Phaidon
Brutalism, or Brutalist Architecture, is aptly named. There is nothing soft, friendly, or accommodating about it. It is stark, harsh, hard, powerful and massive. Many Brutalist buildings have the strange ability to look simultaneously futuristic and highly dated.
A favorite of the Communist Bloc housing, fascist dictators like Mussolini …
This weighty tome, coming in at nearly 700 pages, is not nearly so daunting as it appears. Ninety percent of the book is large, gorgeous pictures with short descriptions of the (arguably) most notable pieces of furniture in the last 150 years. The book runs the gamut from: the mundane …
Dominic Bradbury with Photographs by Richard Powers
The seem to be an endless stream of collections featuring “the best…,” “the most iconic…” “this centuries most important…” buildings, furniture, artists and more. Bring ’em on, I say! They’re a fast, interesting way become familiar with various architectural, design and art vernaculars …
Chuck Klosterman
Klosterman, Gen-X’s pop-culture philosopher-in-chief, turns his gaze to the concept of villainy. In his own slightly hyperactive way, Klosterman skips from Machiavelli to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, O.J. Simpson to Snidley Whiplash and …
Tim Myers
Set in rural North Carolina, innkeeper Alex Winston struggles to keep his one-of-a-kind inn open. Despite being miles from the sea, his inn features a full-size replicate of the lighthouse at Cape Hatteras. The series is a pleasant, low-key look at life in a beautiful, small town – …
Lorraine Bartlett
Author Lorraine (or LL) Bartlett writes the thoroughly enjoyable Booktown mystery series, a definite must-read for cozy fans. However, she has a lesser-known series that is, in many ways, more compelling.
Bartlett’s Jeff Resnick series follows a former insurance adjuster, now part-time bartender. After a nearly fatal mugging, …
Jeff Guin
There are some tragedies that are so mind-boggling and so bizarre that we can’t help going back to take yet another look. “Why would anyone choose to follow such an obvious, slimy charlatan like Jim Jones?” we wonder. But the story of Jones …
Jacka is a relative newcomer to the urban fantasy genre, but a most welcome one. His mage, Alex Verus, is the everyman wizard. He is an adept diviner – having the ability to see into the future and suss out the most likely outcome. But this skill conveys little respect …
Edgar Cantero
Cantero‘s modernist gothic horror novel is a ridiculously fun read. When Brit “A” discovers he has inherited a huge mansion and fortune from a previously unknown relative, the penniless student chucks it all and comes to the States. He and his companion, Niamh, a mute punker chick, …
Lauren Greenfield
“I told my kids that they might have to go to college now. They might actually have to earn their own money…I really don’t understand the financial community, especially when they get all that money from the government. I thought that rescue money…was supposed to be passed on …
Edgar Cantero
Scooby-doo meets H.P. Lovecraft. What’s not to love? Cantero’s hilarious novel blends the cheesiness of Saturday morning cartoons with creepy, supernatural beasts from the depths of the earth. Years after the Blyton Summer Detective Club solves its last case, the gang decides to reform and revisit the case. …
Tomoko Nakamichi
Unless you are a professional tailor or fashion designer, there’s small chance you will actually make any of the clothing directly as is in these books. As the author says in the introduction, the point of these often wildly bizarre experiments with fabric is not to create everyday …
Robert Winter and Alexander Vertikoff
Craftsman Style is a good starter overview coffee-table book on Craftsman style architecture. Springing from William Morris’s Arts and Crafts movement, this architectural movement aimed to be the antithesis of industrialized, modern building. In the views of the Arts and Crafts movement, things started going …
Clothes We Can’t Believe We Bought
Tom Coleman
Photography by Jerome Jakubiec
Everyone can relate to this book because everyone has had at least one fashion disaster in their life. Maybe it’s the “fashion forward” item you bought because you thought it would be cutting edge, only to discover that …
The Funnies/Worst Place on Earth
Wendy E. Simmons
Simmons’ title really does sum it up. A life-long travel addict, her ten day guided trip to North Korea is more than deserving of a book. Simmons chronicles as much of her “holiday” as she could remember (once she was out of …
Simon R. Green
Green, author of the fabulous Nightside series, has a new …”hero.” Ishmael Jones is an alien, crashed on the Earth decades ago. With no memory of who or what he is, but endowed with all sorts of handy strengths, he works for a secret organization protecting …
