final chapter by Paul Vitz documents and summarizes the scientific evidence supporting sexual difference and complementarity in the disciplines of psychology and neuroscience.As a consequence of both the individual chapters and the integrated understanding they present The Complementarity of Women and Men is a significant contribution to the important, complex, contemporary debate about men, women, sex, and gender.
£34.95
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
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
Thames & Hudson Ltd Gay Life Stories
A fascinating portrait of gay men and women throughout time whose lives have influenced society at large, as well as what we recognize as today’s varied gay culture. This book gives a voice to more than eighty people from every major continent and from all walks of life. It includes poets and philosophers, rulers and spies, activists and artists. Alongside such celebrated figures as Michelangelo, Frederick the Great and Harvey Milk are lesser-known but no less surprising individuals: Dong Xian and the Chinese emperor Ai, whose passion flourished in the 1st century BC; the unfortunate Robert De Péronne, first to be burned at the stake for sodomy; Katharine Philips, writing proto-lesbian poetry in seventeenth-century England; and 'Aimee' and 'Jaguar', whose love defied the death camps of wartime Germany. With many striking illustrations, Gay Life Stories will entertain, give pause for thought, and ultimately celebrate the diversity of human history.
£12.99
Ebury Publishing Big Zuu's Big Eats: Delicious home cooking with West African and Middle Eastern vibes
'No pressure, just food pleasure'Grime artist Big Zuu has a hidden talent - he has serious flair in the kitchen.Accompanying his BAFTA-winning TV series on Dave, Big Zuu's debut cookbook Big Zuu's Big Eats celebrates flavour, family and food with a West African twist. A self-taught chef, Big Zuu is determined to prove that cooking can be a fun and affordable experience - if you often find you can't be bothered to cook or prefer to kick back with a Big Mac, this book is a game changer.Discover more than 100 mouth-watering recipes infused with Zuu's signature style, including dishes from the show and brand new originals. From Doritos Fried Chicken, Sumac Sea Bass and Big Bang Broccoli to Mumma Zuu's Jollof Rice, Vegan Doner Kebabs and Swedish Cinnamandem Buns, Big Zuu's Big Eats will up your kitchen vibes and prove that you don't need a Michelin star education to chef up some serious food creations.
£22.00
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
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