Edna Bonhomme’s frank, timely A History of the World in Six Plagues reveals how infectious diseases have been leveraged by colonialism and capitalism.

Design, Nonfiction

Defining Style

Emphasizing personal style, Joan Barzilay Freund’s Defining Style is a freeing, inspiring and extremely innovative look at interior design.

History, Nonfiction, Women's History

Nonfiction Women's History History

Expect Great Things!

The inspiring, companionable Expect Great Things! celebrates the legacy of the Katharine Gibbs School for women and its tenacious scholars.

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A maverick’s take on the news

by bookpagedev

Memoir

Memoir

Learning to live with grief and loss

Review by bookpagedev

by Maude McDaniel

Vincent was a giver. All his life he believed in, and put great thought into, giving gifts to his friends. Perhaps that is why he got so upset in ninth grade about the O. Henry short story, The Gift of the Magi, which tells about two gifts that went considerably awry. Writer Elizabeth Stone first remembers Vincent as an Italian kid she taught in a Brooklyn school, railing at the ending of the stupid story by O. Henry.

After that year, Stone heard nothing from the young man except for unilluminating Christmas cards. Then, 25 years later, in 1995, she received a carton filled with a decade’s-worth of his personal diaries, along with a letter he had written before he died of AIDS, asking her to make the journals into a book. With A Boy I Once Knew, a poignant new memoir that combines the story of Vincent’s life with her own, Stone fulfills his request.

What begins as a bewildering bequest turns out to be a true gift for the author. Stone doesn’t protest the time and energy she gives to the reading of the journals, a labor of liking that turns into love. Vincent’s emotional growth in his approach to death sends a powerful and timely message to the author, who never dared to deal with the deaths of her own grandmother and father. With the death of her mother approaching, the diaries could not have come at a better time for Stone.

Reading Vincent’s words, Stone relives his last decade, shuddering at the risks he took in living an unfettered gay life in San Francisco, knowing the inevitable outcome. But in his last few months he moved to a self-acceptance and apparent truce with his illness, and with the deaths of his friends in the gay community. Through his acceptance, Stone learns to come to peace with the realities of her own life. As a result of my time traveling with Vincent, I knew the terrain, and I knew what to do for my mother and for myself with surprising clarity, she writes.

In the end, Stone, better able to manage loss and grief, knows that there is a terrain beyond mourning, and that relationships can evolve and grow not only in the face of death but beyond. A gift indeed. Maude McDaniel writes from Cumberland, Maryland.

A new generation of Black leaders

by Edward Morris

Arts & Culture, Pop Culture

Pop Culture Arts & Culture

Examining the roots of love

Review by bookpagedev

by Sandy MacDonald

Psychologist Carol Gilligan is best known for elucidating the ways in which preadolescent girls, acceding to societal expectations, learn to stifle their innate wisdom and exuberance. In her latest work, loosely encapsulating two decades of variegated studies, she broadens her area of inquiry to extend to both sexes (young boys entering grade school, she has observed, begin to curtail their expressiveness in much the same way) and, by extrapolation, to question the diminution of joy that typically accompanies growing up. Ultimately, her aim is to examine, and possibly uproot, Western civilization’s deeply ingrained adherence to a tragic story . . . where love leads to loss and pleasure is associated with death. It’s an ambitious undertaking, and Gilligan covers a lot of ground cited sources range from W.E.

B. Du Bois to the Indigo Girls to prove an elusive point. Central to her thesis is an insistent gloss on the ancient story of Psyche and Cupid, whose dramatic, near-tragic courtship ultimately gave birth to a child named Pleasure. Beautiful Psyche, Gilligan holds, was something of a proto-feminist, refusing to accept the image imposed on her by a patriarchal society and deciding instead to seek love on her own terms. This reductionist approach often rankles: after all, the beauty of myths, their enduring value, lies in the fact that their meanings can’t be so neatly confined.

Yet if one is willing to go along with this premise and attendant pronouncements, the journey yields all sorts of eye-opening moments, the most vivid of which involve Gilligan’s recollections of her own mother, whose social and private selves seemed scarcely the same person. Still, memories of pleasure resurface, as well as her encouragement of my pleasure. Love does invariably entail loss, in that those we love die; it’s the human condition. Gilligan is to be commended, though, for advocating in this brave, if sometimes frustrating book that we question our predilection for living on the far side of loss, east of Eden, as a way of protecting ourselves. Men and women alike, she contends, need to summon more courage if we are to transcend an age-old script. After all, as she notes: The birth of pleasure in itself is simple, but staying with pleasure means staying open. Sandy MacDonald is a writer based in Cambridge and Nantucket, Massachusetts.

