Random House New Releases - Giftbooks - Between November 26, 2008 and December 26, 2009.

The Jazz Loft Project by Sam Stephenson

2009-11-24T00:30:00-05:00

The Jazz Loft Project Photographs and Tapes of W. Eugene Smith from 821 Sixth Avenue, 1957-1965
Written by Sam Stephenson

In 1957, Eugene Smith, a thirty-eight-year-old magazine photographer, walked out of his comfortable settled world—his longtime well-paying job at Life and the home he shared with his wife and four children in Croton-on-Hudson, New York—to move into a dilapidated, five-story loft building at 821 Sixth Avenue (between Twenty-eighth and Twenty-ninth streets) in New York City’s wholesale flower district. Smith was trying to complete the most ambitious project of his life, a massive photo-essay on the city of Pittsburgh.

821 Sixth Avenue was a late-night haunt of musicians, including some of the biggest names in jazz—Charles Mingus, Zoot Sims, Bill Evans, and Thelonious Monk among them—and countless fascinating, underground characters. As his ambitions broke down for his quixotic Pittsburgh opus, Smith found solace in the chaotic, somnambulistic world of the loft and its artists. He turned his documentary impulses away from Pittsburgh and toward his offbeat new surroundings.

From 1957 to 1965, Smith exposed 1,447 rolls of film at his loft, making roughly 40,000 pictures, the largest body of work in his career, photographing the nocturnal jazz scene as well as life on the streets of the flower district, as seen from his fourth-floor window. He wired the building like a surreptitious recording studio and made 1,740 reels (4,000 hours) of stereo and mono audiotapes, capturing more than 300 musicians, among them Roy Haynes, Sonny Rollins, Bill Evans, Roland Kirk, Alice Coltrane, Don Cherry, and Paul Bley. He recorded, as well, legends such as pianists Eddie Costa, and Sonny Clark, drummers Ronnie Free and Edgar Bateman, saxophonist Lin Halliday, bassist Henry Grimes, and multi-instrumentalist Eddie Listengart.

Also dropping in on the nighttime scene were the likes of Doris Duke, Norman Mailer, Diane Arbus, Robert Frank, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Salvador Dalí, as well as pimps, prostitutes, drug addicts, thieves, photography students, local cops, building inspectors, marijuana dealers, and others.

Sam Stephenson discovered Smith’s jazz loft photographs and tapes eleven years ago and has spent the last seven years cataloging, archiving, selecting, and editing Smith’s materials for this book, as well as writing its introduction and the text interwoven throughout.

W. Eugene Smith’s Jazz Loft Project has been legendary in the worlds of art, photography, and music for more than forty years, but until the publication of The Jazz Loft Project, no one had seen Smith’s extraordinary photographs or read any of the firsthand accounts of those who were there and lived to tell the tale(s) . . .

The New Taste of Chocolate by Maricel E. Presilla

2009-11-24T00:30:00-05:00

The New Taste of Chocolate A Cultural & Natural History of Cacao with Recipes
Written by Maricel E. Presilla

<div>More than two hundred years ago, the great Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus christened the cacao tree Theobroma cacao, “food-of-the-gods cacao.” Truly, chocolate is the closest thing we mortals have to ambrosia. But not all chocolate is created equal, a fact we instinctively know when we bite into an exceptional piece of chocolate. What qualities set artisanal chocolate apart from mass-marketed brands? How does chocolate impact our health? How will the rising popularity of microbatch chocolate affect the industry? To find out, The New Taste of Chocolate, Revised takes us on a journey beginning with Maya and Aztec chocolate rituals, followed by exploring the significance of cacao through the ages, up through groundbreaking contemporary genetic discoveries.

Going far beyond the scope of anything currently written about chocolate, this definitive illustrated reference has been revised and expanded to immerse chocolate lovers in the rich history and science of the cacao bean. Celebrated author, scholar, and chocolate expert Maricel E. Presilla introduces us to the broad array of cacao cultivars, meticulously covering the latest research, then explores the art of cacao farming and the people who dedicate their lives to cultivating the precious cacao pods. She also elucidates the harvesting, fermenting, and drying practices that create subtle distinctions in the tastes of particular strains of cacao. From the burnished reds and shocking yellows of the cacao fruits to the deep mahoganies and milky tans of the finished product, we follow cacao from bean to bar, each incarnation as luscious as the next.

