Leon Keer is the master of optical illusion. The ‘Dutch JR’ plays with perspectives and creates a whole new world. One in which Snow White is stuck under a door. Or a world in which you unexpectedly enter a seventies living room. This is his first monograph. He allows the reader an exclusive look into his world and imagination. How does he work? And how does a wild idea develop into a gigantic 3D artwork?

“…this book is a knockout” —Doug Stokes, LA Car

“A gorgeous coffee table book with excellent photography, this concentrates on the rarer and more exotic end of the spectrum and features beautiful pictures of each car.” —Auto Express

Ever heard of the Volkhart Sagitta? L’OEuf électrique, or the Stanley Steamer? If not, you are in for a beautiful surprise, 50 times over!

Often times the cars in this richly illustrated book were lost because the manufacturer ceased to exist, or because they were found on the bottom of Lake Maggiore after 75 years, like the Bugatti Brescia. Among the 50 beauties there are one-offs, concepts, trendsetters, and failures as well as cars of the rich and famous, from Marilyn Monroe to Clark Gable.

Text in English and German.

“A perfect storm! Spellbinding photo book by ‘the pope of bad weather photography’ shows the beauty of the world when the sun isn’t shining, from rainy Scotland to wintry New York.” — The Daily Mail
When a bad weather front piles up in front of a big city, Christophe Jacrot is certainly not far away. The French photographer specifically looks for rain and snow to capture his atmospheric snapshots. The bad weather conditions give the motifs special lighting conditions. Jacrot’s subjects could come from film noir, but they are deliberately in colour. For more than a decade, the name Christophe Jacrot has been associated with the photography of landscapes (urban or natural) determined by the weather. In his work, weather conditions are always extreme: the city is seen through a windowpane dripping with rain or a curtain of snow. His images capture the beauty of megacities transfigured by the weather with perfection and poetry. In his eyes, “there are two ways of photographing the world: capturing its horror or sublimating it”. In view of his nature photography, it quickly becomes clear which he prefers.

Text in English and German.

With the special magnifying glass that can be taken out from the cover, the children will have to find secret clues hidden in the pages of this clever book! Help the famous detective Sherldog Holmes to identify the super villain that has stolen the Big Diamond from the Museum! A chase along the city, in different settings (the subway, the research lab, the park…) to collect all the clues and find the guilty party. Passing the magic magnifying glass over the pages, the reader will find hidden clues to exclude one of the characters from the suspect lists: the games will help children to focus and to develop logic and visual skills. Ages: 4 plus

Born and bred New Yorker Jill Gill is equal parts artist and author, commentator and collector, a true inamorata of the ever-changing city. Since the mid-1950s, she has captured the buildings and streetscapes of the city (especially those about to be lost to urban renewal) in a series of more than 100 watercolour and ink paintings. The New York she portrays is one of classic movies, vintage postcards, and hand-painted wall advertisements.

The scenes in Site Lines: Lost New York, 1954–2022 extend from Midtown South, home of the artist from the mid-1940s to the mid-1960s, to the Upper East Side, where she and her family lived in a historic Rhinelander townhouse. Along the way she passes through Midtown, including storied Fifth Avenue and the Theater District, and the Upper West Side.

Her work includes buildings both important and unimportant that would otherwise have been lost to memory: the glorious Helen Hayes Theater, the Art Deco Horn & Hardart Automat on 57th Street, and blocks upon blocks of ordinary yet distinctive retail and commercial structures. In addition, Gill includes buildings that have themselves been quietly observing the changing city, often changing along with it: St. Bart’s, the Villard Houses, and MoMA before it “ate” 53rd Street. Each scene is accompanied by text that blends in-depth research with first-hand observation.

British Conceptual artist John Stezaker (b. 1949) is known for his distinctive, often deceptively simple, collages. He has been making art since the 1970s, but achieved prominence relatively recently.

In 2011, he had a retrospective at the Whitechapel Gallery, London, and, in 2012, he won the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize, even though he does not take photographs.

