Rare Special Editions available from ACC Art Books –  More Information

Discovering the world around us thanks to science! This book teaches children about the chemical-physical properties of water, through games, fun facts, and loads of interesting information. They’ll also learn about the different forms water has in nature, as well as its fundamental importance in our daily lives! – Increasingly difficult games and activities, for learning without ever getting bored. – Colourful stickers, mazes, and simple, yet detailed instructions, for learning while having fun. – Simple experiments that can be done with materials found around the house, for learning concepts by using the experimental method. We are excited about this new series from the best-selling concept, Water: Mad for Science. 56 packed pages with games and activities, including instructions for inventing your own gems and for executing your own, easy-to-do, experiments at home! Ages: 6 plus

Dinosaurs were the undisputed rulers of a very long period in the history of our planet; and even today, millions of years after their mass extinction, they amaze and fascinate us with their appearance and their proportions. But how did dinosaurs really live, what did they eat, how did they move about, and what differences existed between their families? The palaeontologist and scientific author Riley Black will guide you through the discovery of some of the most iconic and rarest species of dinosaurs, revealing the history of the discovery of their fossils and providing you with the most up-to-date information that scientific research has made available.

Baby on Board is both a day-by-day diary and a pregnancy guide, rich with practical information, advice, stories, and space to keep track of everything and feel supported, from conception to delivery. Pregnancy journals are not only a way to track the passing of time, but also the opportunity to create a personalised souvenir, immortalising a life-changing 9-month journey. Baby on Board features quirky, but accurate, humour, engaging graphics, and spaces for self-reflection. It offers:

This well-illustrated book – previously published as Carpets & Rugs (9789401476928) – features 200 carpets found amazing homes around the world. Get inspired and upgrade your own interior with amazing carpets and rugs. In thematic chapters, the book covers the main international trends, from Ethnic to Art Deco and from Contemporary to Artsy. These dressed-up living spaces provide new ideas for anyone fascinated by stylish living, creative interior design and the myriad possibilities for home decor. In addition, the author provides helpful information on the provenance of materials, quality of design, composition and workmanship possibilities for home decor. It’s a fascinating glimpse into the homes of people with a good taste.

“The Technical Notes by Lesley Stevenson provide extensive, thoroughly researched information on the paintings… this has brought fascinating new information to light” — Journal of the Scottish Society for Art History, Volume 29, 2024-2025, p.128
The Scottish National Gallery’s outstanding collection of French paintings is described fully in this two-volume illustrated catalogue. Underpinned by extensive scholarly research, this comprehensive work includes many of the great names, including Monet, Degas, Cézanne, Poussin, Watteau and Delacroix.

Since opening its doors in 1859, the Scottish National Gallery’s collection of French paintings has grown continuously, reflecting changing tastes and priorities, thanks to inspired and enlightened purchases and many generous donations. The collection’s fascinating history is related in the introductory essay.

Each artist is introduced by a concise biography, followed by a study of their individual works featuring the most up-to-date research. Illustrating and describing 189 works of art, this catalogue is the definitive authority on the French paintings in Scotland’s national collection.

Italian Wines is the English-language version of Gambero Rosso’s Vini d’Italia, the world’s best-selling guide to Italian wine, now in its 37th edition. It is the result of a year’s work by over 60 tasters, coordinated by three curators. They travel around the entire country to taste 45,000 wines, only half of which make it into the guide. More than 2,500 producers are selected. Each entry brings together useful information about a winery, including a description of its most important labels and price levels in Italian wine shops. Each wine is evaluated according to the Gambero Rosso bicchieri rating, with Tre Bicchieri awarded to the top labels. The guide is an essential tool for both wine professionals and passionate amateurs around the globe: it provides the instruments for finding one’s way in the complex panorama of Italy’s wine world. 

The best-selling guide to the first year of fatherhood, trusted by hundreds of thousands of new dads and their partners.