More than just a cultural and natural history of our most coveted indulgence, The New Taste of Chocolate, Revised includes a new collection of Maricel Presilla’s savory recipes plus sweet contributions from internationally renowned pastry chefs and chocolatiers. Presilla dissects buzzwords such as single origin and estate grown, illuminates chocolate trends gaining traction with manufacturers and connoisseurs, and predicts what the future holds for chocolate as a globally celebrated delicacy. With stunning new full color photography and rare archival prints throughout, this comprehensive and gorgeous book will help chocoholics cultivate an appreciation for the infinite subtleties of their favorite culinary delight.</div>

Landscape Painting by Mitchell Albala

2009-11-17T00:30:00-05:00

Landscape Painting Essential Concepts and Techniques for Plein Air and Studio Practice
Written by Mitchell Albala

Because nature is so expansive and complex, so varied in its range of light, landscape painters often have to look further and more deeply to find form and structure, value patterns, and an organized arrangement of shapes. In Landscape Painting, Mitchell Albala shares his concepts and practices for translating nature's grandeur, complexity, and color dynamics into convincing representations of space and light.

Concise, practical, and inspirational, Landscape Painting focuses on the greatest challenges for the landscape artist, such as:

• Simplification and Massing: Learn to reduce nature's complexity by looking beneath the surface of a subject to discover the form's basic masses and shapes.
• Color and Light: Explore color theory as it specifically applies to the landscape, and learn the various strategies painters use to capture the illusion of natural light.
• Selection and Composition: Learn to select wisely from nature's vast panorama. Albala shows you the essential cues to look for and how to find the most promising subject from a world of possibilities.

The lessons in Landscape Painting—based on observation rather than imitation and applicable to both plein air and studio practice—are accompanied by painting examples, demonstrations, photographs, and diagrams. Illustrations draw from the work of more than 40 contemporary artists and such masters of landscape painting as John Constable, Sanford Gifford, and Claude Monet.

Based on Albala's 25 years of experience and the proven methods taught at his successful plein air workshops, this in-depth guide to all aspects of landscape painting is a must-have for anyone getting started in the genre, as well as more experienced practitioners who want to hone their skills or learn new perspectives.

Mastering Cheese by David Gibbons

2009-11-17T00:30:00-05:00

Mastering Cheese Lessons for Connoisseurship from a Ma�tre Fromager
Written by Max McCalman and David Gibbons

Maître fromager Max McCalman, author of The Cheese Plate and Cheese, is steeped in the world of artisanal cheeses like no one else. In Mastering Cheese, he shares the wealth of his expertise to help cheese lovers on their path to connoisseurship.

After years of teaching courses for amateurs at the Artisanal Premium Cheese Center, where he is Dean of Curriculum, McCalman has developed a compelling set of classes for understanding and ex-periencing cheese. A full master's course in a book, Mastering Cheese covers the world of cheese in twenty-two distinct lessons, featuring tasting plates that deliciously demonstrate key topics. For example, a chapter titled "Stunning Stinkers" explains why some of the strongest-smelling cheeses can be among the best tasting and then recommends several stars of this category. Learn about the issues facing real raw-milk cheeses and then go out and taste the differences between these cheeses and those made with pasteurized milk.

For the first time in any of his books, McCalman includes extensive information on the modern artisanal cheese revolution in the United States and prominently features these artisans and their products alongside the famous cheeses of Italy, France, Spain, and the United Kingdom.

Complete with helpful charts and an invaluable index of more than 300 cheeses, Mastering Cheese is the definitive course that you can use in your own home to pursue your passion for cheese.

Picasso by Philippe Dagen

2009-11-17T00:30:00-05:00

Picasso
Written by Philippe Dagen

Art critic and scholar Philippe Dagen approaches Picasso as a subject through a series of questions. What does it mean to be an artist in the twentieth century? What does it mean to be an artist in the time of newspapers and museums, in a time when the art market has expanded to reach the entire western world? Is modern civilization so different that it gives an artist a new attitude and causes him to redefine his role for the public, the market, and, therefore, to invent entirely new artistic practices?

