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Arts & Culture

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Voter turnout is in steep decline. Public policy debates grow ever-more uncivil. Even mainstays of civic life like the PTA struggle to maintain members. So is good citizenship dead? Michael Schudson, a professor of sociology at the University of California in San Diego, doesn’t think so. In The Good Citizen, a history of three centuries of American civic life, Schudson argues essentially that practices of citizenship have changed and evolved as the American political system has changed and evolved.

According to Schudson, we have passed through three distinct eras of civic life and have now entered a fourth. Each era has formulated its own model of citizenship, with its own unique virtues and shortcomings. All of these past models continue to influence our thinking and behavior. The cherished ideal of the informed citizen, for example, is a still-powerful vestige of the progressive era of the last century.

But, as Schudson convincingly points out, none of these earlier models is adequate for our present era, a period defined by a profound revolution in rights, with politics permeating virtually every aspect of life. So Schudson proposes a model he calls the monitorial citizen. Such citizens, he says, are like parents watching their children at the community pool, seemingly inactive but poised for action if action is required. Citizenship of this sort may be for many people much less intense than in the era of parties, but citizenship is now a year-round, day-long activity, as it was only rarely in the past. This is a fascinating, if somewhat academic, argument. It certainly merits wider thought and discussion. But readers can strongly disagree with Schudson’s analysis or simply ignore it and still find The Good Citizen an interesting read.

Like all good histories, The Good Citizen forcefully reminds us that what seems chiseled in stone today was often a matter of contentious debate in an earlier time. For example, strong political parties are seen today as one of America’s chief contributions to the democratic process; but parties and factions were loathed and feared by the Founding Fathers. We often point to the Lincoln-Douglas debates as a high point in our political discourse; but as Schudson slyly points out, these debates had no effect on the election (since U.S. Senators were selected by state legislators at the time).

Schudson weaves these and other equally interesting observations together to make another important point: there has never been a Golden Age of good citizenship before which our own age pales. As Schudson says, citizenship has not disappeared. It has not even declined. It has, inevitably, changed. That’s good news.

Alden Mudge is a writer in Oakland, California, and a frequent contributor to BookPage.

Voter turnout is in steep decline. Public policy debates grow ever-more uncivil. Even mainstays of civic life like the PTA struggle to maintain members. So is good citizenship dead? Michael Schudson, a professor of sociology at the University of California in San Diego, doesn't think…

LiteratureArts & Culture

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Our foremost literary critic, Harold Bloom, is known for his influential and often controversial views, whether the subject is his theory of poetic influence or which authors and their works should comprise the Western canon. To distinguish his approach from the writings of other critics, several years ago Bloom wrote, I increasingly feel that criticism must be personal, must be experiential, must take the whole concern of men and women, including all its torments, very much into account, must offer a kind of testimony . . . [the great critics] remember always that high literature is written by suffering human beings and not by language, and is read by suffering human beings. Where do we get our present day understanding of what it is to be human? In his exhilarating new book, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, Bloom illuminates our understanding of the human, or human nature, or personality as we understand those terms in a secular sense. What Shakespeare invents is ways of representing human changes, alterations not only caused by flaws and by decay, but effected by the will as well, and by the will’s temporal vulnerabilities. Bloom notes that the representation of human character and personality remain always the supreme literary value. And Shakespeare did it better than anyone else. The work of Chaucer and others influenced him, but if we compare Shakespeare’s work with writers both before or contemporary with him, his understanding of the human experience far exceeds that of everyone else. He demonstrates this through many characters but, in particular, Falstaff and Hamlet are the invention of the human, the inauguration of personality as we have come to recognize it. For Bloom, Shakespeare went beyond psychologizing us. He extensively informs the language we speak, his principle characters have become our mythology, and he, rather than his involuntary follower Freud, is our psychologist. Bloom describes his book as a personal statement, the result of a lifetime of involvement with Shakespeare’s work. He guides us through each of the 39 plays, 24 of which he regards as masterpieces, in approximate chronological order as they were written and performed. The result is a dazzling performance by a major teacher. Passionate about his subject, immensely learned, strongly opinionated, he conveys a lot of information and provides provocative commentary in a most engaging way. There are generous passages from the plays, some quite well known, others not.

This extraordinary volume will be a treasured companion for anyone who enjoys the plays of Shakespeare.

Roger Bishop is a monthly contributor to BookPage.

Our foremost literary critic, Harold Bloom, is known for his influential and often controversial views, whether the subject is his theory of poetic influence or which authors and their works should comprise the Western canon. To distinguish his approach from the writings of other critics,…

NonfictionPop CultureArts & Culture

Pop culture panorama

Feature by Jessica Wakeman

There’s nothing more exciting than standing among a throng of strangers listening to live music or watching the lights go down in a movie theater when the show is about to begin. But these six books certainly come close.

The Art of Bob Mackie

Bob Mackie is a member of a very small club: Hollywood costume designers whom regular folks (meaning, not ex-theater kids) know by name. Throughout his storied career, Mackie has designed gowns for Marilyn Monroe, Carol Burnett, Cher, Barbra Streisand, Diana Ross, Madonna and, well, anybody who was anybody on TV, the silver screen or Broadway. The Art of Bob Mackie by Frank Vlastnik and Laura Ross is an authorized trip down memory lane, featuring brightly colored sketches and photos of over-the-top creations from Mackie’s 60 years in fashion, from his big break designing for Broadway star Mitzi Gaynor in 1966 to his costumes for The Cher Show, the 2018 jukebox musical based on the actress and singer’s career. Fans of “lewks,”divasand Hollywood gossip will have lots to enjoy. 