This indispensable handbook, from the author of the million-selling Expectant Father, provides a reassuring month-by-month overview of your baby’s first year. It covers the milestones in your child’s development; ways you can bond with your child and support your partner; and what’s going on with you, as a new dad.

The fourth edition of The New Father features a user-friendly new design and is updated from cover to cover with the latest information about healthcare, financial planning, parental leave and work-life balance, and much more. It incorporates the expertise of leading pediatricians and researchers, and the real-life experiences of hundreds of dads and mums.

Illustrated with stress-relieving cartoons, The New Father is a friendly, readable, and inclusive companion for all new dads. (Mums will love it, too!).

The best-selling guide to the first year of fatherhood, trusted by hundreds of thousands of new dads and their partners.

This indispensable handbook, from the author of the million-selling Expectant Father, provides a reassuring month-by-month overview of your baby’s first year. It covers the milestones in your child’s development; ways you can bond with your child and support your partner; and what’s going on with you, as a new dad.

The fourth edition of The New Father features a user-friendly new design and is updated from cover to cover with the latest information about healthcare, financial planning, parental leave and work-life balance, and much more. It incorporates the expertise of leading pediatricians and researchers, and the real-life experiences of hundreds of dads and mums.

Illustrated with stress-relieving cartoons, The New Father is a friendly, readable, and inclusive companion for all new dads. (Mums will love it, too!).

“If you really want to get under the skin of a city, the 500 Hidden Secrets series, which covers a number of cities from Chicago to Ghent, all written by people who know the cities inside out, is ideal. It’s an innovative and refreshing take on the traditional travel guide.”- The Independent

What are the 5 restaurants for new Flemish cooking? Where would you find the 5 best antique shops? Where can you find the most unexpected view of Ghent? Where are the cool coffee bars that play the best music? And if you wanted to find the most mysterious places in the Citadelpark, where are they? The 500 Hidden Secrets of Ghent is a wonderfully eclectic guide to this multifaceted city. An insider’s view of Ghent featuring little known facts and snippets of useful information, presenting the quirky and the off-beat, and sharing the whereabouts of some of the city’s wonderful hidden gems like the Hotel d’Hane-Steenhuyse and the Gruut City Brewery.

The 500 Hidden Secrets of Ghent offers a practical guide to Ghent’s finest places, and Derek Blyth covers all bases to ensure no visitor to the city is ever anything short of captivated. Packed with accessible, easy-to-read information summarised in handy lists, maps, itineraries, sections on food & drink, accommodation, green spaces, museums, galleries and shops; this guide is an essential resource for the inquisitive traveller.

Also available: The 500 Hidden Secrets of London, The 500 Hidden Secrets of Dublin, The 500 Hidden Secrets of Paris, The 500 Hidden Secrets of Lisbon, and many more. Discover the series at the500hiddensecrets.com

Fully revised and updated for its sixth edition, this benchmark book chronicles the changing face of Sherry – its viticultural methods, the complex production techniques, the growth of the wine’s trade and the region itself – taking us from the area’s early Phoenician settlers right up to the present day. Detailed sections on cultivation and production include information on both traditional and the now more commonly used modern methods of viticulture. Manzanilla, the ‘wine of joy’, receives an entire chapter to itself, before Jeffs brings the information on blending and tasting Sherry up to date. Sherry provides extensive details for all the shippers, updated for 2019, from the traditional family firms to the new boutique bodegas, along with thorough appendices for those who wish to delve into the fine details. This classic wine book unravels the timeless appeal of one of Spain’s greatest wines, making it an essential resource for anybody with an interest or involvement in the world of Sherry.

Readers will buy this book because they’re intrigued by the sketches. They’ll read it because it’s a compelling story of lighthouse road trips with sidebars introducing a wealth of lighthouse information.

This is a history of lighthouse building on the Great Lakes. Road trip sojourns introduce about 140 lighthouse sketches. Captions explain each lighthouse story and drawings introduce even more captioned lighthouses. Sidebars present a wealth of information explaining how lighthouses and their components work as well as the lighthouse establishment itself and other support services. An epilogue contains thumbnail sketches of lighthouses from around the world. In all about 400 sketches, maps, and diagrams illustrate the book.