Stezaker says collage is about ‘stuff that has lost its immediate relationship with the world’ and involves ‘a yearning for a lost world’. A collector, he works from an archive of out-of-date images — mostly old film stills, vintage actor head shots, and antique postcards. These images come in standard sizes and are highly conventionalised — all variations on themes.

Art critic David Campany says, Stezaker ‘is drawn to that very slim space between convention and idiosyncrasy.’

In addition to collages, Lost World includes poignant found-object-sculptures: a selection of antique mannequin hands, offering a repertoire of gestures. There’s also a film, Crowd, presenting hundreds of film stills of crowd scenes, each for one frame only, in a bewildering blur.

Over 200 years ago, the Mauritshuis hosted not one, but two museums. On the upper floor was the Royal Cabinet of Paintings, while on the ground floor, thousands of objects of all kinds were on display in the Royal Cabinet of Rarities. This rarities cabinet closed in 1875 and the objects were distributed to various Dutch institutions. The temporary exhibition The Vanished Museum about this Royal Cabinet of Rarities is accompanied by a publication with essays by 30 experts, including curators of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and the Wereldmuseum in Leiden. In relatively short texts, the reader is taken through the rich and often complex history of the institution. The diverse topics and perspectives suit the motley nature of the collection. From a text about an unusual ivory Chinese puzzle ball, to a reflection on the formation of cultural stereotypes; from a kayak on the ceiling, to a hat that turns out not to belong to Willem van Oranje after all.

To many the words Hill Station are evocative of an exotic and exciting vision when the subjects of the British Colonial Government gloried in the Hill Stations of India and Burma. Beautifully constructed holiday towns built at 3,000 feet or more where people flocked to escape the heats of the plains. High up the Shan hills of east Burma stood Maymyo. This book tells the stories of the people for whom Maymyo really was a heaven ‘lost on the clouds’.

“Now Aftel has created this beautiful book, illustrated with treasures from her museum’s collection, so that readers at home can immerse themselves in the world of scent.” — 7 x 7
“Aftel, … explores the natural and cultural history of scent in her newest book, The Museum of Scent.”— Veranda
“A beautiful book about beautiful things, with a fascinating narrative told by an author who loves her subject.”— Kirkus Reviews
“It is so rich in story, information, and images, you don’t just read it, you fall into it and don’t want it to end!” — Ivy Ross, co-author of New York Times bestseller Your Brain on Art and VP of Hardware Design at Google

“…just leafing through Aftel’s stunning compilation of olfactory magic is like being gifted a book of secrets.” — Smithsonian
Breathe in the natural and cultural history of scent with this richly illustrated book inspired by the Aftel Archive of Curious Scents.

“This work . . . is a true original ― a rarest of rare legacy volume. This book was created by a beautiful elder who is a polymath: meaning, a highly unique person of multiple modern and old ways of knowing. . . . Mandy Aftel’s dons and talents are now resting in your hands in this magical tome that, I deeply sense and hope, will bless you time and again.” ― From the foreword by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés Reyés, author of Women Who Run with the Wolves and the forthcoming La Curandera, Walking in Two Worlds

Mandy Aftel is one of the world’s preeminent natural perfumers, with a clientele ranging from the singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen to Ivy Ross, head of hardware design at Google. Eschewing the synthetic molecules that dominate commercial perfumes, Aftel creates her complex and subtle fragrances using only natural essences. For her, each of these essences is a gateway to a lost world of scent, stretching back to the beginnings of human civilization and intertwined with the history of medicine, cuisine, adornment, sexuality, and spirituality. In 2017, Aftel opened a one-room museum ― the Aftel Archive of Curious Scents ― in her backyard in Berkeley, California, to help a modern audience rediscover the enchantment of this lost world. Her museum has attracted thousands of enthusiastic visitors and has been featured in the New York Times, Vogue, Goop, O: The Oprah Magazine, and numerous other media outlets.