The Motherlode

Hip-hop has never been a man’s game, but male rappers have gotten more attention, money and respect since the beginning. Former Vibe and Jezebel editor Clover Hope sets things straight with The Motherlode, an encyclopedia dedicated to the women of hip-hop. Going all the way back to the 1980s, Hope leaves no woman out, from MC Sha-Rock (hip-hop’s first prominent female emcee) to Cardi B. Each rapper is honored with an essay, a minibio and funky artwork by Rachelle Baker, meaning your giftee has no excuse not to kill at a Women in Hip-Hop category on “Jeopardy!” Present this book with your own playlist of hip-hop’s fiercest ladies, and it’ll be a gift to remember.  

Colorization 

Journalist Wil Haygood’s Colorization traces the experience of Black artists on and behind the screen through 100 years of film history, demonstrating that racism hasn’t always been this bad in Hollywood. It’s actually been a lot worse. This meaty analysis of Black film history spans everything from The Birth of a Nation (1915), which glorified the Ku Klux Klan, to Gone With the Wind (1939) and its infamous whitewashing of slavery, to Get Out (2017) and its memorable portrayal of “post-racial” liberalism. Haygood has been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, and his research skills are as impeccable as that honor implies. He is also such a descriptive writer that you need not have seen every single movie he writes about in order to understand his analysis. Don’t be surprised if Colorization ends up on film studies syllabi for years to come.  

Art Boozel

We could all stand to freshen up our cocktail repertoire, and that’s where Art Boozel comes in. The book pairs dozens of artists with cocktails based on their work and/or personalities. For example, the Keith Haring is made with pear cider, lemon juice and a brandied cherry (among other ingredients), so it’s as bright and colorful as Haring’s art. Author Jennifer Croll has an endlessly creative mind for unique cocktails (her previous book, Free the Tipple, is also a compendium of cocktail recipes), and each artist and their drink is delightfully illustrated by Kelly Shami. Come for the recipes, stay for the contemporary art history lesson you never got in school. 

Mental Floss: The Curious Viewer

Mental Floss: The Curious Viewer, “a miscellany of bingeable streaming TV shows from the past 20 years,” is a reminder of just how many hours of prestige TV there is to watch. (There’s a lot.) Jennifer M. Wood, an editor at the pop culture blog Mental Floss, unearths everything you ever wanted to know about beloved shows like “Friends,” “Sex and the City,” “Downton Abbey,” “Friday Night Lights” and other shows worthy of a binge-watch. She shares fun facts and behind-the-scenes gossip from each show but somehow doesn’t make you feel like you’ve read them all in a Buzzfeed article. The Curious Viewer might just be the book that pulls the couch potato in your life away from the TV (and helps them dominate at trivia night). 

Fun City Cinema

At a certain point, everyone who lives in New York City stops seeing movie sets as exciting and instead sees them as a nuisance. That’s because the streets of Gotham have graced so many films. In Fun City Cinema, film critic and former film editor of Flavorwire Jason Bailey revisits the films that tell the story of NYC’s history and, in some cases, America’s history. The city changes so frequently that many films are “fascinating artifacts of cinematic archeology,” he writes in his introduction. It may be jarring to see photos of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and controversial ex-mayors such as Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg in the same book as, say, The Muppets Take Manhattan. Alas, these are contradictions New Yorkers live with every day. 

Got a film fanatic or art aficionado in your life? Give them one of these books and watch their eyes light up.
LiteratureArts & Culture

Review

Review by bookpagedev

If you love books, you will love Literature Lover’s Book of Lists: Serious Trivia for the Bibliophile.

Judie L.H. Strouf has assembled a Brobdingnagian collection of all things literary and presented in the end-of-century format that is now so popular lists! It has serious lists to focus your reading, and it has whimsical lists to shake and stir a reader’s head.

A reference volume for bibliophiles, for teachers, for parents, this volume guides the user to best books in many fields of interest, in a format for browsing.

Literature Lover’s Book of Lists can guide your lifetime reading plan in a helpful, enjoyable, readable way.

If you love books, you will love Literature Lover's Book of Lists: Serious Trivia for the Bibliophile.

Judie L.H. Strouf has assembled a Brobdingnagian collection of all things literary and presented in the end-of-century format that is now so popular lists! It…

FilmArts & Culture

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Video Hound’s somewhat irreverent slant offers more than your average famous reviewer guide. There are 23,000-plus movies herein, rated on a one-to-four bone scale; particularly heinous movies earn a woof. What sets this massive volume apart, though, is its use of lists. You can locate films according to your favorite stars (John Wayne, 139 listings; Leonardo DiCaprio, 10), or a broad range of categories, such as firemen or lovable losers. Or see how prolific your favorite director, writer, cinematographer, even composer, has been. Video Hound’s Golden Movie Retriever 1999, edited by Martin Connors and Jim Craddock, also contains an elaborate awards section, including the Golden Raspberry for the worst in filmdom. And there’s an extensive listing of Web sites for us internuts. One small down note: Golden Movie Retriever’s format can present some minor confusion. The reviews refer to the performers by their surnames; the full names are listed following each write-up. But that’s just a small flea on this otherwise user-friendly Video Hound, a welcome gift under any cinemafile’s holiday tree.