Picasso is considered here in view of this last, and most probable, hypothesis. He is a product of his situation and time, in the broadest sense of the term. Refusing to confine himself to his studio or the small artistic community in Paris, Picasso responded forcefully to world affairs, giving pictoral and sculptural form to the passions and events he witnessed around him. This is a thoroughly modern Picasso, constantly and consciously confronting the modernity of the world.

Dagen's original exploration of his techniques, materials, and images shows how the artist both allowed modernity to in?ltrate his work and at the same time to react against it. Picasso moved between acceptance and rejection, a perpetual confrontation that is, perhaps, the most satisfying explanation of his will to create change that drove him to leave the most varied and diverse body of work in the entire history of art.

The World in Vogue by Alexandra Kotur

2009-11-17T00:30:00-05:00

The World in Vogue People, Parties, Places
Edited by Hamish Bowles and Alexandra Kotur

This one-of-a-kind book of 300 photographs of some of the most celebrated actors, artists, models, First Ladies, and social figures draws on stories that have appeared in the pages of Vogue over the past four decades, as well as photographs from those stories that have never been published. These trendsetters and newsmakers are captured by such famous photographers as Cecil Beaton, Jonathan Becker, Eric Boman, Horst P. Horst, Edward Steichen, Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, François Halard, Helmut Newton, Stephen Meisel, Snowdon, Toni Frissell, Bruce Weber, Herb Ritts, and Annie Leibovitz. Not only did these photographers take dazzling portraits—in studios or on location—that caught these iconic figures in classic, playful, or dramatic moments but they also documented their parties, weddings, houses, and gardens. Writers like Hamish Bowles, Paul Rudnick, Truman Capote, Francis Wyndham, Jeffrey Steingarten, Joan Juliet Buck, William Norwich, Gloria Steinem, Georgina Howell, Vicki Woods, Marina Rust, Michael Specter, and Jonathan Van Meter tell you the stories behind these figures and events.

Here are the glamorous weddings of Plum Sykes in Yorkshire, Lauren Davis in Cartagena, and Minnie Cushing in Newport; Truman Capote writing about cruising the Yugoslavian coast with Lee Radziwill, Luciana Pignatelli, and the Agnellis; gardens from East Hampton to Corfu designed by landscape architect Miranda Brooks; Inès de La Fressange’s apartment in Paris; Gloria Steinem reporting on the 540 masked partygoers at the Black and White Ball Truman Capote threw for Katharine Graham at the Plaza hotel; the gardens of Valentino’s seventeenth-century Château de Wideville, outside Paris; the designers, the best-dressed, and the stars at the annual Costume Institute party at the Metropolitan Museum; Mick Jagger and his family in Mustique; Jacqueline Kennedy and Michelle Obama; Kate Moss, Madonna, Angelina Jolie, Cate Blanchett, Ali MacGraw, Anjelica Huston, Nicole Kidman, Cher, Iman and David Bowie, Penélope Cruz, Charlotte Rampling, and many more.

Richly illustrated in black-and-white and color, The World in Vogue: People, Parties, Places is a stunning look at portraits, houses, gardens, and parties of celebrated figures from many worlds.

The Black Book by Toni Morrison

2009-11-10T00:30:00-05:00

The Black Book 35th Anniversary Edition
Edited by Middleton A. Harris, Ernest Smith, Morris Levitt and Roger Furman
Foreword by Toni Morrison

Seventeenth-century sketches of Africa as it appeared to marauding European traders. Nineteenth-century slave auction notices. Twentieth-century sheet music for work songs and freedom chants. Photographs of war heroes, regal in uniform. Antebellum reward posters for capturing runaway slaves. An 1856 article titled “A Visit to the Slave Mother Who Killed Her Child.”

In 1974, Middleton A. Harris and Toni Morrison led a team of gifted, passionate collectors in compiling these images and nearly 500 others into one sensational narrative of the black experience in America: The Black Book.