The shared medium of Katharina Hinsberg and Monika Gryzmala is drawing. The exploration of the line is central to the work of both artists. Many of these artworks transcend the traditional boundaries of the genre and, in their dynamic reach, take on an almost sculptural quality. While Katharina Hinsberg’s lines dissect space with meticulous clarity, Monika Grzymala’s imposing bundles of lines penetrate space with an eruptive power. The two artistic approaches are being shown together for the first time in the joint exhibition Between One Line at the Kunsthalle Mannheim. The accompanying catalogue was created through an ongoing dialogue between the two artists. Two sketchbooks formed the basis; the artists worked in them alternately, each visually “interrupting” one another, constantly striving to confront their colleague’s preliminary drawing work with their own understanding of the line, and exploring their artistic potential through a collaborative practice.

Text in English and German.

This ninth edition of Best of Austria offers a survey of the creative and economic achievements of Austrian architecture firms and the country’s building culture in general, exemplified by the projects and people who have been awarded national and international architecture prizes in 2022 and 2023. The book features around 150 buildings through photos, plans, and concise texts by renowned authors. In addition, distinguished individuals, architectural teams, and institutions are introduced in brief portraits. An introductory essay by Oliver Elser, curator at Deutsches Architekturmuseum DAM in Frankfurt, analyses architectural events and building culture in Austria from an outside perspective. The book is rounded out by a detailed index providing relevant information on the various awards.

Text in English and German.

Paul Starosta is a French nature photographer, famous for finding and highlighting the artistic beauties of nature. The 200 superb photographs in this book illustrate the splendour and complexity of seeds, including the very smallest specimens. Drawing on the collections of Jean Laty and the La Voie des Fleurs society in Draveil (France), they showcase the infinite shapes, colours and stunning details to be found in objects often ignored: some seeds look like flowers, others stones or sculptures, while still others suggest jewels fashioned by some imaginary goldsmith.

The almost magical beauty of these little masterpieces, which enclose the mystery of life in both the infinitely small and the infinitely large, is brought out by the play of light and shadow. These little wonders conjure up others and are reminiscent of works of art or architectural features. Human beings are themselves nature and have found inspiration in it to create their own bold and curious works.

At the end of the volume, miniature photographs are accompanied by scientific information on the seeds, their life, characteristics and different families.

Molluscs are extraordinary builders; indeed, their architectural skills are almost unparalleled in the animal world. Who among us has failed to marvel at the wonderful structure of the smallest shell picked up on the beach? Some enthusiasts collect them throughout their lives – attracted by their beauty if they are aesthetes, or sought out for scientific purposes, as in the case of Jacques Senders. In this book, Paul Starosta’s spectacular photographs take the reader on a journey through this astounding collection, first started 50 years ago.

These shells, marvels of nature as they are, naturally suggest exotic or futuristic architecture, ancient or Art Nouveau vases, or even precious stones or volcanic rocks, and reaffirm the importance of nature as a source of inspiration for artists and architects. By celebrating the extraordinary variety and architectural refinement of the shells in Jacques and Rita Senders’s collection, the book reveals a world where nature far surpasses human imagination and invention.

At the end of the volume, miniature photographs are accompanied by scientific information on shells, their life, characteristics and different families.

During childhood holidays by the sea, the pristine Long Beach was full of treasures from the deep, sharks and dolphins swam near the shore, and the sea and air was vibrant with life and energy. Homo Gaia is written by lifelong environmentalist and citizen scientist, who wishes to pass on a thin strand of hope to the next generation. After a five year project on nature connection at the Greenworld foundation, Thailand, where she was chairperson, was halted by Covid, Oy decided to write a book instead. Showing how others can also experience the wondrous world that surrounds us, she weaves in her own experiences with information and insights from scientists.