Video Hound's somewhat irreverent slant offers more than your average famous reviewer guide. There are 23,000-plus movies herein, rated on a one-to-four bone scale; particularly heinous movies earn a woof. What sets this massive volume apart, though, is its use of lists. You can locate…

NonfictionLiteratureArts & Culture

Everything and Less

Review by Robert Weibezahl

There is little question that Amazon has radically changed publishing—in both the way readers read and writers deliver their work. But has Amazon’s digital platform changed literature itself? Stanford professor Mark McGurl believes it has. His probing new book, Everything and Less, offers an intriguing examination of Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) as a tentacle of the larger megabeast that is Amazon and how the digital platform has been shaped by the business ethos of the Everything Store.

An award-winning literary critic scrutinizes how the novel may be forever changed by the age of Amazon.

Amazon, of course, started as an online bookstore, and while it’s now responsible for more than half of all book sales, those sales are a shrinking piece of the company’s ever-expanding pie of profits. But with KDP, which McGurl is careful to label as a platform rather than a publisher, the company has “partnered” with hundreds of thousands of writers, further increasing its stranglehold on the reading public.

Unlike a traditionally published writer, those who self-publish on KDP need to be entrepreneurs as much as, or perhaps even more than, artists. Their work, at least as assessed by Amazon, is a product. Readers are customers. The same principles that make customers click on a suggested product have been transferred to the selling of digital books. The result is a proliferation of series and a tilt toward genre fiction, which best accommodates serial storytelling. Literary fiction, McGurl finds, is not the bailiwick of the successful KDP writer-entrepreneur. Indeed, nowadays, the saga-inspired territory once confined to the fantasy and science fiction genres has taken root in unlikely places, especially romance novels and their kinkier erotica siblings. (One of McGurl’s most engaging sections looks at Fifty Shades of Grey and its seemingly millions of KDP imitators as heirs to the marriage plot novels of Jane Austen and Henry James.)

McGurl delivers the occasional sharp quip, but overall he is evenhanded in his assessment of the unimaginable amount of self-published KDP “product” he presumably had to slog through to write this book. He equitably includes examples of the reverse flow of KDP’s influence, as well, as when “serious” writers such as Colson Whitehead and Viet Thanh Nguyen infuse their work with genre tropes.

But the book is descriptive rather than prescriptive. It neither predicts nor condemns the future. The scholarly McGurl does not always wear his erudition lightly, and portions of the book require some heavy lifting on the part of the general reader. Still, Everything and Less will speak to those who submerge themselves—whether as writers or readers, entrepreneurs or customers—into the KDP landscape, while offering much to think about, a fair bit of it dire, for those who cherish traditional publishing and still place some value in the role that gatekeepers have long played in the book industry.

An award-winning literary critic scrutinizes how the novel may be forever changed by the age of Amazon.
Arts & CultureArt

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Renaissance man Todd Siler has written Think Like a Genius: The Ultimate User’s Manual for Your Brain. Siler, the first visual artist to receive his doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, approaches thinking in the form of metaphorming, which involves looking at things in a variety of comparable perspectives. Siler’s metaphorming technique complements his interdisciplinary work and ideas. Think provides a few sketched illustrations, an occasional cartoon, and a wealth of insight — you may want to “think” about buying this one for yourself!

Renaissance man Todd Siler has written Think Like a Genius: The Ultimate User's Manual for Your Brain. Siler, the first visual artist to receive his doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, approaches thinking in the form of metaphorming, which involves looking at things in…
LiteratureArts & Culture

Behind the Book: Becca’s brownie

Behind the Book by Jacques Steinberg

For the first few months that I knew her, Becca Jannol existed merely as a stack of paper to me. I met her in the winter of 2000, when hers was one of nearly 7,000 applications for admission to the Class of 2004 at Wesleyan University, an excruciatingly selective liberal arts college in central Connecticut. The previous fall, Wesleyan had agreed to grant me an extraordinary opportunity: a close-up look at how a college with 10 times as many applicants as seats in its incoming class made the hard choices necessary to whittle down such a list.

I had approached Wesleyan in my capacity as a national education correspondent at <I>The New York Times</I> and was permitted by the university to read the applicants’ files and eavesdrop as their cases were debated. The only restrictions were that I not refer to the applicants by name in my articles or seek to talk to them, at least until they had received word from Wesleyan on whether they had been accepted, rejected or put on the waiting list. No one, certainly not me, wanted to telegraph a decision to an applicant prematurely via the front page of <I>The New York Times.</I> But when it came to Becca, a 17-year-old senior at the elite Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles, the details would be impossible to mask. Her essay was about being suspended during her sophomore year for accepting a brownie, laced with marijuana, from a fellow student.

As the admissions season was winding down in March 2000, Becca’s was one of the 400 applications that the admissions officers considered too close to call so much so that it was debated by the full 10-member committee, with the vote of the majority deemed to be binding. Though she had more A’s than B’s and had recovered from her suspension to be elected chair of the honor board, her SATs (in the high 1,200s) were low by Wesleyan standards. Nonetheless, it was the brownie that dominated much of the discussion.

Ralph Figueroa, a veteran admissions officer (and former lawyer) from Los Angeles who had met Becca, championed her case by saying she had been the only student, among the two dozen who had accepted the brownie, to turn herself in. But some of Ralph’s colleagues were skeptical. She may have turned <I>herself</I> in,” one officer said. But she didn’t turn in the brownie.” I knew as I listened to this debate that I wanted to write about it in the <I>Times</I>, not least because it showed how a momentary brush with drugs, even if owned up to in one’s essay, could taint an applicant. Never mind that some of the people in that room had no doubt sampled a pot brownie at Becca’s age, if not something stronger.

