Marsden Hartley and the West: The Search for an American Modernism by HEATHER HOLE

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Marsden Hartley and the West examines this pivotal stage of the painter’s career, drawing upon his writings and providing illustrations of rarely seen and previously unpublished works. The author considers Hartley’s involvement with the Stieglitz circle and its “soil-and-spirit” philosophy, the Taos art colony, New York Dada, and the impact of historical events such as World War I. Within this setting she analyzes the pastels and oil paintings that suggest Hartley’s increasingly ambivalent response to the land. Beginning with optimistic, naturalistic views, the New Mexico works grew progressively darker and more tumultuous, increasingly reflecting a sense of loss brought on by war. The paintings become a site where the landscapes of memory, self, and nation merge, while reflecting broader modernist debates about “American-ness” and a usable past.
Sympathy for the Devil: Art and Rock and Roll Since 1967

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Sympathy for the Devil: Art and Rock and Roll Since 1967 looks at the intimate and inspired relationship between the visual arts and rock-and-roll culture, charting their intersection through works of art, album covers, music videos, and other materials. Organized regionally by cultural centers including London, New York, Los Angeles, and Cologne, the essays examine rock and roll’s style, celebrity, and identity politics in art; the experience, energy, and sense of devotion rock music inspires; and the dual role that many individuals play in both the sonic and visual realms.

The Canon: The Original One Hundred and Fifty-Four Poems by CONSTANTINE CAVAFY

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This volume of 154 poems by Constantine Cavafy is the entire body of work by the artist widely considered a master of modern Greek poetry. Published only privately during his lifetime, Cavafy’s poems achieved international acclaim when writers such as E. M. Forster, Laurence Durrell, T. S. Eliot, and W. H. Auden brought his work to a worldwide audience.

Cavafy was a poet of Alexandria, the city of his birth and his home throughout his adult life. At the confluence of many histories-Greek, Egyptian, Byzantine, modern European-and many religions, the city provided endless inspiration for his brief, intimate portraits of individuals, historic and contemporary, real and imagined. Homoerotic desire, artistic longing, and a nostalgic fatalism suffuse the subjects he examined and laid bare, without metaphor or simile, in free iambic verse.

Published here in the original Greek, with a new English translation by the noted poet Stratis Haviaris on each facing page, and with a foreword by Seamus Heaney, The Canon is Cavafy, familiar and fresh, seen through new eyes, yet instantly recognized: “the Greek gentleman in a straw hat,” as Forster called him, “standing absolutely motionless at a slight angle to the universe.”

Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?: 23 Questions from Great Philosophers
by LESZEK KOLAKOWSKI

New In Hardcover $20.00

A tour of Western thought by one of the world’s most eminent philosophers-in a book that fits in the palm of your hand.

Can nature make us happy? How can we know anything? What is justice? Why is there evil in the world? What is the source of truth? Is it possible for God not to exist? Can we really believe what we see?

There are questions that have intrigued the world’s great thinkers over the ages, which still touch a chord in all of us today. They are questions that can teach us about the way we live, work, relate to each other and see the world. Here Leszek Kolakowski explores the essence of these ideas, introducing figures from Socrates to Thomas Aquinas, Descartes to Nietzsche, and concentrating on one single important philosophical question from each of them.

Whether reflecting on good and evil, truth and beauty, faith and the soul, or free will and consciousness, Leszek Kolakowski shows that these timeless ideas remain at the very core of our existence.

Architecture of the Absurd: How “Genius” Disfigured a Practical Art by JOHN SILBER

New In Hardcover $27.50

Have you ever wondered why the Guggenheim is always covered in scaffolding? Why the random slashes on the exterior of Daniel Libeskind’s Jewish Museum, supposed to represent Berlin locations where pre-war Jews flourished, reappear, for no apparent reason, on his Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto? Or why Frank Gehry’s Strata Center, designed for MIT’s top-secret Cryptography Unit, has transparent glass walls? Not to mention why, for $442 per square foot, it doesn’t keep out the rain? You’re not alone.