Now in a deluxe 35th anniversary hardcover edition, The Black Book remains a breathtaking testament to the legendary wisdom, strength, and perseverance of black men and women intent on freedom. Prominent collectors Morris Levitt, Roger Furman, and Ernest Smith, as well as Middleton Harris and Toni Morrison (then a Random House editor, now a two-time Pulitzer Prize—winning Nobel laureate) spent months studying, laughing at, and crying over these materials–from transcripts of fugitive slaves’ trials and proclamations by Frederick Douglass and other celebrated abolitionists to chilling images of cross burnings and lynchings, patents registered by black inventors throughout the early twentieth century to vibrant posters from “Black Hollywood” films from the 1930s and 1940s.

A labor of love and a vital link to the richness and diversity of African American history and culture, The Black Book honors the past, reminding us where our nation has been, and gives flight to our hopes for what is yet to come. Beautifully and faithfully presented, and featuring a new Foreword and original poem by Toni Morrison, The Black Book remains a timeless landmark work.

A Christmas Carol and Other Christmas Books by Margaret Atwood

2009-11-10T00:30:00-05:00

A Christmas Carol and Other Christmas Books
Written by Charles Dickens
Introduction by Margaret Atwood

The final volume in the Everyman’s Library Charles Dickens collection: the timeless story of everyone’s favorite misanthrope, Ebenezer Scrooge, together with four more of Dickens’s Christmas tales and with Arthur Rackham’s classic illustrations.

No holiday season is complete without the story of tightfisted Mr. Scrooge, of his long-suffering and mild-mannered clerk, Bob Cratchit, of Bob’s kindhearted lame son, Tiny Tim, and of the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future.

First published in 1843, A Christmas Carol was republished in 1852 in a new edition with four other Christmas stories—The Chimes, The Cricket on the Hearth, The Battle of Life, and The Haunted Man. These beloved tales revived the notion of the Christmas “spirit”—and have kept it alive ever since.

Majestic Metropolitan Living by Sue Hostetler

2009-11-10T00:30:00-05:00

Majestic Metropolitan Living Visionary Homes in the Heart of Cities
Written by Sue Hostetler

Forget the sprawling suburban mansion with tennis court and swimming pool–from New York to Los Angeles, Miami to Chicago, the visionary home owners featured within these pages have created legendary, livable residences right in the heart of the city.

From an artist’s warren of studios in New York City–crowned by a magnificent rooftop garden draped with wisteria arbors–to a 16,000-square-foot château in Chicago with a master bedroom created from a former ballroom, these spaces are truly spectacular. They are also warm, friendly, and original. In short, they are real-life homes–but with many more rooms and amenities than most urban dwellings.

Majestic Metropolitan Living offers a tour through these unique and beautifully designed interiors. Their visionary owners have reinvented the original spaces, combining apartments or turning former warehouses and other nonresidential buildings into comfortable family homes. They include:

• A bright, breezy French-country-style family home in a former Russian embassy that offers views of the San Francisco skyline and an indoor basketball court for the children
• A tony penthouse apartment in Miami with more than 4,000 square feet of terrace space and a pool 500 feet in the sky
• A former hat factory in downtown Manhattan, now a space-age family home where the three children hold rock-band practice

Decorated by some of the top designers and architects today, from Thomas O’Brien to David Easton, Matt Baird to Daniel Romualdez, and with artistic owners like Loree Rodkin, Denise Rich, and Izhar Patkin, these spaces brim with ideas that can be translated for interiors of any size. Majestic Metropolitan Living is a visual feast for anyone who has ever dreamed of creating an inventive, beautiful, and personal oasis in the city.

Superheroes and Beyond by Christopher Hart

2009-11-10T00:30:00-05:00

Superheroes and Beyond How to Draw the Leading and Supporting Characters of Today's Comics
Written by Christopher Hart

Superheroes remain the most popular genre of characters in comics and comics-inspired movies. Superheroes & Beyond by Chris Hart shows aspiring artists how to create a huge array of original comic book heroes and villains. The characters found within these pages are broken down into step-by-step constructions that help the student of comics visualize the basic forms and individual features of comic book superheroes.

The subjects covered include: drawing faces, drawing the head from all angles, expressions, light and shadow and its effect on the face, heroes, villains and supporting characters, hands and fee,; foreshortening poses, the dynamics of drawing action; sexy gals; talking in speech balloons, placement of speech balloons and captions, storytelling, use of light and dark in silhouettes, superhero environments, and drawing the splash page.