My dilemma was this: Even without her name or that of her school in the newspaper, Becca would surely recognize herself in this dialogue, as would many of her classmates. After the committee had decided Becca’s fate (which I’ll leave unspoken here, to preserve the suspense for those wishing to read about her in my new book, <B>The Gatekeepers: Inside the Admissions Process of a Premier College</B>) I let Wesleyan know that I was interested in her. I had not told anyone previously because I had not wanted to influence the decision, which was now final. It was decided by Wesleyan that Becca’s guidance counselor should be called, to relay the decision a few days early (this was not uncommon) and to give Becca a heads-up of the <I>Times'</I> plans. Her response was immediate.

“Not to hurt the feelings of <I>The New York Times</I>,” she reportedly said, “but I don’t know anyone at my school who reads it. They can write whatever they want about me.” I was far more relieved than hurt.

After Viking agreed to expand my series into a book, I knew I wanted to tell Becca’s story at length. Indeed, she was one of six especially compelling applicants each representing a different aspect of the admissions process whose files had crossed the desk of Ralph, my main character, as I looked over his shoulder that year.

Now it was Viking’s turn to be anxious. I was insistent that each of the applicants profiled in the book be referred to by name, which meant that I would be seeking Becca’s permission effectively to  “out” her first experience with drugs, however fleeting it was, in a work of narrative nonfiction. I felt that telling Becca’s story was so central to what I wanted to accomplish that, during the summer after she graduated from high school, I sent her a free plane ticket from Los Angeles to New York City, where I live and work. Her mother, who had been trained as a teacher, agreed to tag along, as suspicious of my intentions as Becca surely was.

When we finally met, over breakfast at a Midtown restaurant, Becca’s answer to my request was immediate: She wanted to tell her story as much as I did. She was proud of all she had learned from her experience with the brownie and still bruised by the way her application had been received by some of the admissions officers at Wesleyan, and elsewhere. We would spend the next six hours of that day on a bench and a boulder in Central Park, as Becca—who was both shorter (barely over five feet tall) and sunnier than in my mind’s eye—spoke, and I took notes. Like the five other applicants to Wesleyan profiled in the book, Becca came to trust me with the most intimate details of her life.

In the end, the process of getting to know her which had begun with a sheaf of papers containing her SAT scores, grade point average and essay came full circle, when Becca gave me unfettered access to her most guarded possession, the pages of her journal. She had saved everything she wrote during high school, including the entry from that fateful day in October when she took a few bites of that brownie, something she had attempted neither before or since, she assured me. Any teenager or anyone who had ever been a teenager or the parent of one could surely relate to the internal turmoil she had somehow captured on paper that day.

“How painful could it have been to just say no, or stop?” she wrote. The scariest part is that I thought I knew myself. I’m not who I thought I was. I should accept that I am not a leader.” Everyone wants to know, Why, Becca why?” she added. I don’t know.”

<I>A staff reporter for</I> The New York Times <I>for more than a decade, Jacques Steinberg is now the paper’s national education correspondent. Winner of the 1998 Education Writers Association grand prize, he lives in New York.</I> The Gatekeepers <I>is his first book.</I>

 

For the first few months that I knew her, Becca Jannol existed merely as a stack of paper to me. I met her in the winter of 2000, when hers was one of nearly 7,000 applications for admission to the Class of 2004 at Wesleyan…
NonfictionLiteratureArts & Culture

Giving youth the cold shoulder

Behind the Book by Rebecca Smith

Last night my 19-year-old daughter’s friends were here for “prinks” (pre-going out drinks, much cheaper than buying them in a club). They all looked gorgeous. My daughter was in shorts and, I’m pleased to say, flat shoes. I can’t help but worry. They were all showing a lot of shoulder. The cold shoulder trend is really big in England at the moment.

 “Are you going to be ok, mum, all by yourself on Saturday night?” my daughter asked. Neither of my sons was home. One has just graduated and found a job in London. My little one (16 and just over six foot tall) was staying over at a friend’s, and my husband had already left to sing in a local pub, something he does a few times each week. I only go if I really feel like it.

Was I going to be ok, home alone on Saturday night?

“Of course,” I said, automatically.

After I’d waved them off I sat in the garden with my two cats. The chickens were already thinking about going to bed. I wondered if I minded that I wasn’t the one with something to do. I like going out, but the thought of exposing whichever body part is currently deemed the most important fills me with horror. It comforts me to know that once, my ancestor Jane Austen felt the same. She loved dancing and flirting when she was young, but settled happily into the life of the middle-aged writer.

We live in Southampton, England, where Jane Austen once lived. My 21st birthday party was at The Dolphin Hotel, where Jane Austen celebrated her 18th birthday. After a ball there in December 1808, Jane wrote to her sister, Cassandra:

“Our ball was rather more amusing than I expected. . . . The melancholy part was, to see so many dozen young women standing by without partners, and each of them with two ugly naked shoulders! It was the same room in which we danced fifteen years ago! I thought it all over, and in spite of the shame of being so much older, felt with thankfulness that I was quite as happy now as then.”

Here’s proof that fashions come round again and again: naked shoulders were de rigueur 208 years ago.