In Architecture of the Absurd, John Silber dares to peek behind the curtain of “genius” architects and expose their willful disdain for their clients, their budgets, and the people who live or work inside their creations. Absurdism in a painting or sculpture is one thing—if it’s not to your taste, you don’t have to look—but absurdism in buildings represents a blatant disregard for the needs of the building, whether it be a student center, music hall, or corporate headquarters.

Silber admires the precise engineering of Calatrava, the imaginative shapes of Gaudi, and the sleek beauty of Mies van der Rohe. But he refuses to kowtow to the egos of those “geniuses” who lack such respect for the craft. Absurdist architects have been sheltered by the academy, encouraged by critics, and commissioned by CEOs and trustees. They stamp the world with meaningless monstrosities, justify them with fanciful theories, and command outrageous “genius fees” for their trouble.

As a young man, Silber learned to draw blueprints and read elevations from his architect father. In twenty-five years as president of Boston University, Silber oversaw a building program totaling 13 million square feet. Here, Silber uses his experience as a builder, a client, and a noted philosopher to construct an unflinchingly intelligent illustrated critique of contemporary architecture.

Le Corbusier’s megalomaniacal 1930s plan for Algiers, which called for the demolition of the entire city, was mercifully never built. But his blatant disregard for context and community lives on. In Boston, Jose Lluis Sert’s unprotected northeast-facing entrance to the B.U. library flooded the first floor with snow and ice every New England winter. In Los Angeles, sunlight glinting off the sharply angled steel curves of Gehry’s Walt Disney Music Hall raises the temperature of neighbors’ houses by 15 degrees. And of course, Libeskind’s World Trade Center plan, with its spindly 1776-foot tower and quarter-mile-high gardens, proved so impractical it had to be re-designed, in an exasperating negotiation hardly worthy of the complex tragedy of the site.

Dr. Silber, an honorary member of the American Institute of Architects, asks all the questions that critics dare not. He challenges architects to derive creative satisfaction from meeting their clients’ practical needs. He appeals to the reasonable public to stop supporting overpriced architecture. And most of all, he calls for responsible clients to tell the emperors of our skylines that their pretensions cannot hide the naked absurdity of their designs. 103 color illustrations.

What Are You Optimistic About?: Today’s Leading Thinkers on Why Things Are Good and Getting Better by JOHN BROCKMAN

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The nightly news and conventional wisdom tell us that things are bad and getting worse. Yet despite dire predictions, scientists see many good things on the horizon. John Brockman, publisher of Edge (www.edge.org), the influential online salon, recently asked more than 150 high-powered scientific thinkers to answer a vital question for our frequently pessimistic times: “What are you optimistic about?”

Spanning a wide range of topics—from string theory to education, from population growth to medicine, and even from global warming to the end of world—What Are You Optimistic About? is an impressive array of what world-class minds (including Nobel Laureates, Pulitzer Prize winners, New York Times bestselling authors, and Harvard professors, among others) have weighed in to offer carefully considered optimistic visions of tomorrow. Their provocative and controversial ideas may rouse skepticism, but they might possibly change our perceptions of humanity’s future.

If You Liked School, You’ll Love Work by IRVINE WELSH

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The author of Trainspotting gives a master class in gallows humor in his first story collection since The Acid House (1995). Three of the five stories take place in the U.S., and Welsh relishes punishing ugly Americans. In Rattlesnakes, a trio of vapid hedonists lost in the desert are forced to perform sexually degrading acts by an unhinged illegal immigrant, while The DOGS of Lincoln Park finds a bitchy Chicago princess throwing a hissy fit over her missing papillon, Toto, who she fears has landed in her Korean neighbor’s crock pot. Page-turners both, but the characters are too easily satirized. More likable is the narrator of Miss Arizona, an aspiring auteur whose interviews with his filmmaker hero’s ex-wife turn increasingly creepy. Welsh shines in the title story, about an ex-pat skirt-chasing bar owner in the Canary Islands, and the novella, The Kingdom of Fife, set in a glum Scotland town. Narrative duties in the last are shared by wee Jason King, a former jockey and current compulsive masturbator and table football champion, and Jenni Cahill, a horse jumper and local gangster’s daughter. That a story featuring a gruesome decapitation, dogfighting, equine death and rampant wanking can produce such an amiable effect is testament to Welsh’s delightful degeneracy.