Lincoln, Life-Size by Peter W. Kunhardt, Jr.

2009-11-03T00:30:00-05:00

Lincoln, Life-Size
Written by Philip B. Kunhardt, III, Peter W. Kunhardt and Peter W. Kunhardt, Jr.

An essential collection of photographic portraits of Abraham Lincoln, in a striking format, from “the foremost family of Lincoln pictorial scholarship” (Harold Holzer).

This unique and beautiful book captures an overlooked but vital aspect of Lincoln: his face. While he was known as an ugly man, and he even joked about that reputation, Lincoln’s contemporaries often commented on his striking features—on how animated he became while telling stories, or how at more serious moments his face seemed to reflect his wisdom.

Taken across a span of nearly twenty years, from 1846 to 1865, these images provide us with a visual account of Lincoln’s intertwined political and personal lives as we watch him age and observe the toll taken by the Civil War in the final four years of his life. Here are a wide range of Lincolns—wise, bemused, melancholic, ruggedly handsome, downright homely—his complex character clearly evident in the changes in expression and affect these portraits capture. Each portrait is presented in both a standard size and in life-size, and is accompanied by a contemporaneous quote by or about Lincoln, enriching the story of his life as told through his continuously evolving image.

Offering an unprecedented window into Lincoln’s soul, Lincoln, Life-Size grants us a new appreciation of this extraordinary man and a glimpse of the force of character that made him great. It is a must for all Lincoln enthusiasts—and for anyone fascinated by our finest president.

Michael Symon's Live to Cook by Bobby Flay

2009-11-03T00:30:00-05:00

Michael Symon's Live to Cook Recipes and Techniques to Rock Your Kitchen
Written by Michael Symon and Michael Ruhlman
Foreword by Bobby Flay

Hometown boy turned superstar, Michael Symon is one of the hottest food personalities in America. Hailing from Cleveland, Ohio, he is counted among the nation’s greatest chefs, having joined the ranks of Mario Batali, Bobby Flay, and Masaharu Morimoto as one of America’s Iron Chefs. At his core, though, he’s a midwestern guy with family roots in old-world traditions. In Michael Symon’s Live to Cook, Michael tells the amazing story of his whirlwind rise to fame by sharing the food and incredible recipes that have marked his route.

Michael is known for his easy, fresh food. He means it when he says that if a dish requires more than two pans to finish, he’s not going to make it. Cooking what he calls “heritage” food–based on the recipes beloved by his Greek—Italian—Eastern European—American parents and the community in Cleveland–Michael draws on the flavors of traditional recipes to create sophisticated dishes, such as his Beef Cheek Pierogies with Wild Mushrooms and Horseradish, which came out of the pierogies that his grandpa made. Michael translates the influences of the diverse working-class neighborhood in which he grew up into dishes with Mediterranean ingredients, such as those in Olive Oil Poached Halibut with Fennel, Rosemary, and Garlic; Italian-style handmade pastas, like Linguini with Heirloom Tomato, Capers, Anchovies, and Chilies; and re-imagined Cleveland favorites, such as Mac and Cheese with Roasted Chicken, Goat Cheese, and Rosemary.

Part of Michael’s irresistible allure on the Food Network comes from how much fun he has in the kitchen. To help readers gain confidence and have a good time, Michael Symon’s Live to Cook has advice for cooking like a pro, starting with basic instructions for how to correctly use techniques such as braising, poaching, and pickling. There’s also information on how caramelizing vegetables and toasting spices can give dishes a greater depth of flavor–instead of a heavy, time-consuming stock-based sauce–and why the perfect finishing touch to most meat or fish dishes can be a savory hot vinaigrette instead.

With fantastic four-color photography throughout and tons of helpful “Symon Says” tips, Michael Symon’s Live to Cook is bound to get anyone fired up about getting into the kitchen and cooking up something downright delicious.

P. Allen Smith's Container Gardens Deck by P. Allen Smith

2009-11-03T00:30:00-05:00

P. Allen Smith's Container Gardens Deck 50 Recipes for Year-Round Gardening
Written by P. Allen Smith

Add beauty to your home (no matter how much space you have) with these easy-to-follow container garden recipes from P. Allen Smith. Each card includes a list of plants, step-by-step planning instructions, and a diagram showing you how to design your garden. These recipes are printed on tabbed cards that you can bring to your gardening center or nursery.