The Japanese concept Shosa is hard to translate: it’s about the beauty that lies in the repetition of actions and movements, striving for perfection and efficiency in their execution. You can find it in the rituals of a Japanese tea ceremony, but also in the repetition of cleaning actions (like in the movie Perfect Days) or in the skilful actions of craftsmen and women.

This book portrays 12 Japanese makers from different regions. From a bamboo weaver to a tatami mats maker, from a ceramist to a cook who specialises in puddings. The writer and photographer went to visit these makers in their studios and created profound portraits in words and images. Because the craftsmen and women often rely on locally sourced materials, the stories in this book also cover the surroundings. The aim isn’t to provide tourist guide-like information, but to share a taste of various regions in Japan, so this book can also serve as a source of inspiration when you’re planning a trip to the Land of the Rising Sun.

“The most exciting travel guide I’ve read in years.” – Huffington Post

This classic guidebook, full of the little-known treasures of the Île de France, is now fully updated and revised, with two new chapters.

Discover half-hidden chateaux and artists’ country houses; walk, boat or dance by the river; explore old towns and country footpaths; and eat in family-run restaurants with 1950s décor. Based on over 20 years’ experience of exploring the Paris countryside by train, each visit includes the essential historical context and practical information to help you discover places unknown to many Parisians.

Written with humour and a flair for the unusual and authentic, the text is illustrated with original photos and local maps. It includes a unique guide to using the excellent local train network.

Italian Wines is the English-language version of Gambero Rosso’s Vini d’Italia, the world’s best-selling guide to Italian wine, now in its 38th edition. It is the result of a year’s work by over 60 tasters, coordinated by three curators. They travel around the entire country to taste 45,000 wines, only half of which make it into the guide. More than 2,500 producers are selected. Each entry brings together useful information about a winery, including a description of its most important labels and price levels in Italian wine shops. Each wine is evaluated according to the Gambero Rosso bicchieri rating, with Tre Bicchieri awarded to the top labels. The guide is an essential tool for both wine professionals and passionate amateurs around the globe: it provides the instruments for finding one’s way in the complex panorama of Italy’s wine world. 

Exclusive Cruises takes you into the world of the most beautiful and luxurious cruises worldwide. In this book, the experienced journalist and sailor’s daughter Kiki Baron presents 25 fascinating routes that take extraordinary ships around the globe – from the majestic ocean liners of the Cunard Line to the exclusive yachts of Explora. Each chapter offers detailed insights into the unique suites, luxurious amenities and special offers on board. All rounded off with exclusive tips on the best harbours to visit during the voyage – from the historic coastal cities of Europe to the exotic islands of the Pacific. Exclusive Cruises is not just an illustrated book, but a source of inspiration for anyone who wants to explore the world in an elegant way. Aimed at both experienced cruise lovers and those planning their first trip at sea, the book offers a wealth of information and inspiration for an unforgettable experience on the high seas.

How many newspapers and magazines do people throw out every day? How many unread masterpieces appear on your bookshelf? How many old exams and assignments are gathering dust in the attics of schools? For 50 years, the Belgian artist Denmark – the pseudonym of Marc Robbroeckx – has transformed tonnes of printed paper into art. He creates sculptures and installations using books, newspapers, and magazines. His main ingredient is always paper – cut, pressed, stacked, or folded. Since the early seventies, Denmark has been cutting up, dissecting, and (re)assembling books, magazines, and newspapers. His archive installations are a critical reaction to the overload of information we are confronted with daily, opposing the abundance of information, symbolised by the gigantic masses of discarded – and often unused – paper. These surplus newspapers, magazines, books, and archives are cut up, folded, glued, bound, pressed, sanded, and ground,… by the artist to create new visual archives, no longer for consulting but purely for viewing beauty as resistance to excess. ‘anarchives‘ provides a sober and in-depth overview of the artist’s many years of practice.

Text in English, French and Dutch.

