Tag Archives: Books

Video Profiles: 89-Year Old London Illustrator David Gentleman On His New Book “My Town” (May 2020)

David Gentleman is an iconic British illustrator and designer who has lived a lifetime in London. Drawing from over sixty years of engagement with this most My Town by David Gentleman Penguin UK May 2020well-known capital city, his most recent book,

My Town presents London as it was and as it is today. His beautiful and intricate work – of the Thames, Hampstead Heath, Camden Town (where David Gentleman has lived in the same house for fifty years), London’s parks and sights – offers us the pleasure of looking again at the everyday.

Accompanied by reflections on the work of an artist, commentary on the possibilities of ink, pen and paint and personal thoughts on the ever-changing city, this is a delight for all those who flock to London.

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London Illustrator David Gentleman
London Illustrator David Gentleman

David William Gentleman is an English artist. He studied illustration at the Royal College of Art under Edward Bawden and John Nash. He has worked in watercolour, lithography and wood engraving, at scales ranging from platform-length murals for Charing Cross Underground Station in London to postage stamps and logos. (Wikipedia)

Excerpts: Chip Walter On The “Search For The Aging Cure” (“Immortality, Inc.”)

From a LitHub online article by Chip Walter, 69:

Immortality Inc Chip Walter bookAnd what if older neurons were replaced wholesale with new stem cells? They might scramble different sectors of the brain by destroying the new connections between the originals. Fiddle with those, and who knew what mayhem might follow? Memories, learning, and other cerebral functions that the brain had grown accustomed to might simply vanish. On the other hand, in the case of a disease like Alzheimer’s, maybe new memories would be better than no memories at all.

Robert Hariri’s views on human health began to take an unusual turn a little more than 25 years ago, when he was working as a neurosurgeon and trauma doctor at the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center. Day after day, he watched patients come into the emergency room with severe brain injuries, and it was a painful thing to witness.

He never forgot the case of a woman who had arrived after a senseless automobile accident. She was young, and the injury was bad. Every time he spoke with the family, the big questions they asked were: “How will she be? Will she come back? Could she be a mother to her children again?” It broke his heart.

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William J. (Chip) Walter Jr. (born May 23, 1951) is an author, journalist, National Geographic Fellow, educator, filmmaker and former CNN bureau chief. He has written five mainstream science books between 1991 and 2019. Walter was one of the original employees at Cable News Network when it went on the air June 1, 1980 and later became its youngest bureau chief when he created CNN’s first Southeast Bureau in 1981 before heading up the network’s San Francisco Bureau in 1982. He has written and produced several PBS science documentaries, served as an adjunct professor at Carnegie Mellon University in three different departments, worked with UNICEF on the issue of childhood trauma, spoken at Harvard, Xerox PARC, Carnegie Mellon University and the Chautauqua Institution. One of his three original screenplays was produced and released under the title Sunset Grill in 1993 starring Peter Weller, Lori Singer and Stacy Keach. In 2015 his feature story for National Geographic Magazine explored the origins of human art and symbolic thinking.

From Wikipedia

New Books: “Mathematics For Human Flourishing” By Francis Su (Jan 2020)

“Human flourishing refers to a wholeness — of being and doing, of realizing one’s potential and helping others do the same, of acting with honor and treating others with dignity, of living with integrity even in challenging circumstances. It is not the same as happiness, and it is not just a state of mind. The well-lived life is a life of human flourishing.”

An inclusive vision of mathematics—its beauty, its humanity, and its power to build virtues that help us all flourish

Francis Su Mathematics For Human Flourishing book January 2020For mathematician Francis Su, a society without mathematical affection is like a city without concerts, parks, or museums. To miss out on mathematics is to live without experiencing some of humanity’s most beautiful ideas.

In this profound book, written for a wide audience but especially for those disenchanted by their past experiences, an award‑winning mathematician and educator weaves parables, puzzles, and personal reflections to show how mathematics meets basic human desires—such as for play, beauty, freedom, justice, and love—and cultivates virtues essential for human flourishing. These desires and virtues, and the stories told here, reveal how mathematics is intimately tied to being human. Some lessons emerge from those who have struggled, including philosopher Simone Weil, whose own mathematical contributions were overshadowed by her brother’s, and Christopher Jackson, who discovered mathematics as an inmate in a federal prison. Christopher’s letters to the author appear throughout the book and show how this intellectual pursuit can—and must—be open to all.

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Upcoming Travel Books: “Always Italy” By Frances Mayes (March 2020)

Frances Mayes Always Italy Book March 2020From the colorful coastline of Cinque Terre and the quiet ports of the Aeolian Islands to the Renaissance architecture of Florence and the best pizza in Rome, every section features insider secrets and off-the-beaten-path recommendations (for example, a little restaurant in Piedmont known for its tajarin, a pasta that is the perfect bed for the region’s celebrated truffles).