Secret Ingredients by David Remnick

2009-11-03T00:30:00-05:00

Secret Ingredients The New Yorker Book of Food and Drink
Edited by David Remnick

A sample of the menu: Woody Allen on dieting the Dostoevski way • Roger Angell on the art of the martini • Don DeLillo on Jell-O • Malcolm Gladwell on building a better ketchup • Jane Kramer on the writer’s kitchen • Chang-rae Lee on eating sea urchin • Steve Martin on menu mores • Alice McDermott on sex and ice cream • Dorothy Parker on dinner conversation • S. J. Perelman on a hollandaise assassin • Calvin Trillin on New York’s best bagel

In this indispensable collection, The New Yorker dishes up a feast of delicious writing–food and drink memoirs, short stories, tell-alls, and poems, seasoned with a generous dash of cartoons. M.F.K. Fisher pays homage to “cookery witches,” those mysterious cooks who possess “an uncanny power over food,” and Adam Gopnik asks if French cuisine is done for. There is Roald Dahl’s famous story “Taste,” in which a wine snob’s palate comes in for some unwelcome scrutiny, and Julian Barnes’s ingenious tale of a lifelong gourmand who goes on a very peculiar diet. Whether you’re in the mood for snacking on humor pieces and cartoons or for savoring classic profiles of great chefs and great eaters, these offerings, from every age of The New Yorker’s fabled eighty-year history, are sure to satisfy every taste.

Woodrow Wilson by John Milton Cooper, Jr.

2009-11-03T00:30:00-05:00

Woodrow Wilson A Biography
Written by John Milton Cooper, Jr.

The first major biography of America’s twenty-eighth president in nearly two decades, from one of America’s foremost Woodrow Wilson scholars.

A Democrat who reclaimed the White House after sixteen years of Republican administrations, Wilson was a transformative president—he helped create the regulatory bodies and legislation that prefigured FDR’s New Deal and would prove central to governance through the early twenty-first century, including the Federal Reserve system and the Clayton Antitrust Act; he guided the nation through World War I; and, although his advocacy in favor of joining the League of Nations proved unsuccessful, he nonetheless established a new way of thinking about international relations that would carry America into the United Nations era. Yet Wilson also steadfastly resisted progress for civil rights, while his attorney general launched an aggressive attack on civil liberties.

Even as he reminds us of the foundational scope of Wilson’s domestic policy achievements, John Milton Cooper, Jr., reshapes our understanding of the man himself: his Wilson is warm and gracious—not at all the dour puritan of popular imagination. As the president of Princeton, his encounters with the often rancorous battles of academe prepared him for state and national politics. Just two years after he was elected governor of New Jersey, Wilson, now a leader in the progressive movement, won the Democratic presidential nomination and went on to defeat Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft in one of the twentieth century’s most memorable presidential elections. Ever the professor, Wilson relied on the strength of his intellectual convictions and the power of reason to win over the American people.

John Milton Cooper, Jr., gives us a vigorous, lasting record of Wilson’s life and achievements. This is a long overdue, revelatory portrait of one of our most important presidents—particularly resonant now, as another president seeks to change the way government relates to the people and regulates the economy.

Last Night in Twisted River by John Irving

2009-10-27T00:30:00-05:00

Last Night in Twisted River A Novel
Written by John Irving

In 1954, in the cookhouse of a logging and sawmill settlement in northern New Hampshire, an anxious twelve-year-old boy mistakes the local constable’s girlfriend for a bear. Both the twelve-year-old and his father become fugitives, forced to run from Coos County–to Boston, to southern Vermont, to Toronto–pursued by the implacable constable. Their lone protector is a fiercely libertarian logger, once a river driver, who befriends them.

In a story spanning five decades, Last Night in Twisted River–John Irving’s twelfth novel–depicts the recent half-century in the United States as “a living replica of Coos County, where lethal hatreds were generally permitted to run their course.” From the novel’s taut opening sentence–“The young Canadian, who could not have been more than fifteen, had hesitated too long”–to its elegiac final chapter, Last Night in Twisted River is written with the historical authenticity and emotional authority of The Cider House Rules and A Prayer for Owen Meany. It is also as violent and disturbing a story as John Irving’s breakthrough bestseller, The World According to Garp.