“a well-written, well-referenced and well-illustrated book. It provides a valuable addition to the literature and our understanding of a previously little-researched facet of the industrial midlands” British Art Journal
“Cataloguers now have an impressive volume of new information to draw on when describing anything from a simple tea tray to those suites of papier mâché furniture which remain as impressive today as when they dazzled visitors at the great international exhibitions of the 19th century” Antiques Trade Gazette
As one of the few decorative arts about which little has been written, japanning is today fraught with misunderstandings. And yet, in its heyday, the japanning industry attracted important commissions from prestigious designers such as Robert Adam, and orders from fashionable society across Europe and beyond. This book is a long overdue history of the industry which centred on three towns in the English midlands: Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Bilston. It is as much about the workers, their skills, and the factories and workshops in which they laboured, as it is about the goods they made. It tells of matters of taste and criticism, and of how an industry which continued to rely so heavily upon hand labour in the machine age reached its natural end in the 1880s with a few factories lingering into the late 1930s. Richly illustrated, it includes photographs of mostly marked, or well-documented, examples of japanned tin and papier mâché against which readers may compare – and perhaps identify – unmarked specimens. Japanned Papier Mâché and Tinware draws predominantly upon contemporary sources: printed, manuscript and typescript documents, and, for the period leading up to the closure of the last factories in the 1930s, the author was able to draw on verbal accounts of eyewitnesses. With a chapter on japanners in London, other European centres, and in the United States, together with a directory of japan artists and decorators, this closely researched and comprehensive book is the reference work for collectors, dealers and enthusiasts alike. Contents: From Imitation to Innovation; Enter the Dragon!; The Lion of the District; Japanning & Decorating; Not a Bed of Roses!; Clever Accidents?; Decline of the Midlands Japanning Industry; The Birmingham Japanners; The Wolverhampton Japanners; The Bilston Japanners; Japanners in London and Oxford; Products; Other Western Japanning Centres; Appendices.

This is the story of the Reeves Collection of botanical paintings, the result of one man’s single-minded dedication to commissioning pictures and gathering plants for the Horticultural Society of London. Reeves went to China in 1812 and immediately on arrival started sending back snippets of information about manufactures, plants and poetry, goods, gods and tea to Sir Joseph Banks. Slightly later, he also started collecting for the Society but despite years of work collecting, labelling and packing plants and organising a team of Chinese artists until he left China in 1831, Reeves never enjoyed the same degree of recognition as other naturalists in China. This was possibly because he had a demanding job as a tea inspector. Reeves himself never claimed to be a professional naturalist and the plant collecting and painting supervision were undertaken in his own time. Furthermore, fan qui (foreign devils) were restricted to the port area of Canton and to Macau, so that plant-hunting expeditions further afield were impossible. Furthermore, Reeves never published an account of his life in the country, unlike Clarke Abel and Robert Fortune, but he left us some letters, notebooks, drawings and maps. The Collection is held at the Royal Horticultural Society’s Lindley Library in Vincent Square, London. It is a magnificent achievement. Not only are the pictures accurate and richly coloured plant portraits of plants then unknown in the West, but they stand as a record of plants being cultivated in nineteenth-century Canton and Macau. In John Reeves: Pioneering Collector of Chinese Plants and Botanical Art, Kate Bailey reveals John Reeves’ life as an East India Company tea inspector in nineteenth-century China and shows how he managed to collect and document thousands of Chinese natural history drawings, far more than anyone else at the time.

The Chapel of the Magi in Palazzo Medici-Riccardi is one of those places in Italy – there are a certain number of them, though not an enormous number – in which history and art combine to bear witness to the past in a way that is absolutely exceptional. In this case we are dealing with a period in the past that has been extraordinarily celebrated, studied and loved, so as to achieve an almost mythic status: the age of the Renaissance in Medicean Florence. Ten years after the conclusion of restoration work, Franco Cardini distils the essence of countless scholarly studies on the subject in this richly illustrated volume. His synthesis is completed by Lucia Ricciardi’s essay, full of useful information on the heraldic, symbolic and allegorical imagery related to the Medici family.