Now Aftel has created this beautiful book, illustrated with treasures from her museum’s collection, so that readers at home can immerse themselves in the world of scent. She guides us through the different families of botanical fragrances (including flowers, woods, leaves and grasses, and resins), depicting each plant with a hand-colored antique woodcut and revealing its olfactory notes and lore. Special chapters are devoted to the most rare and precious fragrances ― such as ambergris, formed of a rare secretion of the sperm whale ― and to antique essential oil bottles, handwritten recipe books, and other evocative artifacts. The Museum of Scent, which includes a bookmark subtly scented with a natural essence, invites us on a sensuous, imaginative journey.

The Ashmolean’s collection of European stringed instruments is not large but it is very famous. Several of the instruments in the Ashmolean are among the rarest and most beautiful of their kind and most are, in some way, exceptional. The collection was founded on a group of instruments which was given to the museum by the firm of W.E. Hill & Sons in 1939 and has since been increased by two bequests and by an important group of bows and instruments given by Albert Cooper in 1999. The firm of W.E. Hill & Sons was founded in 1880 and by the early 20th century the firm had achieved an unrivalled reputation in making, restoring, and selling stringed instruments.In the course of handling and repairing instruments, the Hills became increasingly aware of the damage that was being inflicted on early viols and violins by constant playing and repeated restoration. This concern gave rise to the idea of donating a select group of rare instruments to a museum where they would be preserved from further harm, and the first instruments were handed over in 1939. The present handbook discusses and illustrates every stringed instrument in the collection and is chiefly intended for the many visitors to the Hill Collection and for the wider public who might wish for more information about the instruments and some background history.

Since the practical invention of photography in the 1840s, Scotland has been at the centre of the history and development of the medium. The Scottish National Portrait Gallery – which houses the Scottish National Photography Collection – and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, hold outstanding collections of photographic art spanning three centuries. Included are figures such as D.O. Hill and Robert Adamson, Julia Margaret Cameron, Thomas Annan, Alfred Stieglitz, Robert Capa, Bill Brandt, Annie Leibovitz and Andreas Gursky. This book offers a detailed guide to the collections as well as an accessible and informative introduction to photography. This revised edition includes recently commissioned photography and significant new acquisitions, with works by Diane Arbus, Cindy Sherman and Robert Mapplethorpe.

You might think of pyramids as old, but this book is about news! After his successful Netflix documentary Unknown: The Lost Pyramid, Zahi Hawass (the most famous Egyptologist in the world), updates us on the newest discoveries relating to the pyramids! Each chapter includes maps, floor plans, reconstructions, and specially commissioned photographs, accompanied by insights from a major archaeologist and researcher capable of an account so rich it makes history come alive!

This book throws new light on the world that existed around the pyramids, on the lives of the workers who built them, and on the court dignitaries who were granted the privilege of burial place near that of their king. Dive in!

Passing Through is a book concerned with nature, and our transient connection to it. Consequently, the human figure is seen only occasionally and rather vague, like something from the imagination or a memory. Nigel Grierson’s visual journey through the seasons, treads a fine line between reality and fiction, in his search for abstraction and spirituality:

“As adults, in search of sophistication, and jaded by the rigours of work, it’s easy to lose the natural sense of wonder, and to take for granted the things that fascinated us so much as children. For Rudolph Steiner, the most direct route to spirituality for the adult, involves finding the inner child via the occupation of playing. For me, spirituality lies in nature, in its myriad of forms and colours, and in the elements; earth’s chaotic beauty. On a personal level this book represents a journey; a return to childhood, exploring woodlands, playing in the dirt, finding little treasures and taking something home as a souvenir; the photograph.

I once heard it said that spirits are in fact traces or energies left behind when beings repeat the same actions over and over on the same pathways. Perhaps that is why we can sometimes hear voices in the woods, even after the people have long gone.”

Robin Grierson’s photography book, Steam Rally is published by Lost Press and has an introduction by the esteemed journalist and author, Ian Jack. It consists of 72 high quality colour photographs that explore steam rallies in England over the past 30 years. The images record the engine men, their restored traction engines, and the lively steam heritage scene, which draws thousands to its events around the country every summer.