What further distinguishes Last Night in Twisted River is the author’s unmistakable voice–the inimitable voice of an accomplished storyteller. Near the end of this moving novel, John Irving writes: “We don’t always have a choice how we get to know one another. Sometimes, people fall into our lives cleanly–as if out of the sky, or as if there were a direct flight from Heaven to Earth–the same sudden way we lose people, who once seemed they would always be part of our lives.”

Living with Wine by Alice Feiring

2009-10-27T00:30:00-05:00

Living with Wine Passionate Collectors, Sophisticated Cellars, and Other Rooms for Entertaining, Enjoying, and Imbibing
Written by Samantha Nestor and Alice Feiring

America’s love of wine has spurred a collecting and entertaining phenomenon.

Some of America’s most passionate oenophiles have re-invented the wine cellar as an inviting and beautiful part of the home.

True collectors love to share their passion, and this book offers a tour of their distinctive cellars. Created with the help of some of the best designers in the field, these rooms blend luxurious design aesthetics with ingenious storage solutions. The thirty stunning spaces featured include a traditional wood cellar finished with rich paneling and ornate lighting; a cathedral-like space that showcases ironwork inspired by the French Quarter of New Orleans (and has a secret entry from a library inside the house); an inviting living room lined with temperature-controlled wood alcoves behind insulated glass; and an Old World terra-cotta cellar–within a sprawling entertainment center that includes a wet bar, a billiards table, and a tasting room.

Living with Wine reveals the details that make the cellars a welcoming place to return–from the materials, artwork, lighting, and cutting-edge preservation technology to the way the space harmonizes with the rest of the house. From the Bay Area to Boston, Napa to New York, homeowners such as Nancy and John Lasseter, the founder of Pixar Studios; American Idol host and TV and radio personality Ryan Seacrest; and entrepreneur Rick Ryan share insights into what they collect, why they started collecting, and how they designed their spaces to fit their passion.

This elegant volume shows what it means to love and collect wine.

Moonwalk by Michael Jackson

2009-10-13T00:30:00-05:00

Moonwalk
Written by Michael Jackson

The #1 New York Times bestseller! Michael Jackson’s one and only autobiography – his life, in his words.

With original Foreword by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, a new Introduction by Motown founder Berry Gordy, and an Afterword by Michael Jackson’s editor and publisher, Shaye Areheart.

“I’ve always wanted to be able to tell stories, you know, stories that came from my soul. I’d like to sit by a fire and tell people stories – make them see pictures, make them cry and laugh, take them anywhere emotionally with something as deceptively simple as words. I’d like to tell tales to move their souls and transform them. I’ve always wanted to be able to do that. Imagine how the great writers must feel, knowing they have that power. I sometimes feel I could do it. It’s something I’d like to develop. In a way, songwriting uses the same skills, creates the emotional highs and lows, but the story is a sketch. It’s quicksilver. There are very few books written on the art of storytelling, how to grip listeners, how to get a group of people together and amuse them. No costumes, no makeup, no nothing, just you and your voice, and your powerful ability to take them anywhere, to transform their lives, if only for minutes.” –Michael Jackson, in Moonwalk

From the 1988 edition:

Megastar Michael Jackson’s singularly brilliant career and intensely private lifestyle have become a magnificent obsession for millions of rock fans and celebrity watchers throughout the world. His double-platinum singles rocket to the top of the music charts with a velocity equaled only by the inevitable accompaniment of wild rumors about his eccentric personal life. Now for the first time, Michael Jackson breaks the fiercely guarded barrier of silence that has surrounded him in a remarkably candid and courageous book — Moonwalk.

In this intimate and often moving personal account of Michael Jackson’s public and private life, he recalls a childhood that was both harsh and joyful but always formidable. Michael and his brothers played amateur music shows and seamy Chicago strip joints until Motown’s corporate image makers turned the Jackson 5 into worldwide superstars. Michael Jackson and the Jackson 5 have combined sales of over 200 million albums. He talks about the happy prankster days of his youth, traveling with his brothers, and of his sometimes difficult relationships with his family over the years. He speaks candidly about the inspiration behind his music, his mesmerizing dance moves, and the compulsive drive to create that has made him one of the biggest stars in the music business and a legend in his own time. The Guinness Book of World Records lists Thriller as the biggest-selling-album of all time.