Dark horse makes a run for the roses

by bookpagedev

Arts & Culture, Audio, Nonfiction, Photography

Nonfiction Audio Photography Arts & Culture

Looking at lives

Review by John T. Slania

by John T. Slania

Reza War + Peace: a Photographer's Journey is a look at the human impact of war through the eyes of the renowned photojournalist Reza Deghati, known by his first name. This book is a three – decade retrospective of his war photography for National Geographic, Time and Newsweek, in locations around the world. Reza captures the ravages of war in Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bosnia, Rwanda, Cambodia and other countries. The images sometimes are of the frontline soldiers in battle, but just as often, they are pictures of the citizens who are affected by the war. There are images of violence and death, but there are also photos of courage and strength, as ordinary people struggle to make a better life amid the surrounding tumult. As a result, Reza War + Peace presents a message of both sorrow and hope.

In stark contrast to this worldview is The Oxford Project, which focuses on the roughly 700 residents of Oxford, a peaceful, rural community in eastern Iowa. A young photographer named Peter Feldstein came to Oxford in 1984 after landing a teaching job at the nearby University of Iowa. He soon set out on an ambitious project: to photograph every resident in town. His studio portraits of the modest townsfolk were displayed in galleries and exhibitions, then filed away until 2005, when Feldstein decided to return to Oxford to photograph his subjects again.

The resulting images are a fascinating look at how people age and develop, a kind of real – life "before" and "after" experiment. What makes The Oxford Project more interesting is that Feldstein brings along writer Stephen G. Bloom to interview and write about the subjects to see how their lives have changed over the 21 years between the shots. This informal sociological study works largely because most of the residents of Oxford chose to stay there, making it an intriguing look at small – town America.

The best picture show

Give Encyclopedia Britannica and Getty Images credit for ambition in the publication of History of the World in Photographs: 1850 to the Present Day. This thick edition is a comprehensive look at the development of photography, from the grainy sepia portraits of the late 19th century to the colorful, high – resolution digital images of the early 21st century. The book presents a year – by – year exploration of the most important photos in history, including images of the Civil War, World War II, Tiananmen Square and 9/11. It also includes a DVD with 20,000 additional photos. This volume is a must for any serious photography buff.

This book is something to see

Visions of Paradise is a compilation of some of the best images found in National Geographic, chosen by its award – winning photographers. Each photographer was asked: "Where – or what – is heaven on Earth?" The answers were as varied as the parts of the world where the pictures were snapped. Chris Johns' image of paradise is four bushmen walking in the arid desert of Namibia. O. Louis Mazzatenta's picture is of a lone white wolf crossing the Arctic tundra. Robert Clark's definition of paradise is an early – morning shot of a worker checking the rails of the wooden roller coaster at King's Island in Ohio. These and hundreds of other photographs transport readers to some of the most beautiful places around the globe.

Believers’ books find new voices

by Kathryn Michel

Nonfiction, Politics

Nonfiction Politics

LBJ: King of the Hill

Review by bookpagedev

by Roger Bishop

In Master of the Senate, the third volume of his magisterial study of Lyndon Johnson, Robert Caro continues to probe the personal and political sides of a complex man who, during the 1950s, put on a show so riveting that Capitol Hill had never seen anything like it during the previous century and a half of the Republic’s existence. Detailing his subject’s fierce ambition to be somebody in particular the president of the United States Caro offers a fascinating look at this respected and feared leader.

As Senate majority leader, Johnson skillfully maneuvered the Civil Rights Act of 1957 to enactment, the first civil rights legislation Congress had passed in 82 years. Johnson, who throughout his career had always opposed civil rights bills, seemed an unlikely politician to accomplish what many principled reformers had tried and failed to do for decades. But Caro demonstrates that he was the only person who could have achieved this legislative goal. Under Johnson’s leadership, key decisions were made in negotiations away from the Senate floor. A principle that determined whether legislation would be passed or defeated during this period was whether or not it would further Johnson’s personal career. Compassion was sometimes on a parallel track with ambition, but if there was a conflict, ambition won.

A man who abhorred debate and dissent, Johnson drove himself, his wife and his staff relentlessly. He demanded absolute loyalty from those he worked closely with, particularly other senators. But there was another side to Johnson, a leader who, according to Caro, was the greatest champion that black Americans and Mexican-Americans and indeed all Americans of color had in the White House, the greatest champion they had in the halls of government during the 20th century. Along with Johnson’s personal story, Caro gives us a mini-history of the Senate that helps to put LBJ’s remarkable career in context. Caro, who spends years researching and writing his books, has added another authoritative, insightful narrative to his admirable series. Roger Bishop is a regular contributor to BookPage.