My favorite night out now is a trip to the theatre with my best friend, Alison. At the same ball where she pitied the girls with the naked shoulders, Jane said that she and her best friend Martha Lloyd “paid an additional shilling for our tea, which we took as we chose in an adjoining and very comfortable room.” Alison and I would find comfort in doing the same; it’s so much nicer to go out with a good friend than to be searching for The One. As Jane Austen wrote in November 1813:

“By the bye, as I must leave off being young, I find many Douceurs [sweet compensations] in being a sort of chaperon, for I am put on the Sofa near the Fire & can drink as much wine as I like.”

So the writer of the world’s favorite love stories was quite happy to sit things out, drinking as much as she liked, while her nieces got all the attention. There is such pleasure in not caring about being the belle of the ball and in being able to just please yourself.

“The writer of the world’s favorite love stories was quite happy to sit things out, drinking as much as she liked, while her nieces got all the attention.”

I love going to museums and galleries and shopping by myself, able to go as quickly or slowly as I want without having to worry if somebody else is bored or wants to take ages looking at things that don’t interest me. When you have children or are in charge of somebody else’s (as Jane Austen often was) trips out involve constant awareness of their needs. Now that my children are older, I love doing things alone. The bliss of not struggling with a stroller and having to bring all that stuff!

Earlier in the week I was at the Jane Austen House Museum. I’ve been there countless times, but will never tire of the magical house and ever-changing garden. I spent a happy few hours, only looking at my watch occasionally to check I wouldn’t be late to meet my son after his first day at college in Winchester, a few miles away. I’m a feeble non-driver, too busy looking out of windows, I guess, to ever pass my driving test. As I rode away from the Museum on the bus, I thought of Jane Austen visiting London in summer 1813 and looking for likenesses of Mrs Elizabeth Darcy and Mrs Jane Bingley among the portraits. She didn’t have to take a bus, but rode in a barouche, the 19th-century equivalent of a sports car. She told her sister:

“I had great amusement among the pictures; and the driving about, the carriage being open, was very pleasant. I liked my solitary elegance very much, and was ready to laugh all the time at my being where I was.”

Thinking of my daughter asking, on her way out, whether I was going to be ok by myself, I realized that the answer will always be yes, of course, whether I say it automatically or pause to think. I realized that, like Jane, I like my “solitary elegance” very much, and that I’m very lucky to be able to please myself and to sit alone in the garden with my cats and the chickens or on the sofa by the fire with a book.  Like Jane, I’m quite happy that I don’t have to stand about exposing my shoulders or anything else. Like Jane, I realized that I like being middle-aged. 

Rebecca Smith, a 5th-great-niece of Jane Austen, is the author of three novels and several nonfiction books. Her latest, The Jane Austen Writer’s Club, is a compilation of writing advice from the beloved English novelist. Smith teaches creative writing at the University of Southampton in England. 

Rebecca Smith, a great-niece of Jane Austen, writes about how her famous ancestor taught her to relish the pleasures of middle age in a behind-the-book essay.
PhotographyArts & CultureArt

Through an artist’s eyes

Feature by Linda M. Castellitto

Though pointing, clicking and sharing by people of all ages and skill levels has never been easier or quicker, thanks to the digital technology available these days, it’s still a wonderful thing to experience works by an accomplished artist, to page through a large-format book featuring images by someone who has made it their vocation to convey an emotion or capture something new or unexpected, beautiful or thought-provoking—whether in paint or on film. This quartet of coffee-table books offers the opportunity to take just that sort of foray into the world of visual art.

Photorealism, revisited
Norman Rockwell’s paintings—vibrant slice-of-life creations—are essential to any study of American pop culture. But while Rockwell’s illustrative talents are well-known, an important aspect of his process is perhaps less so: any paintings done from 1930 on were first photographs.

Ron Schick’s Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera is filled with images of the people and places that served as inspiration (and models) for the artist’s work. Many of those models were friends and neighbors; it’s fun to spot Rockwell himself mugging for the camera here and there, too. Thoughtful, detailed text by Schick provides fascinating, often humorous behind-the-scenes tidbits about each photo-turned-painting, plus information about everything from his advertising clients to lighting techniques. For example, when creating “Maternity Waiting Room, 1946,” Rockwell couldn’t find sufficiently stressed-out models, so he visited a Manhattan ad agency, where he found plenty of anxiety-ridden men to photograph.

Paging through Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera is a smile-inciting, nostalgia-inducing experience that surely will inspire renewed admiration for Rockwell’s skill: the finished works are all the more realistic when viewed in concert with their photo counterparts.

An anglophile’s delight
Mary Miers, a writer who specializes in architecture and formerly worked in the field of architectural conservation, puts her experience and expertise to excellent use in The English Country House: From the Archives of Country Life. The book is a feast of photos, and a tribute to the fine homes that have been featured in Country Life, a U.K.-based magazine that’s been published since 1897. The 400-plus images of 62 homes ranging from medieval castles to modern mansions frequently offer close-up shots of sumptuous details. For example, the Claydon House in Buckinghamshire is a Rococo delight, complete with carved chimney-pieces and colorful friezes. East Barsham Manor, in Norfolk, is a castle of molded brick, complete with gatehouse and three-story tower. And then there’s Baggy House in Devon, a cliff-top villa that’s thoroughly modern. Essays by British architectural historians provide additional detail and help to make this book a fine reading and viewing experience for aficionados of design, architecture, history, the U.K., the art of photography or some combination of the above. The English Country House is a gorgeous tour that’s sure to inspire craving for a hot cuppa.

