Books
The Early-20th-Century Photographer Who Magnified the Alien Beauty of Plants
Using a homemade camera, Karl Blossfeldt captured the sculptural details of plants, from the geometry of a seed pod to the alien curl of a fern.
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Photos Evoke the Terror and Hope of the Underground Railroad
For her new book, Jeanine Michna-Bales photographed 100 sites along the Underground Railroad under cover of darkness.
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Remixing Six Centuries of Iconic Graphic Designs
In a new book, Phaidon considers the unexpected and deliberate connections between 500 of our most recognizable images.
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Matching the Smells of Musty Manuscripts with Chemical Compounds
Researchers at University College London studied the scents of old books to better understand how to identify and protect "heritage smells."
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A Designer’s 1977 Road Map to Better Visual Literacy Gets Rereleased
A new edition of George Nelson's How to See shows that his guide to the human-made landscape is as relevant as ever.
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A Painter Speaks, so that His Paintings Can Remain Silent
When René Magritte wrote “This is not a pipe,” he wasn’t negating the pipe so much as he was negating the language with which we attempt to grasp it.
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Marsden Hartley's Maine: His Own Private Germany
Besides examining in-depth both the early and late Maine periods, Marsden Hartley’s Maine includes a fine essay on materials and techniques, based on careful examination of a dozen works, which shows a surprising continuity in composition and methods across Hartley’s career.
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A Poem of Shame: In the Words of China’s Workers
Iron Moon: An Anthology of Chinese Worker Poetry, edited by Qin Xiaoyu and translated by Eleanor Goodman, collects work by Xu Lizhi and 30 other worker poets.
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Photographing Thoreau's Walden Pond in Its Altered 21st-Century Landscape
From 2010 to 2014, photographer S.B. Walker explored the shores of Walden Pond, where Thoreau's bucolic environment now bustles with recreation and development.
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A Compendium of Shakespeare’s Plants, from Juliet’s Rose to Ophelia’s Bouquet
The book Botanical Shakespeare, by historian Gerit Quealy with illustrations by Sumié Hasegawa-Collins, compiles the roughly 175 mentions of plants in Shakespeare's plays.
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A Wordless Journey from Crappy Art to Actual Crap
Tara Booth's graphic memoir D.U.I.I is an exploration of shame and failed expectations
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101 Unflinching Portraits of Survivors of US Gun Violence
Kathy Shorr's photography book helps to de-normalize what has become painfully normal