Having grown up around his father’s bus garage in County Durham and spent much of his formative years tinkering with engines, Grierson found himself instinctively drawn to the steam people and their beloved vintage machines. This collection of thoughtfully composed images, include respectful portraits, close up details of people and their machines, and wider views of the steam rally within the rural landscape. Grierson pays particular attention to the work-worn textures, stained surfaces, and subtle colours of the working steam environment.
“The genuine tone of this work derives undoubtedly from the photographer’s long acquaintance with tough working men and the tools and sounds of busy engineering yard’s” – Ag magazine  

The journey that The Beatles made to India in 1968 caused an enormous stir in the international media and was fundamental in spreading a certain interest for the East that influenced music, literature, cinema, fashion and customs at the close of that decade. The title, Nothing Is Real, is a famous lyric in The Beatles’ song Strawberry Fields Forever, inviting people to search beyond appearances with a spiritual and metaphysical tension. The book invokes that extraordinary moment through reports from the period, historical photographs, artworks by international artists such as Ettore Sottsass, Alighiero Boetti, Francesco Clemente, Luigi Ontani, Aldo Mondino and Julian Schnabel, as well as through album, book and magazine covers..

This notecard set, Fruit: Selections from the USDA Pomological Watercolor Collection, reproduces 16 individual watercolours — including an apple, an avocado, an orange, and a strawberry. These vibrant and lifelike watercolours were commissioned by the US Department of Agriculture as a national register of fruits, featuring varieties from the United States and around the world.

This scrumptious notecard set comes housed in a presentation-quality box.

The story of Ladurée started in 1862 when Louis Ernest Ladurée opened a bakery in the heart of Paris at 16 rue Royale. In 1872, following a fire, the little bakery became a pastry shop and the decoration was then done by Jules Cheret, a famous painter and poster-designer of the time. Jeanne Souchard, Ernest Ladurée’s wife, then had the idea of combining the Parisian café with a pastry-shop, thereby creating one of Paris’ first tea-rooms. 

In 1993 Ladurée was bought by Francis and David Holder and becomes one of the best-known gourmet addresses in Paris, a veritable institution with its famous “macaron” as its emblem. In 1997 Ladurée opened a tea-room/restaurant on the prestigious Champs-Elysées, followed by another in the Printemps department store and on the Left Bank as well as the beginning of their international adventure with branches in London, Geneva, Monaco and Tokyo.

In this book Philippe Andrieu, the Pastry Chef at Ladurée, reveals 100 of the most famous Ladurée recipes, adapted for the general public. From the Strawberry Cake with Rose Choux Pastry to Pistachio Financiers and the world-famous macarons in all their variety, this icon of French “art de vivre” is brought to life in a palette of pastries the colour of powder pink, light green, bright purple, and lemon yellow.

The idea behind the boardbook collection was to attract even the youngest readers (from as young as 3 years old); to encourage them to discover subjects and areas that interest them (nature, animals, shapes, etc.) and to help them classify the things that surround them. The series is comprised of ten little books. Two are instructive, teaching shapes and numbers; five are exploratory and describe settings that are fun to discover (farm animals, wild animals, the backyard and its insects, the vegetable garden) and three are short stories about the experience of birth in nature (the birth of a little bird, of a butterfly and of a flower). Narration becomes the background for the text since touching and picture reading are the primary means of interpretation. A guiding character accompanies the child throughout each developing story until the end, where there is a summary of all the characters introduced in the book. Consistent with the Montessori approach, the child is encouraged to interact independently with his or her book. For example, in some cases, the child is asked to use a finger to trace the outline of a shape and notice its characteristics (round, sharp-edged, jagged, etc.). In others, he or she is asked to use a finger to follow a path in order to discover hidden characters and learn to associate them with their most distinctive features (the lion’s tail, the rabbit’s ears, the colours of vegetables, etc.). Ages: 3 plus