An extraordinary museum tour
In celebration of the reopening of the Victoria and Albert Museum’s Medieval and Renaissance Galleries, Medieval and Renaissance Art: People and Possessions, by V&A curators Glyn Davies and Kirstin Kennedy, takes readers on a personal tour of the museum’s objects and role in European art and history. The book’s chapters include Makers and Markets (about the working and trading conditions for artists in medieval and Renaissance Europe), Devotion and Display (religious objects and rituals) and People and Possessions (weaponry, music, “self-expression through ownership”). There are colorful photos on nearly every page, many of them close-ups; the ones in the Ornaments section are particularly fascinating in terms of opulence and detail.

Those who have visited the Victoria and Albert Museum in London will surely find this a worthy souvenir of a visually thrilling trip through art and history; those who haven’t will get a rare opportunity to live with the museum’s pieces and scrutinize them to their hearts’ content.

A portrait of the maritime artist
John Singer Sargent, a painter in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, is best known for his portraits, but as Richard Ormond explains in the introduction to Sargent and the Sea, written with Sarah Cash, his marine-life and seascape paintings have until recently been just a “forgotten episode of Sargent’s art.” When he was in his late teens and early 20s, the artist produced a number of works—in oil, charcoal and watercolor—depicting the sea, ships and other maritime topics: “scenes from the seashore and rustic subjects from the countryside.” Sargent and the Sea was conceived and created in concert with a Corcoran Gallery of Art exhibit that will travel to Houston and London in 2010. Paging through this handsome volume gives readers the opportunity to observe and experience Sargent’s evolution as an artist and a person, to read and marvel as his detailed charcoal renderings of ships give way to lushly colorful paintings of children at the beach and languorous nudes—a fascinating preview of the style and subjects to come.

Linda M. Castellitto takes (amateur) photos in North Carolina.

Though pointing, clicking and sharing by people of all ages and skill levels has never been easier or quicker, thanks to the digital technology available these days, it’s still a wonderful thing to experience works by an accomplished artist, to page through a large-format book…

NonfictionArts & CultureArt

Images of beauty, truth and the absurd

Feature by Alice Cary

Surround yourself with the creative vision on display in a variety of new art books. Curl up with essays likely to change or challenge your outlook, or dip into survey books for old favorites and new discoveries. As photographer Elliott Erwitt explains, “It’s about reacting to what you see, hopefully without preconception.”

Start with a new edition of The Art Book, a massive A-to-Z collection first published in 1994 and now updated with 70 new artists and 100 new artworks. The volume’s large format and 600 color illustrations make it a joy to peruse, a fun, informative juxtaposition of classic and contemporary, with everything from Da Vinci and van Gogh to Warhol’s “Marilyn.” The latest additions are varied and eye-catching, such as Thomas Demand’s “Kitchen,” a photo of a life-size cardboard reconstruction of the farmhouse kitchen where Saddam Hussein was found hiding in 2003.

The Art Book is indeed a grand anthology, featuring paintings, sculptures, photographs, performance art and installations. Each page or spread spotlights a work of art and its artist. Brief glossaries define technical terms and artistic movements; there’s also a list of museums and galleries where the works can be found. This diverse assortment is guaranteed to fascinate and provoke a variety of art lovers.

THROUGH THE LENS

Also comprehensive, yet more narrowly focused, is another massive volume, Roberto Koch’s Master Photographers, filled with 20 game-changing artists from the 20th century. Editor Koch devotes 22 pages to each photographer, including an introduction, short biography and a collection of phenomenal photographs with brief commentary.

The artistic range is broad, from the joyful humanity captured by Elliott Erwitt to the iconic Depression portraits by Walker Evans. Englishman Martin Parr “has made supermarkets, country fairs, and working class beaches his own personal trenches,” brilliantly capturing, for instance, a woman biting into a burger at Disneyland in Tokyo.

In stark contrast are the haunting political statements by James Nachtwey, such as the brutally scarred face of a Rwandan death camp survivor, the dying body of a Taliban fighter in Afghanistan or the horrific sight of a skeletal famine victim crawling through dirt in the Sudan.

A TRAINED EYE

Two new books will help art lovers fully appreciate the artistic world’s vast array of styles and goals, the first being John Updike’s Always Looking: Essays on Art. The prolific novelist published two companion books before his 2009 death (Just Looking and Still Looking), and this new collection is accompanied by more than 200 color reproductions. Most of these exhibition reviews first appeared in The New York Review of Books.

Updike’s noted treatise, “The Clarity of Things,” tackles the question, “What is American about American art?” in a discussion exploring artists such as John Singleton Copley and Winslow Homer, along with more modern names like Joseph Stella and Mark Rothko. Reading these insightful essays feels like wandering through notable galleries with Updike as your docent, leaving his audience informed and fulfilled.

PAST MADE PRESENT

For a more lighthearted but no less valuable learning experience, dive into Will Gompertz’s What Are You Looking At? The Surprising, Shocking and Sometimes Strange Story of 150 Years of Modern Art. A former director of the Tate in London and now BBC arts editor, Gompertz explains his hope to offer “a personal, informative, anecdotal and accessible book that takes the chronological story of modern art (from Impressionism to now) as the basis for its structure.”

In these highly readable essays, Gompertz calls Cézanne “the greatest artist of the entire modern movement,” and his description of Duchamp’s creation of his famous urinal (called “Fountain”) reads like a short story, concluding, “It is Duchamp who is to blame for the whole ‘is it art’ debate, which, of course, is exactly what he intended.” His final chapter, “Art Now,” makes mention of Shepard Fairey’s Pop Art treatment of a 2008 Barack Obama poster and British street artist Banksy. Gompertz writes, “I suspect if Marcel Duchamp were alive today he would be a street artist.”