Kara Walker: After the Deluge by KARA WALKER

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Since she first came to the attention of the art world nearly ten years ago, Kara Walker has become one of the most important artists of her generation. Championed by the art world for her fearless embrace of challenging subject matter, Walker has created a body of work that looks unflinchingly at racial inequality in the United States. Known for her bold images using the traditional silhouette, Walker upends the genteel, Victorian origins of the medium by graphically portraying scenes from the antebellum South to explore the politics of slavery, race, and gender. Inspired by the tragedy that beset the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina, Walker has created a volume exploring the interconnectedness of the subject of the sea, race, and poverty by juxtaposing examples of her work and historical works from the 19th century. This unique and important book capitalizes on Walker’s deftness at graphic and visceral storytelling, affording the reader a deeply intimate experience of the difficult themes the artist explores.

Essence of Home: Timeless Elements of Design by LIESL GEIGER

New In Hardcover $45.00

Written for everyone who dreams of building a house, Essence of Home provides a step-by-step look at the planning process. Author and architect Liesl Geiger presents seven elements that are crucial to the success and livability of residential structures: design origins, site and scale, language and style, openings and light, spheres of living, flow of space, and sustainability. Twenty of today’s leading architects-Richard Gluckman, Deborah Berke, Ted Flato, Peggy Deamer, Turner Brooks, William McDonough, and others-offer practical advice and experience.
Geiger emphasizes the expectations and opportunities inherent in the architect-client relationship and presents a vocabulary with which clients can describe their preferences for lifestyle, space usage, and design. Case studies illustrate the principles of the design concepts, offering tangible and compelling examples of how a customized home is a remarkable opportunity for personal expression.
How to Build an Igloo: And Other Snow Shelters by NORBERT YANKIELUN

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How are the ice blocks of igloos so perfectly formed and fitted, able, it’s been said, to withstand the weight of a polar bear? How can you determine if the fresh snow that’s fallen outside your front door is as good to make a slab shelter with as a snowman? What is a slab shelter, anyway? For that matter, what are drift caves, spruce traps, snow block walls, and bivy bag shelters, and how would you go about building them, whether for winter fun or protection from the weather? In this instructive, whimsical, illustrated manual, Norbert E. Yankielun, a seasoned cold regions explorer and researcher, takes readers step-by-step through the process of constructing and inhabiting a range of useful snow structures—from the most basic to the more complex. Introductory material on igloo physics, proper winter hydration, fueling tips, and much more, is also included. 100 illustrations.

The Latke Who Couldn’t Stop Screaming: A Christmas Story by LEMONY SNICKET

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Latkes are potato pancakes served at Hanukkah, and Lemony Snicket is a children’s author. For the first time in literary history, these two elements are combined in one book. A particularly irate latke is the star of The Latke Who Couldn’t Stop Screaming, but many other holiday icons appear and even speak: flashing colored lights, cane-shaped candy, a pine tree. Santa Claus is briefly discussed as well. The ending is happy, at least for some. People who are interested in any or all of these things will find this book so enjoyable it will feel as though Hanukkah were being celebrated for several years, rather than eight nights.