A delicious dessert is the perfect sweet ending to a meal – and no one knows how to create those treats like the Italians. With the help of these recipes, step-by-step photographs, and clear instructions from culinary magazine Alice Cucina, it’s easy to create delicacies for every occasion, from breakfast pastries to yummy snacks to birthday and holiday cakes. You’ll learn all the basics, including how to prepare puff pastry, shortbread, and brioche, before exploring classics like Wine and Anise Donuts, Blackberry Cheesecake, and Tiramisu with Mascarpone and Espresso; smaller bites such as Cream Puffs (Bigne) with Chocolate Mousseline and Coconut and Almond Cakes with Strawberry Compote; and beautifully plated dishes, including a Coconut and Mango Chiffon Cake, a Pavlova with Rose Cream and Plum, and a Semifreddo Truffle with Cocoa and Hazelnuts.

Alice Cucina, on newsstands since 2009, is Italy’s leading monthly culinary magazine. In addition to the monthly editions, it publishes a supplement I Colori Della Cucina (the Colors of the Kitchen) and the themed, bimonthly I Quaderni Di Alice (Alice’s Notebooks). November 2017 saw the launch of Facile Cucina (Easy Cooking), a new magazine targeting a wider group of home cooks with its easier, quicker approach.

New York reduced to a miniature city? In New York Resized, photographer Jasper Léonard offers you a completely new perspective on The Big Apple. His Tilt-Shift technique creates a dazzling bird’s-eye perspective. Taking pictures from rooftops, helicopters or even drones, Léonard points his lens at the skyscrapers and yellow cabs from above, transforming the city into a swirling ant-hill of miniature people. His images are accompanied by the best quotes about New York, and his unique style guarantees that this is the most original photobook about New York that you will ever see. Praise for Antwerp Resized: “What started as a dissertation with homemade lenses has resulted in a surprising photo book” – Gazet van Antwerpen (newspaper) – “Thanks to his special tilt-shift lenses the photographer creates the illusion you are watching miniature sculptures. Not people but puppets. Not buildings but maquettes” – De Morgen (newspaper) Facebook: Jasper Leonard Photography Twitter: @jasperleonard Instagram: jasper.leonard www.jasperleonard.be Also available: Belgium Resized ISBN 9789401434614 Antwerp Resized ISBN 9789401432702

The Ruskin Society Book of The Year. Who was John Ruskin? What did he achieve – and how? Where is he today? One possible answer: almost everywhere. John Ruskin was the Victorian age’s best-known and most controversial intellectual. He was an art critic, a social activist, an early environmentalist; he was also a painter, writer, and a determined tastemaker in the fields of architecture and design. His ideas, which poured from his pen in the second half of the 19th century, sowed the seeds of the modern welfare state, universal state education and healthcare free at the point of delivery. His acute appreciation of natural beauty underpinned the National Trust, while his sensitivity to environmental change, decades before it was considered other than a local phenomenon, fuelled the modern green movement. His violent critique of free market economics, Unto This Last, has a claim to be the most influential political pamphlet ever written. Ruskin laid into the smug champions of Victorian capitalism, prefigured the current debate about inequality, executive pay, ethical business and automation. Gandhi is just one of the many whose lives were changed radically by reading Ruskin, and who went on to change the world. This book, timed to coincide with the 200th anniversary of John Ruskin’s birth in 2019, will retrace Ruskin’s steps, telling his life story and visiting the places and talking to the people who – perhaps unknowingly – were influenced by Ruskin himself or by his profoundly important ideas. What, if anything, do they know about him? How is what they do or think linked to the vivid, difficult but often prophetic pronouncements he made about the way our modern world should look, live, work and think? As important, where – and why – have his ideas been swept away or displaced, sometimes by buildings, developments and practices that Ruskin himself would have abhorred? Part travelogue, part quest, part unconventional biography, this book will attempt to map Ruskinland: a place where, two centuries after John Ruskin’s birth, more of us live than we know.