Soul-soothing reading for the faithful

by Joanne Collings

Crafts, Hobbies & Home, Fashion, Lifestyles

Lifestyles Fashion Crafts, Hobbies & Home

Living pretty

Review by MiChelle Jones

by MiChelle Jones

What's in your wardrobe?

Valentino: Themes and Variations begins with a series of photos documenting the couturier's final collection, from seamstresses hovered over a single garment to the finale of evening gowns in his signature poppy red. Next comes Valentino's exquisite creations shown on silver gray mannequins and interspersed with sketches and contemporary photos. Arranged thematically rather than chronologically, the pieces offer a sartorial snapshot of the decades: a 1972 pink gingham shantung maxi skirt, Julia Roberts' 1992 Oscar gown with cascading train of black tulle and white ribbons. The final chapter shows 40 years of magazine campaigns.

Long before Valentino presented his first collection in 1959 (before he was born, in fact), Edward Steichen was reinventing the fashion shoot. The portraits of models and celebrities in William A. Ewing and Todd Brandow's Edward Steichen: In High Fashion – The Cond

One of Steichen's breakthroughs was elevating the commercial to art, as he did with shoes in the 1920s. Caroline Cox's Vintage Shoes: Collecting and Wearing Twentieth-Century Designer Footwear suggests he had fabulous material to work with. Cox steps through the rest of the century, discussing major styles, influential designers and all sorts of trivia—from the origins of terms like "spectators" and "flappers" to the influence of the Charleston, tango and other dances on footwear. The many accompanying images are easier on the eyes than the small, sans serif typeface, so don't feel bad about skipping ahead to ogle the striking pumps and slings; ballet slippers and mules; Louis, Cuban and stiletto heels; go – go and kinky boots; platforms and wedges. Oh my.

Living like Ed

Anyone who's seen Ed Begley Jr.'s quirky reality show knows that living green isn't always pretty or comfortable—but it can be, according to Dreaming Green: Eco-Fabulous Homes Designed to Inspire. Along with gorgeous photo spreads of each dwelling, there's a list of its green features, which can include gray water systems, recycled and natural fabrics, lots of energy-efficient windows, even a pneumatic elevator. While the eco – friendly route was the logical choice for homeowners like Dwell's marketing director or an environmental lawyer wed to a biostatistician, others were inspired by health concerns or memories of the energy crisis of the late 1970s. The resulting homes range from the Manhattan brownstone of co-authors Lisa Sharkey and Paul Gleicher; a Venice Beach house in mirrored glass (featured on HGTV's "Extreme Living" this fall); and a Seattle house with regionally appropriate dining chairs made of metal recycled from a Boeing jet.

The focus in Domino: The Book of Decorating is more on achieving a comfortable, personalized style rather than an eco-friendly one. Packed with great photos, this delightful book devotes a chapter to every room in the house, including foyers and bathrooms—one of the best re-dos takes a loo from deal-breaker to simple, practical, beautiful—and kids' rooms. A charming drawing leads each chapter, followed by a description of the room's key item (sofa, table, bed); "steal this room" and mix-and-match suggestions, as well as ideas for small spaces. Finally a "Domino effect" spread charts the development of a feature room by showing the various elements—furniture, clipped magazine pages, swatch, memory of a store or room—that inspired the design. The book references websites and comes with a free subscription to the popular magazine.

What's in your wardrobe?

Face the music

by Martin Brady

Art, Arts & Culture, Children's & YA, Nonfiction, Religion & Spirituality

Nonfiction Children's & YA Religion & Spirituality Arts & Culture Art

Many happy returns from perennial favorites

Review by MiChelle Jones

by MiChelle Jones

A special holiday gift from a picture-book master, Eric Carle's Dream Snow Pop-up Advent Calendar. In this scene from Carle's bright, colorful world, a tree stands in the snow with presents underneath and Santa nearby – and a field of windows hiding trinkets to be added to the tree. (Meanwhile, the calendar's cover, sleeve and dimensions will likely trigger a visceral reaction in those old enough to remember when music came on vinyl!)

From the heavens

Two chance encounters inspired Chuck Fischer's move away from the holiday themes of his two previous books: a 1960s children's Bible in New York, and a daytrip during a stint at the American Academy in Rome. Fischer's paintings are always gorgeous, but In the Beginning: The Art of Genesis, features especially outstanding works, inspired by and based on religious masterpieces (all of which are listed on a pullout at the end of the book). Working again with paper engineer Bruce Foster, Fischer includes a stunning mosaic – like spread recounting the saga of Adam and Eve, a monumental Tower of Babel and a Tiffany-esque depiction of Jacob's Ladder. Text by Curtis Flowers retells the stories and discusses symbolism in the images, making ample use of mini books and pullouts.

