Books : Art, Architecture & Photography : General

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Books : Art, Architecture & Photography : General

• The Digital Photography Book

  Scott Kelby

  
  
   

• Ways of Seeing: Based on the BBC Television Series

  John Berger

  
  
   

• Batman: Dark Knight Returns (Batman)

  Frank Miller

  
  If any comic has a claim to have truly reinvigorated the genre then The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller--known recently for his excellent Sin City series and, previously, for his superb rendering of the blind superhero Daredevil--is probably the supreme contender. Batman represented all that was wrong in comics and Miller set himself a tough task taking on the camp crusader and turning this laughable, innocuous children's cartoon character into a hero for our times. In his introduction the great Alan Moore (V for Vendetta, Swamp Thing, the arguably peerless Watchmen) argues that only someone of Miller's stature could have done this. Batman is a character known well beyond the confines of the comic world (as are his retinue) and so reinventing him, while keeping his limiting core essentials intact, was a huge task.

  Miller went far beyond the call of duty. The Dark Knight is a success on every level. Firstly it does keep the core elements of the Batman myth intact, with Robin, Alfred the butler, Commissioner Gordon and the old roster of villains, present yet brilliantly subverted. Secondly the artwork is fantastic--detailed, sometimes claustrophobic, psychotic. Lastly it's a great story: Gotham City is a hell on earth, streetgangs roam but there are no heroes. Decay is ubiquitous. Where is a hero to save Gotham? It is 10 years since the last recorded sighting of the Batman. And things have got worse than ever. Bruce Wayne is close to being a broken man but something is keeping him sane: the need to see change and the belief that he can orchestrate some of that change. Batman is back. The Dark Knight has returned. Awesome. --Mark Thwaite

  
   

• Wall and Piece

  "Banksy"

  
  
   

• Little People in the City: The Street Art of Slinkachu (foreword by Will Self)

  
  
   

• The Art of Looking Sideways

  Alan Fletcher

  
  Alan Fletcher's The Art of Looking Sideways is an absolutely extraordinary and inexhaustible "guide to visual awareness", a virtually indescribable concoction of anecdotes, quotes, images and bizarre facts that offers a wonderfully twisted vision of the chaos of modern life. Fletcher is a renowned designer and art director and the joy of The Art of Looking Sideways lies in its beautiful design. Loosely arranged in 72 chapters with titles like "Colour", "Noise", "Chance", "Camouflage" and "Handedness", Fletcher's book, which he describes as "a journey without a destination", is "a collection of shards" that captures the sensory overload of a world that simply contains too much information. In one typical section, entitled "Civilization", the reader encounters six Polish flags designed to represent the world, a photograph of an anthropomorphic hand bag, Buzz Aldrin's bootprint on the moon, drawings of Stone Age pebbles, a painting of "Ireland--as seen from Wales" and a dizzying array of quotations and snippets of information, including the wise words of Marcus Aurelius, Stephen Jay and Gandhi's comment, "Western civilization? I think it would be a good idea". Fletcher's mastery of design mixes type, space, fonts, alphabets, colour and layout combined with a "jackdaw" eye for the strange and profound to produce a stunning book that cannot be read, but only experienced. --Jerry Brotton
  
   

• The Story of Art

  E.H. Gombrich

  
  
   

• Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography (Vintage classics)

  Roland Barthes

  
  
   

• Burlesque and the Art of the Teese / Fetish and the Art of the Teese

  Dita Von Teese

  
  
   

• Art in Theory 1900-2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas

  
  
   

• Equus

  Tim Flach

  
  
   

• Wildlife Photographer of the Year: Portfolio 18 (Wildlife Photographer of the Year)

  Rosamund Kidman Cox

  
  
   

• The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain

  Betty Edwards

  
  
   

• The Moment It Clicks: Photography Secrets from One of the World's Top Shooters

  Joe McNally

  
  
   

• A Lust for Window Sills: A Lover's Guide to British Buildings from Portcullis to Pebble Dash

  Harry Mount

  
  
   

• The Freelance Photographer's Market Handbook 2009 2009 (Photography)

  
  
   

• The Artist's Way: A Course in Discovering and Recovering Your Creative Self

  Julia Cameron

  
  With the basic principle that creative expression is the natural direction of life, Julia Cameron and Mark Bryan lead you through a comprehensive 12-week program to recover your creativity from a variety of blocks, including limiting beliefs, fear, self-sabotage, jealousy, guilt, addictions and other inhibiting forces, replacing them with artistic confidence and productivity.

  This book links creativity to spirituality by showing how to connect with the creative energies of the universe, and has, in the four years since its publication, spawned a remarkable number of support groups for artists dedicated to practising the exercises it contains. --Amazon.com

  
   

• How to Draw Anything

  Mark Linley

  
  
   

• 2009 Jack Vettriano Deluxe Diary

  teNeues Publishing Group

  
  
   

• Pictures

  Tim Walker