AMERICAN LANDSCAPE

For an in-depth look at one artist, try Georgia O’Keeffe and Her Houses: Ghost Ranch and Abiquiu by Barbara Buhler Lynes and Agapita Judy Lopez. This absorbing book shows how O’Keeffe’s two New Mexico homes and their surroundings affected her art, comparing, for instance, a photograph of a patio and door with the painting that it inspired, “Black Door with Snow.”

When O’Keeffe purchased Ghost Ranch in 1940, she wrote her husband, Alfred Stieglitz: “I would rather come here than any place I know. It is a way for me to live very comfortably at the tail end of the earth so far away that hardly any one will ever come to see me and I like it.” Five years later she purchased Abiquiu and restored it, using that house in winter and Ghost Ranch in summer. This book is filled with photographs, art reproductions and numerous anecdotes about O’Keeffe and the luminous art she produced in these special places.

Surround yourself with the creative vision on display in a variety of new art books. Curl up with essays likely to change or challenge your outlook, or dip into survey books for old favorites and new discoveries. As photographer Elliott Erwitt explains, “It’s about reacting…

NonfictionMilitary HistoryArts & Culture

Great books for the men in your life

Feature by Martin Brady

History, football, humor, architecture, hunting—all are subjects that fit into the general scope of gifts for guys. This year’s picks offer a bounty of visual fare (men are visual, right?), but informative texts are also a big part of the picture.

Kicking off the coverage is The Pro Football Hall of Fame 50th Anniversary Book. This handsomely produced tribute to the history of American football, edited by sports historians Joe Horrigan and John Thorn, is part of the celebration of 50 years of the Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, itself a town steeped in the lore of the early days of the game. The text offers a colorful—if more sepia-tinged—rundown of the sport’s formative years in the late 19th century, filling in much history that probably eludes the average fan. Later, the text provides coverage by decade, with sections authored by journalists such as Peter King and Dave Anderson. Scattered throughout are quotes aplenty from Hall of Famers themselves, who share career reflections and insight into what sparked their determination on game day. Otherwise, the volume is a treasure trove of photos: reproductions of old contracts and important correspondence, pictures of bygone equipment, jerseys and helmets worn by the greats, action shots from big games and more. 

GLORIOUS ARCHITECTURE

No less a photographic windfall is Great Buildings, a marvelous showcase of 53 of the world’s most striking structures. The photos are often flat-out spectacular, with the coverage ranging from the ancient (Great Pyramid of Giza, Parthenon, Colosseum) to the modern (Yusuhara Wooden Bridge Museum in Kochi, Japan). Each entry includes a description and useful historical sidebars by British author and architectural maven Philip Wilkinson, along with a visual tour that breaks down each building into its component parts, with a focus on style and construction. Armchair travelers and architecture buffs will be blown away by the views of, say, Germany’s Neuschwanstein Castle, Spain’s Alhambra, the Temple of Heaven in Beijing and India’s Taj Mahal. Another fabulous project from Dorling Kindersley.

CONTEMPLATING CUSTER

Many a young lad has been captivated by the legend surrounding George Armstrong Custer, the dashing Civil War officer who later earned his place in history when he and his 7th Cavalry troops were defeated in 1876 by Lakota and Cheyenne warriors at Montana’s Little Bighorn River. Custer’s infamous “last stand” loomed as a heroic event for years, but revisionist thought pretty much set the record straight: The impetuous Custer made broad command mistakes, and there was nothing noble about his outcome. Yet the Custer story will never die, and in the new Custer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Larry McMurtry provides a compactly incisive text that recalls the Custer myth and resets its context within America’s late 19th-century military adventurism on the Plains and the fate of the Native American tribes. Accompanying McMurtry’s words are hundreds of photos and reproductions of paintings, maps and other illustrative material. This is a wonderful gift item for any “Custer guy.”

FOR THE JOKESTERS

Guys who like to laugh will gravitate to two new volumes representing iconic American humor franchises. First up is Totally MAD, which celebrates MAD magazine’s 60-year-old legacy while also featuring excerpts from some of its most popular features. Current MAD editor John Ficarra oversees the coverage, which includes background on late, longtime publisher Bill Gaines, the history of Alfred E. Neuman, MAD lawsuits and more. The graphics are great, including pictures of every MAD cover ever published and samplings of the parodies, satires and cartoons from contributors like Al Jaffee, Mort Drucker, Jack Davis, Sergio Aragonés and Don Martin.

Less browsable but rich with wit is The Onion Book of Known Knowledge, in which the Onion editors serve up a fractured A-to-Z compendium of important people, places and things. There are plenty of photos and illustrations here—e.g., Alan Greenspan clubbing with hot chicks!—but the emphasis is on zany lexicon-like entries that overturn all logic and expectation in search of a knowing chuckle.

LOVE OF THE HUNT

Finally, we have Meat Eater, a hunter’s tribute to the natural world and the value of providing your own food. This lively memoir recounts the outdoors life of Steven Rinella, a nature writer and cable TV host. Rinella grew up in the Midwest learning to hunt and fish under the strong influence of his father and brothers. “As a nation, we have swapped the smelly and unpredictable pungency of the woods in exchange for the sanitized safety of manicured grass,” Rinella writes. He details his exploits—from Michigan, to the Missouri Breaks, to Mexico and beyond—as he pursues muskrat, mountain lions and other game, all the while espousing his deep regard for hunting’s social traditions and its rightful place in the natural order.

