Book of the Day Posted Dec 08, 2019

Whitney's Holiday Gift Picks!

Francois Halard: A Visual Diary. "Francois Halard's unique photographic sensibility--old-world elegant and bohemian, accessible and personal--is unmistakable. Each image is imbued with the intimate knowledge of design history, each story a lesson in a master's point of view. This book is a continuation of his last volume of gorgeous photography of grand interiors, artists' studios, and architectural pilgrimage sites. Each story's subject matter is not just a personal passion of the photographer, but also an indispensable chapter in design history: Philip Johnson and Charles James's de Menil House, Giorgio Morandi's studio, Rick Owens's radical Paris apartment, Eileen Gray's recently restored modernist home on the French coast, Dries Van Noten's verdant garden and home, the home and studio of Louise Bourgeois in New York, and many more. Like his first book, Francois Halard: A Photographic Life will be a coveted, indispensable must-have visual resource for all lovers of interiors, glamour, and style." Published by Rizzoli.$ 95.00

 

 

Nazraeli Cold Press 100% Spanish Arbequina Olive Oil - Ed Templeton Edition. "Estate grown, organic, and bottled on Nazraeli's hillside farm in Paso Robles, California, 'Maya’s Arbequina' is an early harvest, Spanish variety olive oil. It is relatively mild, with hints of freshly-cut grass. Its clean and mild flavor make it the perfect olive oil for everyday use." 375ml $25.00

 

 

Bibliostyle: How We Live at Home With Books. "A visual delight and an inspiration for every bibliophile with a growing home library, this dream-and-drool design book features some of the most jaw-dropping book collections of homeowners around the world. Interior designer Nina Freudenberger, New Yorker writer Sadie Stein, and Architectural Digest photographer Shade Degges give readers a peek at the private libraries and bookshelves of passionate readers all over the world, including Larry McMurtry, Silvia Whitman of Shakespeare and Co., Gay and Nan Talese, and Emma Straub. Throughout, gorgeous photographs of rooms with rare collections, floor-to-ceiling shelves, and stacks upon stacks of books inspire readers to live better with their own collections." Published by Clarkson Potter. $ 35.00

 

Steve McCurry: Animals. "In Animals, we discover a different side to the famed photographer who skillfully explores animals’ complex relationship with humans and the environment. Tenderness abounds, particularly in scenes of unkempt street dogs sleeping contentedly next to a human. But there’s also a kind of essential solitude, with animals belonging to no one and simply wandering through life with only their survival instincts to guide them. We witness camels caught in the crossfire during the first Gulf War; a shepherd from Northern Pakistan tenderly feeding his goats; Beverly Hills designer dogs; race horses on a Hong Kong rooftop; elephants in Thailand, and more images selected by McCurry from his vast archives. Through McCurry’s lens, we discover an appreciation for each creature’s beauty and silent dignity. This kaleidoscopic collection is at once a beautiful travelogue and a touching tribute to the creatures who share our planet." Published by Taschen. $ 60.00

 

Stephen Gill - The Pillar.  "A pillar knocked into the ground next to a stream in a flat, open landscape, trees and houses visible in the distance, beneath a vast sky. That is the backdrop to all of Stephen Gill´s photographs in this book. We see the same landscape in spring and summer, in autumn and winter, we see it in sunshine and rain, in snow and wind. Yet there is not the slightest monotony about these pictures, for in almost every one there is a bird, and each of these birds opens up a unique moment in time. We see something that has never happened before and will never happen again. That it takes place in the midst of a landscape characterised by repetition, in which time is cyclical, sets up a keen existential dynamic: on the one hand, everything has happened before, there’s nothing new under the sun; on the other, every moment is unique and carries the hallmark of the miracle: what happens happens only once and never again. But this wasn’t what I thought about the first time I looked at these photographs. In fact, I barely thought at all, for I was shaken, as a person so often is when confronted with an extraordinary work of art. I’d never seen birds in this way before, as if on their own terms, as independent creatures with independent lives. Ancient, forever improvising, endlessly embroiled with the forces of nature, and yet indulging too. And so infinitely alien to us."- Karl Ove Knausgård. Published by Nobody Books. $75.00

 

Prince: The Beautiful Ones. "Prince was a musical genius, one of the most beloved, accomplished, and acclaimed musicians of our time. He was a startlingly original visionary with an imagination deep enough to whip up whole worlds, from the sexy, gritty funk paradise of “Uptown” to the mythical landscape of Purple Rain to the psychedelia of “Paisley Park.” But his most ambitious creative act was turning Prince Rogers Nelson, born in Minnesota, into Prince, one of the greatest pop stars of any era. The Beautiful Ones is the story of how Prince became Prince—a first-person account of a kid absorbing the world around him and then creating a persona, an artistic vision, and a life, before the hits and fame that would come to define him. The book is told in four parts. The first is the memoir Prince was writing before his tragic death, pages that bring us into his childhood world through his own lyrical prose. The second part takes us through Prince’s early years as a musician, before his first album was released, via an evocative scrapbook of writing and photos. The third section shows us Prince’s evolution through candid images that go up to the cusp of his greatest achievement, which we see in the book’s fourth section: his original handwritten treatment for Purple Rain—the final stage in Prince’s self-creation, where he retells the autobiography of the first three parts as a heroic journey. The book is framed by editor Dan Piepenbring’s riveting and moving introduction about his profound collaboration with Prince in his final months—a time when Prince was thinking deeply about how to reveal more of himself and his ideas to the world, while retaining the mystery and mystique he’d so carefully cultivated—and annotations that provide context to the book’s images. This work is not just a tribute to an icon, but an original and energizing literary work in its own right, full of Prince’s ideas and vision, his voice and image—his undying gift to the world." Published by Spiegel & Grau. $ 30.00

 

 

 

Encyclopedia Of Flowers 4 - Makoto Azuma & Shunsuke Shiinoki. ""The fourth book featuring works by master Japanese flower artist and botanical sculptor Makoto Azuma, this edition adds five new series to the ones established in previous editions: Earth, Horizon, Ambiguity, Torus, and Matrix. Filled with Shunsuke Shiinoki’s breathtaking photographs of flowers and botanical displays, the book celebrates nature’s diversity and beauty, as well as the poignant, temporal notion of a plant in bloom. It gives an overview of Azuma’s numerous experiments in presentation and new compositions, with hopes that flowers might be seen as a kind of prayer that goes beyond national and religious boundaries, transcending sex, race, and ethnicity." Published by Seigensha. $ 52.00

 

Issues: A History of Photography in Fashion Magazines. "A showcase of ground-breaking photography of fashion magazines over the last century. Acclaimed photography critic Vince Aletti has selected 100 significant magazine issues from his expansive personal archive, revealing images by photographers rarely seen outside their original context. With his characteristic élan and featuring stunning images, Aletti has created a fresh, idiosyncratic, and previously unexplored angle on the history of photography. Issues, a luxury, oversized object, richly illustrated with brilliant reproductions, and enclosed in an elegant archival-style magazine-file box, is an essential addition to every book collection on photography, fashion, and graphic design. It's the first survey to explore the history of photography through the lens of fashion magazines, spanning the years 1925 to 2018. Magazines featured include American, British, and French Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, W, Details, Purple Fashion, The Face, Dutch, and many more." Published by Phaidon. $ 95.00