The Stories of Mary Gordon by MARY GORDON

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This book collects 41 tough-minded explorations into human hope, loss and failings by the award-winning author of six novels (including 1978′s Final Payments), a memoir and a life of Joan of Arc. Her quietly desperate protagonists range from a mother unable to leave her child alone at school (in “Separation”) to a 74-year-old widow who revisits Italy in search of her youth, only to face her mortality (“Death in Naples”). “My Podiatrist Tells Me a Story About a Boy and a Dog,” although lighter in tone than many of the entries, concludes with a devastating comment on female desire and later life. Characters are frequently silent, letting their yearnings speak louder than they, and many of the people who inhabit this collection want nothing but to be left alone, if only because it’s all that remains to them. Themes of Catholicism, Irish-American families and women struggling with self-image and convoluted relationships concern the deftly delineated characters. Gordon is a master of nuance. Gripping and memorable, this collection, half of which is new or uncollected work, is a study in human connection and the lack of it. 

All About H. Hatterr by G.V. DESANI

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Wildly funny and wonderfully bizarre, All About H. Hatterr is one of the most perfectly eccentric and strangely absorbing works modern English has produced. H. Hatterr is the son of a European merchant officer and a lady from Penang who has been raised and educated in missionary schools in Calcutta. His story is of his search for enlightenment as, in the course of visiting seven Oriental cities, he consults with seven sages, each of whom specializes in a different aspect of “Living.” Each teacher delivers himself of a great “Generality,” each great Generality launches a new great “Adventure,” from each of which Hatter escapes not so much greatly edified as by the skin of his teeth. The book is a comic extravaganza, but as Anthony Burgess writes in his introduction, “it is the language that makes the book. . . . It is not pure English; it is like Shakespeare, Joyce, and Kipling, gloriously impure.”

The Gathering by ANNE ENRIGHT   *Back In Stock!

New In Paperback $14.00

The blessing and the curse of family bonds have been addressed by some of our best writers, perhaps never so movingly as by William Kennedy in his Albany cycle of novels. Now Irish novelist Enright, whose intense lyrical style recalls Kennedy’s, gives full voice to another tale of familial agony: Veronica’s grief in the wake of her wayward brother Liam’s suicide. Past and present merge as Veronica recalls their childhood growing up in Dublin in a family of 14, with never enough money or enough attention from their overburdened parents. She’s convinced it all went wrong when Liam was sexually abused by a family friend, and her recollections of that day alternate with sunnier ones of their endless roughhousing and joking. When Liam drowned himself, with a tide of “blood, sea water and whiskey” running in his veins, he took Veronica’s sense of purpose with him. Inconsolable, and suffering from insomnia, she spends her evenings driving and writing, trying to come to terms with the fact that “someone you love is dead, and the world is full of people you don’t.” Enright’s hypnotic prose turns her desperation into something fierce and beautiful.

The Man Who Smiled by HENNING MANKELL

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First published in Sweden in 1994, Mankell’s terrific fourth Kurt Wallender mystery opens with the kind of startling image typical of this internationally bestselling series (Firewall, etc.): a lawyer, driving home through the fog, stops after he sees “a human-sized effigy” propped on a chair in the middle of a deserted highway. Gustaf Torstensson gets out of the car to investigate, is hit from behind and was “dead before his body hit the damp asphalt.” The police accept the assailant’s claim that it was an accident, but when Torstensson’s son, Sten, is shot dead just two weeks later, the brooding Wallender, who’s on sick leave and vowing to retire from the Ystad police force, decides to pursue the killer and resume his career. The chief suspect—a powerful, globe-trotting Swedish businessman who’s the smiling man of the title—leads Wallender on an exquisitely plotted search for motive and evidence. Dark and moody, this is crime fiction of the highest order.

Through the Children’s Gate: A Home in New York by ADAM GOPNICK

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Following the best-selling Paris to the Moon, the continuation of the Gopniks’ adventures against the panorama of a different though no less storied city as they attempt to make a new home for themselves.

Autumn 2000: After five years in Paris, Adam Gopnik moves his family back to a New York that seems, at first, safer and shinier than ever. Here in the wondrously strange “neighborhood” of Manhattan we observe the triumphs and travails of father, mother, son, and daughter; and of the teachers, coaches, therapists, adversaries, and friends who round out the extended urban family. From Bluie, a goldfish fated to meet a Hitchcockian end, to Charlie Ravioli, an imaginary playmate who, being a New Yorker, is too busy to play, the Gopniks’ new home is under the spell of the sort of characters only the city’s unique civilization of childhood could produce.