In Moonwalk, Michael Jackson shares his personal feelings about some of his most public friends…friends like Diana Ross, Berry Gordy, Quincy Jones, Paul McCartney, Fred Astaire, Marlon Brando, and Katharine Hepburn. He talks openly about the crushing isolation of his fame, of his first love, of his plastic surgery, and of his wholly exceptional career and the often bizarre and unfair rumors that have surrounded it.

Illustrated with rare photographs from Jackson family albums and Michael’s personal photographic archives, as well as a drawing done by Michael exclusively for this book, Moonwalk is a memorable journey to the very heart and soul of a modern musical genius.

The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein by Peter Ackroyd

2009-10-06T00:30:00-05:00

The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein A Novel
Written by Peter Ackroyd

When two nineteenth-century Oxford students—Victor Frankenstein, a serious researcher, and the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley—form an unlikely friendship, the result is a tour de force that could only come from one of the world's most accomplished and prolific authors.
This haunting and atmospheric novel opens with a heated discussion, as Shelley challenges the conventionally religious Frankenstein to consider his atheistic notions of creation and life. Afterward, these concepts become an obsession for the young scientist. As Victor begins conducting anatomical experiments to reanimate the dead, he at first uses corpses supplied by the coroner. But these specimens prove imperfect for Victor's purposes. Moving his makeshift laboratory to a deserted pottery factory in Limehouse, he makes contact with the Doomsday men—the resurrectionists—whose grisly methods put Frankenstein in great danger as he works feverishly to bring life to the terrifying creature that will bear his name for eternity.

Filled with literary lights of the day such as Bysshe Shelley, Godwin, Lord Byron, and Mary Shelley herself, and penned in period-perfect prose, The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein is sure to become a classic of the twenty-first century.

How to Raise the Perfect Dog by Melissa Jo Peltier

2009-10-06T00:30:00-05:00

How to Raise the Perfect Dog Through Puppyhood and Beyond
Written by Cesar Millan and Melissa Jo Peltier

From the bestselling author and star of National Geographic Channel's Dog Whisperer, the only resource you’ll need for raising a happy, healthy dog.

For the millions of people every year who consider bringing a puppy into their lives–as well as those who have already brought a dog home–Cesar Millan, the preeminent dog behavior expert, says, "Yes, you can raise the perfect dog!" It all starts with the proper foundation in the early years. Here, Cesar tells you everything you need to know to create the best environment for a well-balanced dog in order to avoid behavior issues in the future, and shows you how to correct the most common behavior issues for young dogs.

Based on Cesar’s own detailed experiences raising individual puppies from some of the most popular breeds, How to Raise the Perfect Dog is like having Cesar right beside you, as your own personal expert, coaching you and your dog from the first day of your life together.

Packed with new information aimed specifically at the particular needs of puppies and adolescents, and written in Cesar's friendly, accessible style, How to Raise the Perfect Dog answers all the most commonly asked questions and guides you towards a loving, satisfying life-long relationship with your best friend.

#1 New York Times bestselling author, Cesar Millan shows you how to raise the perfect dog and prevent behavior issues before they start, including:
• what to expect from each stage of your puppy's development
• quick and easy housebreaking
• the essentials of proper nutrition
• the importance of vaccinating–and of not over-vaccinating
• creating perfect obedience from day one through rules, boundaries, and calm-assertive leadership
• how to avoid the most common mistakes owners make raising puppies and young dogs
• how to correct any issue before it becomes a problem
• unique exercises and play to bring out the best in every breed

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The Jazz Loft Project Photographs and Tapes of W. Eugene Smith from 821 Sixth Avenue, 1957-1965
Written by Sam Stephenson

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Written by Maricel E. Presilla

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Edited by Middleton A. Harris, Ernest Smith, Morris Levitt and Roger Furman
Foreword by Toni Morrison

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Written by Charles Dickens
Introduction by Margaret Atwood

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How to Raise the Perfect Dog Through Puppyhood and Beyond
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