Books
Gathering the Phantoms of Lost Art
Art history is very much a haunted field, with the specters of works obliterated, lost, hidden, or just vanished floating around it. Our visual culture is defined as much by destruction as it is by creation.
Books
Books
Poetry for 49 Days of Grief
There are surprisingly few poetry collections built around the experience of loss. One of them, published just last year, is Time of Grief: Mourning Poems, selected by poet and New Directions editor Jeffrey Yang.
Books
Renaissance Art of the End Times Revealed in Rediscovered Apocalyptic Book
In 1533, hundreds of dragons were reported to darken the skies over Bohemia, following a 1506 sighting of a blinding bright comet slicing over the sky. Were these foreboding occurrences signs of the apocalypse, or just a lot of Renaissance hearsay?
Books
Photographs from a Decade of Motherhood
In photographer Elinor Carucci's new monograph Mother, she chronicles nine years of motherhood, from the tentative expectancy of pregnancy to the whir of raising children in the bustle of New York City.
Books
Jed Perl’s Magicians & Charlatans: In An Ailing Art World, the Best Discoveries Can Stir the Soul
As the American critic Jed Perl points out in his new book, Magicians & Charlatans: Essays on Art and Culture (Eakins Press Foundation, 2013), a collection of essays about subjects in the fields of Renaissance, modern and contemporary art, today the forces of “art as money” have vanquished those of
Opinion
'Mein Kampf' Makes a Digital Comeback
When ebooks and ereaders caught on, they brought about the indomitable rise of a once-languishing genre: romance novels. But they're not alone; other titles in other genres are benefitting from the anonymity of ereader packaging. One book that's seen a big boost? Hitler's Mein Kampf.
News
Bad Book News: Libraries Burned in Lebanon, Dismantled in Canada
Arsonists torched a historic and beloved library in Tripoli, while the Canadian government has gutted its science libraries.
News
Italy to Offer Tax Deduction for Book Buyers
The Italian government has unveiled a master plan for attracting foreign investment, and for some reason, it includes a tax rebate for people who buy books!
Books
10 Best Art Books of 2013
2013 was a great year for art-related books from publishers of all stripes …
News
Italian Library Ransacked by Its Own Director
Another day, another depressing story about the deterioration of cultural patrimony in Italy. The subject this time? The Biblioteca dei Girolamini, a 16th-century library in Naples that was systematically looted by its director.
Books
Beautiful Books, Terrible Times: The Free Expression of Soviet Children's Lit
The 1920s in Russia weren't exactly what people had hoped they would be. After the 1917 Russian Revolution brought down the old regime and the Soviets took over, there was a swelling sense of hope in a potential egalitarian Communist future. Yet only a few years later, censorship was curtailing art
Books
The Harshly Lit Darkness of Lucian Freud
Lucian Freud, as presented in the gossipy new biography, Breakfast with Lucian by Geordie Grieg, lived for 88 years entirely guilt-free, which is a remarkable bit of pathology in itself, but especially so for the grandson of the man who tagged guilt as the glue holding civilization together.