Not long after their return, the fabric of living will be rent by the events of 9/11, but like a magic garment will reweave itself, reviving normalcy in a world where Jewish jokes mingle with debates about the problem of consciousness, the price of real estate, and the meaning of modern art. Along the way, the impermanence and transcendence of life will be embodied in the person of a beloved teacher and coach who, even facing death, radiates a distinctively local light.

Written with Gopnik’s signature mix of mind and heart, elegant and exultantly alert to the minute miracles that bring a place to life, Through the Children’s Gate is a chronicle, by turns tender and hilarious, of a family taking root in the unlikeliest patch of earth.

The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream by BARACK OBAMA

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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/17/books/17kaku.html?ref=books

Mutter Museum Historic Medical Photographs (edited) by LAURA LINDGREN

New in Hardcover $50.00 - 10%

The first book on the Mütter Museum contain artful images of the museum’s fascinating exhibits shot by contemporary fine art photographers. Here, the focus is on the museum’s archive of rare historic photographs, most of which have never been seen by the public. Featured are poignant, aesthetically accomplished works ranging from Civil War photographs showing injury and recovery, to the ravages of diseases not yet conquered in the 19th century, to pathological anomalies, to psychological disorders. Many were taken by talented photographers between the 1860s and the 1940s as records for physicians to share among colleagues and to track patients’ conditions, and demonstrate various techniques used in medical photography including the daguerreotype, micrography, X ray, and traditional portrait-style photography. As visual documents of what humans endured in the face of limited medical knowledge, these extraordinary and haunting photographs demonstrate how far medicine has advanced.

http://www.artandmedicine.com/about/2007/MutterHistMedPhoto.html’

The Curious Gardener’s Almanac: Centuries of Practical Garden Wisdom by NIALL EDWORTHY

New In Hardcover $16.95 - 10%

“The Curious Gardener’s Almanac” contains over 1000 entries of remarkable information about flowers, vegetables, fruits, trees, herbs, insects, birds, water, soil, tools, composts, climate, recipes, gardens and gardeners, myths, superstitions, biodynamics. In short, it is a collection as profuse and variegated as gardening itself. Woven into this wealth of knowledge are famous quotations, anecdotes, traditional sayings, lines of verse, and words of rural wisdom. The spirit and focus of the Almanac is British but the wider picture is international as so much of our gardens originated from overseas. Dry or dull information has no place in the almanac and its presentation is as appealing as the content.

Imbibe!: From Absinthe Cocktail to Whiskey Smash, a Salute in Stories and Drinks to “Professor” Jerry Thomas, Pioneer of the American Bar
by DAVID WONDRICH

New In Hardcover $23.95 - 10%

An informative, anecdotal history of classic American cocktails pays tribute to Jerry Thomas, the father of the American bar, in a study that includes a host of mixology lore, legends, trivia, and more than one hundred recipes for punches, cocktails, sours, fizzes, toddies, slings, and other drinks.

The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever (edited) by CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

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From the #1 New York Times best-selling author of God Is Not Great, a provocative and entertaining guided tour of atheist and agnostic thought through the ages-with never-before-published pieces by Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

On Ugliness (edited) by UMBERTO ECO

New In Hardcover $45.00 - 10%

In the mold of his acclaimed History of Beauty, renowned cultural critic Umberto Eco’s On Ugliness is an exploration of the monstrous and the repellant in visual culture and the arts. What is the voyeuristic impulse behind our attraction to the gruesome and the horrible? Where does the magnetic appeal of the sordid and the scandalous come from? Is ugliness also in the eye of the beholder? Eco’s encyclopedic knowledge and captivating storytelling skills combine in this ingenious study of the Ugly, revealing that what we often shield ourselves from and shun in everyday life is what we’re most attracted to subliminally. Topics range from Milton’s Satan to Goethe’s Mephistopheles; from witchcraft and medieval torture tactics to martyrs, hermits, and penitents; from lunar births and disemboweled corpses to mythic monsters and sideshow freaks; and from Decadentism and picturesque ugliness to the tacky, kitsch, and camp, and the aesthetics of excess and vice. With abundant examples of painting and sculpture ranging from ancient Greek amphorae to Bosch, Brueghel, and Goya among others, and with quotations from the most celebrated writers and philosophers of each age, this provocative discussion explores in-depth the concepts of evil, depravity, and darkness in art and literature.