Cosmic: The Ultimate 3-D Guide to the Universe starts with a bang – a pop-up of the Big Bang, complete with sound. From there, it's off on a journey through planets, asteroids and other space – bound objects, including the Hubble Telescope and the Space Shuttle. As spectacular as paper engineer Richard Ferguson's pop – ups of the planets and the Apollo 15 lunar lander are – and they really are incredible – author Giles Sparrow's text makes it a great gift for space fans, whether they love pop – ups or not.

You might as well make it a twofer with Moon Landing, by Richard Platt and paper engineer David Hawcock. Published in advance of the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, the book is also loaded with history on space flight, referencing the people, politics and technology that put men on the Moon. The representations of the spacecraft – a command module and lunar module that dock (!), a super-long Saturn V, a Gemini capsule – are beyond cool. Lucky ones who receive both Moon Landing and Cosmic will end up with two pop-up lunar landers.

Children's tales

Big brother Charlie was able to convince the irascible Lola to try peas and other foods in I Will Never Not Ever Eat a Tomato; now he faces another seemingly impossible task in Lauren Child's made-for-bedtime story Charlie and Lola's I Am Not Sleepy and I Will Not Go to Bed Pop-up!. This year the pops are even better, with twirling pajama-clad dogs, Laura up a tree and milk-sipping tigers. Flaps, dials and oozing toothpaste will help wear out little tykes trying to resist sleep (maybe even Lola).

Robert Sabuda and Matthew Reinhart released the first book in their new Encyclopedia Mythologica series, Fairies and Magical Creatures, this summer. In Brava Strega Nona!, the pop-up wizards interpret Tomie dePaola's Caldecott Honor – winning depiction of a magical grandma as only they can. Spreads of a sea of pasta, a courtyard full of celebrating villagers, and a meal served al fresco under an arbor bring the beloved tale to life.

Nonfiction pops

With Sabuda and Reinhart having left beasts behind, Lucio and Meera Santoro, the husband-and-wife team who soared to great heights in 2007's Journey to the Moon, take on Predators. They start with a gigantic spider, even more menacing rendered in the Santoros' trademarked swing pop-ups; pull out the informative mini-pops if you dare. Much pleasanter – even if the actual animals might be just as dangerous – are the bald eagle rising majestically from a navy-blue background, a scaly crocodile and snow – white (naturally) polar bears. Clever mini flaps advise on distinguishing between crocodiles and alligators (here's an idea: stay away from both); discuss how a species hunts and whether it's endangered and how to tell a leopard by its spots (a tiger by its stripes, etc.)

For the past few years, Robert Crowther has explored various transportation options, Trains in 2006 and Flight the following year. Now he's onto Ships and he starts at the beginning of the story, with Egyptians, Romans and Vikings. Crowther's books pack a lot of information into a deceptively simple, accessible design that combines pulls and flaps with large – and small – scale pops of vessels. He explains everything from propellers to ports, poles to oars, simple sailing craft to complex ocean liners and aircraft carriers.

As easy as . . .

The cover of French designer Marion Bataille's ABC3D alone – a hologram that cycles through the first four letters of the alphabet – is worth the price of admission. Inside is no less enchanting: letters spring, unfold or flip into place as the pages are turned. "C" flips to become "D," conjoined lowercase "i" and "j" share a red spiraled dot, appropriated angled black strokes on vellum change "O" and "P" to their successors, and so on.

David A. Carter's Yellow Square continues his inventive pop – up puzzles. Using his signature palette, he challenges readers to find the graphic element, in this case a yellow square, hidden amid a pull – up "swirligig," net – encased Seuss – like towers, a Mondrian – inspired construction and a jiggly tree.

Do it yourself

If reading the above has left you inspired to try your own pop – ups, you won't find a better resource than The Pocket Paper Engineer, the second work by renowned instructor Carol Barton. The book is a step – by – step guide to 10 projects exploring two essential pop – up elements: platforms and props (spirals, tabs, etc.). Barton's own works are in collections such as the Getty Museum, the Museum of Modern Art and the Victoria & Albert Museum.

Want More?

by bookpagedev

Trending Nonfiction

Nonfiction Politics Memoir

How to Stand Up to a Dictator

Maria Ressa

By Sarojini Seupersad

Maria Ressa’s book is a political history of the Philippines and an intimate memoir, but it’s also a warning to democracies everywhere: Authoritarianism is a threat to us all.