From the amount the potential tax revenue from legalizing drugs worldwide to disappearing seed varieties, data journalist David McCandless transforms abstract information into engaging visuals.
Books
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The Mouse, an Unexpected and Enduring Art Muse
As one of the most common mammals on our planet, the diminutive mouse has been scurrying its way into art for centuries. The rodent has now finally received its own art compendium with Lorna Owen’s Mouse Muse: The Mouse in Art, out next week from Monacelli Press.
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How Hungary’s Painted Homes Rebelled Against the Socialist System
As a reaction to the bleak uniformity of suburban housing in post-war Hungary, many homeowners painted their houses in vibrant designs.
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A New Guide to New York’s Subterranean Art
There are over 250 art projects lodged in the transit infrastructure of New York City. Some are garish or grand mosaics that cover whole subway tunnels, others you might walk by for years without recognition. A new book compiles them in a guide to city’s subterranean galleries.
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The Graphics of the Great War in France
More than any conflict before it, World War I was a visual battle. Propaganda proliferated across the fronts, and magazines, newspapers, photography, early films, and even fashion and children’s books were involved in a rally of imagery on a large scale.
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New York’s Beloved, Independent, Union-Busting Bookstore
On the Books, written and drawn by Greg Farrell and released by Microcosm Publishing, is a firsthand comics account of contract negotiations at the Strand in 2012 — or, as the book’s subtitle puts it, “A Graphic Tale of Working Woes at NYC’s Strand Bookstore.”
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Taxidermy Sculptors Strut Their Stuff
Robert Marbury’s Taxidermy Art could easily be divided into a couple of books, both larger than this volume. Integrated, as they are here, these subjects make for a disjointed but nevertheless visually and intellectually stimulating read.
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New Scans of the Voynich Manuscript, a Medieval Book No One Can Read
The Voynich Manuscript is one of the most obsessed-over historical enigmas. A medieval book dating from the late 15th or 16th century, its strange, flowing script has never been deciphered, its origins never determined.
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Spotting Style in a More Bike-Friendly New York
When I became a bike rider back in the late 1970s, the very notion of New York Bike Style — now the title of a book by Sam Polcer (Prestel, 2014) — seemed like a contradiction in terms.
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Belief, Reason, and the Origins of the World in a Striking Series of 19th-Century Illustrations
Galileo and other troublemakers aside, science and religion didn’t have such a complete falling out until the 19th century.
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Drawing the Dark Journeys of Drifters
For a digest of comics stories and intricate, free-standing illustrative work called The Lonesome Go, St. Louis artist and writer Tim Lane profiles familiar, typically unshaven folk: bar flies, train-hopping drifters, biker types.
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Lunar Mountains and Divine Spheres: 1,000 Years of Illustrating Outer Space
In a new book called Cosmigraphics: Picturing Space Through Time, published this month by Abrams, Michael Benson examines over a thousand years of mapping the great beyond.