New York Vertigo (photographs) by MICHAEL SETBOUN

New In Hardcover $40.00 - 10%

Michel Setboun studied architecture and became a photographer in 1978. He has traveled around the world as a reporter, first for agencies and then independently. His photography has been published in The New York Times, Géo, Life, and Paris Match, among others.

This is a New York that no one has yet dared to explore. Photographer Michel Setboun spent ten years scaling the city’s walls and scouring its rooftops to capture these images, and the results are not only dazzling, but occasionally dizzying. With their acute angles and dramatic views, these photographs capture the incredible vitality and spectacular variety of life in the world’s greatest city.

Cooking by JAMES PETERSON

New In Hardcover $40.00 - 10%

Put simply, Cooking is a revelation. No other cookbook so deftly illustrates as broad a scope of classic culinary methods and flavors as you’ll find here. As a veteran chef and award-winning cookbook author, James Peterson is uniquely qualified to take food lovers into the modern kitchen and turn them into passionate, precise, intuitive cooks. What’s most impressive about a book of this breadth and size (540 pages and 600 recipes, brought to life with 1500 vivid color photographs) is how accessible and fun it is to read. Every recipe in Cooking sings with a deep knowledge of the ingredients at hand, encouraging cooks not just to follow the recipe but to really understand and relish in the process, and the result is a terrific turn-to reference for any cook seeking inspired instruction.

The Discovery of France: A Historical Geography, from the Revolution to the First World War by GRAHAM ROBB

New In Hardcover $27.95 - 10%

France is often regarded as the center of elegant civilization, so it’s surprising to find that as late as 1890, most of the population was far from civilized—outside the confines of sophisticated Paris, as noted biographer Robb explains in his riveting exploration of France’s historical geography, great swathes of countryside were terra incognita: dark places inhabited by illiterate tribes professing pre-Christian beliefs and lethally hostile to outsiders. They spoke not French but regional dialects; much of the country had not been accurately mapped; and many in the rural areas lacked surnames. The author himself embarked on a 14,000-mile bicycle tour of the France passed over in tourist guides. The result is a curious, engrossing mix of personal observation, scholarly diligence and historical narrative as Robb discusses the formation of both the French character and the French state. Robb’s biographies of Victor Hugo, Rimbaud and Balzac were all selected by the New York Times as among the best books of the year, an accolade that assures a select readership will be eager to pack his newest alongside their Michelin guides.

Love Over Scotland (44 Scotland Street) by ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

New In Paperback $13.95

The irresistible third entry to the 44 Scotland Street series picks up with the residents of 44 Scotland Street where Espresso Tales left off and is as addictive as any book McCall Smith has written. Anthropologist Domenica has flown off to the Straits of Malacca to study modern-day pirates. Back in Edinburgh, Pat moves from 44 Scotland Street and develops a crush on fellow art student Wolf, whose strange ways hint at a darker subplot that involves Pat’s flatmate. Pat moves in with gallery owner Matthew, who struggles with both a sudden fortune and a yearning for Pat. Meanwhile, child prodigy saxophonist Bertie becomes a reluctant member of the Edinburgh Teenage Orchestra at age six and later, on a trip to Paris, finds himself wonderfully unsupervised. Poet/portrait painter Angus is tormented by the theft of his beloved dog Cyrus. The proceedings sparkle with McCall Smith’s trademark wit (It was not always fun being a child, just as it had not always been fun being a medieval Scottish saint), proving once again, he’s a true treasure.