History, football, humor, architecture, hunting—all are subjects that fit into the general scope of gifts for guys. This year’s picks offer a bounty of visual fare (men are visual, right?), but informative texts are also a big part of the picture.

Kicking off the coverage is…

NonfictionFamily & RelationshipsArts & Culture

Booking for love

Feature by the editors of BookPage

Valentine’s Day plans (or lack thereof) got you down? Whether you’re in the mood for love or would prefer to take comfort in the lovelorn misery of others, we’ve got the perfect read to snuggle up with. 

IT ENDED BADLY
The perfect Valentine’s Day read for: Anyone who’s still daydreaming about setting their ex’s car on fire.

Between the covers: Maybe the lovey-dovey mush of Valentine’s Day isn’t your bag. Maybe you’re a heartbroken mess. For you, there’s Jennifer Wright’s hilarious survey of 13 of the worst breakups in history. From Nero and Poppaea in Rome to Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds, these are some truly horrible splits, but Wright’s commentary will have you crying from laughter.

Best advice for the lovelorn: Even if you’ve gone a little insane after a breakup, it’s OK, because you’ve (hopefully) never done anything as bad as the people in this book, and “heartbreak is almost never the defining moment of one’s life.” 

Strangest tidbit: Russian empress Anna Ivanovna forced a prince to marry one of her maids and then locked them in an ice palace for their wedding night. His offense? Falling in love with the wrong woman.

Choice quote: “TV is great. Don’t let anyone tell you different. It is the only thing stopping wealthy, idle people from forcing underlings to dress up as chickens and pretend to lay eggs in their foyers—another real thing that happened.”

LOVE: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ATTRACTION
The perfect Valentine’s Day read for: The shy or self-doubting dater who needs a confidence boost and practical strategies for finding the right companion.

Between the covers: For those who need a remedial course, this textbook-style guide has plenty of bright graphics and informative charts to make the lessons more palatable. Readers will learn how to think positively about their attributes and ditch bad habits. Once you’ve entered the dating phase, you’ll find out how to look your best, keep your cool and communicate successfully.

Best advice for the lovelorn: Being introverted shouldn’t prevent anyone from finding love. By learning to manage your shyness and feelings of inadequacy, you can become more comfortable dating.

Strangest tidbit: “Mental illness is usually not something to bring up in early dates.”

Choice quote: “Is blushing bad? Not at all. ‘Blushes are very useful for conveying apologies,’ says UK psychologist Ray Crozier. If your face is burning, try not to worry: it may actually defuse the situation by showing you didn’t mean any harm.”

YOU PROBABLY SHOULDN'T WRITE THAT
The perfect Valentine’s Day read for: Singles who filled out their online dating profile with generic descriptors like “fun-loving” and can’t seem to find their match.

Between the covers: The founder of ProfilePolish.com, an online dating profile makeover service, provides step-by-step instructions and strategies for presenting your best self online, from picking a username to writing a profile that sums up who you really are.

Best advice for the lovelorn: No more sweating the dreaded first impression, as online dating provides an opportunity to take control.

Strangest tidbit: A profile that mentions the zombie apocalypse is a deal-breaker. “Because it ain’t gonna happen.”

Choice quote: “[P]iss-poor profiles point to one thing: you’re copping out. You may say that you’re looking for a real relationship, but your refusal to put the necessary effort into crafting your profile shows a potential match exactly the opposite.”

CRUSH
The perfect Valentine’s Day read for: Anyone looking to reassemble that shrine to Jared Leto that used to occupy your sixth-grade locker.

Between the covers: It’s hard to forget, or really get over, your first celebrity crush. In this hilarious and poignant essay collection, popular writers such as Jodi Picoult recount their first taste of infatuation and dish about the obsessive and embarrassing ways they expressed their love.

Best advice for the lovelorn: “We worship perfection because we can’t have it,” wrote Fernando Pessoa. “If we had it, we would reject it.”

Strangest tidbit: Even a few video game characters (Laura Croft from “Tomb Raider” being one) make the list for first-crush material.

Sample quote: “It doesn’t matter that he’s a character in an epic film played by a famous movie star. Or that I’m a gawky thirteen-year-old with giant buckteeth and wads of scratchy toilet paper stuffed in my training bra. I believe that when we meet . . . my tiny breasts and big choppers will be of little consequence.” 

121 FIRST DATES
The perfect Valentine’s Day read for: Anyone discouraged after spending too much time in the dismal depths of the dating world.

Between the covers: Bay Area author Wendy Newman, a “relationship expert” who went on the titular 121 first dates before meeting her partner, encourages the downtrodden to stay in the dating game. She offers (sometimes cringeworthy) personal anecdotes alongside practical advice and tips to help readers date efficiently and avoid the worst dating mistakes—and promises that it is possible to have an amazing first date with anyone. 

Best advice for the lovelorn: “No matter how steamy he is, if he doesn’t think I’m hot, he’s no longer hot to me.”

Strangest tidbit: “Don’t go hiking on a first meet-and-greet date. He could be a recovering drug addict and felon who has been known to carry a hammer in his back pocket.”

Choice quote: “My way (or couple of ways) may not be The One True Way, if there is such a thing. If the shoe doesn’t fit for you, it ain’t your shoe. Don’t cram it on; this could be a long hike.” 

 

This article was originally published in the February 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Valentine’s Day plans (or lack thereof) got you down? Whether you’re in the mood for love or would prefer to take comfort in the lovelorn misery of others, we’ve got the perfect read to snuggle up with.

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