This lush guide, featuring more than 350 glorious photographs from National Geographic, showcases the best Italy has to offer from the perspective of two women who have spent their lives reveling in its unique joys. In these illuminating pages, Frances Mayes, the author of Under the Tuscan Sun and many other bestsellers, and New York Times travel writer Ondine Cohane reveal an Italy that only the locals know, filled with top destinations and unforgettable travel experiences in every region.

Here are the best places to stay, eat, and tour, paired with the rich history of each city, hillside town, and unique terrain. Along the way, you’ll make stops at the country’s hidden gems–art galleries, local restaurants, little-known hiking trails, spas, and premier spots for R&R. Inspiring and utterly unique, this vivid treasury is a must-have for anyone who wants to experience the best of Italy.

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Classic Car Books: “The Impossible Collection Of Bentley” (Assouline)

The Impossible Collection of Bentley The 100 At 100 AssoulineAssouline presents yet another fascinating volume dedicated to the preeminent British car brand—Bentley: 100. Housed in a hand-stitched leather bound, limited edition case, this all-inclusive work presents an exhaustive list of the one hundred single most important and groundbreaking Bentley models, with detailed critiques and explanations relating to each automobile’s unique engineering excellence and the various creative avenues Bentley may have taken during the manufacturing process.

Collection of Bentley The 100 at 100 book Assouline

From the 1924 3-Litre, the first Bentley to win Le Mans; to the 1959 S2, the first to feature a V8 engine; all the way up to the stunning 2018 Continental GT, this book is a decisive list of all the masterful models that have helped Bentley become the dominant and illustrious luxury car manufacturer that it is today.

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Video Interviews: 69-Year Old Professor & Author Of “Find Me”, André Aciman

André Aciman (born 2 January 1951) is an American writer. Born and raised in Alexandria, Egypt, he is currently distinguished professor at the Graduate Center of City University of New York, where he teaches the history of literary theory and the works of Marcel Proust. Aciman previously taught creative writing at New York University and French literature at Princeton and Bard College.

In 2009, he was Visiting Distinguished Writer at Wesleyan University.

He is the author of several novels, including Call Me by Your Name (winner, in the Gay Fiction category, of the 2007 Lambda Literary Award and made into a film) and a 1995 memoir, Out of Egypt, which won a Whiting Award. Although best known for Call Me by Your Name, Aciman stated in an interview in 2019 his best book to be the novel Eight White Nights.

From Wikipedia

Video Interviews: Author Joseph S. Nye, Jr. On His Book “Do Morals Matter?”

As one of the leading figures in the field of international relations, Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus, has had a major influence on the way that policymakers think American foreign policy.

In his new book, “Do Morals Matter: Presidents and Foreign Policy from FDR to Trump,” Professor Nye explores the question of how heavily moral questions weigh on the decisions of U.S. presidents since the end of World War II. On this episode of Behind The Book, produced by Library and Knowledge Services at Harvard Kennedy School, we take a look at Professor Nye’s new book and how he assesses the legacy of past presidents based on the morality of their foreign policy.

“Do Morals Matter: Presidents and Foreign Policy from FDR to Trump” is published by Oxford University Press.

Joseph S. Nye Jr., is the University Distinguished Service Professor, Emeritus and former Dean of the Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He has served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, Chair of the National Intelligence Council, and Deputy Under Secretary of State for Security Assistance, Science and Technology.

His most recent books include The Power to Lead; The Future of Power; Presidential Leadership and the Creation of the American Era; and Is the American Century Over. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the British Academy, and the American Academy of Diplomacy.

In a recent survey of international relations scholars, he was ranked as the most influential scholar on American foreign policy, and in 2011, Foreign Policy named him one of the top 100 Global Thinkers.

Collectors Books: “Watches – A Guide by Hodinkee” (Assouline)

Watches A Guide by Hodinkee Assouline book December 2019For our debut, we wanted to do something that would appeal to anyone and everyone who has the slightest interest in watches. Whether you are new to the game or have been scouring flea markets since you could walk, we want you to be able to pick up this book and gain a greater understanding of watches and all they have to offer.

So we broke it down into nine chapters: “A Brief History of Time,” “Chronographs,” “The Dive Watch,” “Travel Time,” “Military Watches,” “High Complications,” “Women and Watches,” “Dress Watches,” and “Icons.” Each chapter was written by one of our editors: Benjamin Clymer, Cara Barrett, Cole Pennington, Jack Forster, James Stacey, Jason Heaton, Jonathan Bues, and Stephen Pulvirent, with a foreword by Mr. Joe Thompson.

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New Books: “The Making Of Poetry – Coleridge, The Wordsworths And Their Year Of Marvels”

The Making of Poetry Coleridge, The Wordsworth and Their Year of Marvels Adam Nicolson 2020 US ReleaseIn The Making of Poetry, Adam Nicolson embeds himself in the reality of this unique moment, exploring the idea that these poems came from this particular place and time, and that only by experiencing the physical circumstances of the year, in all weathers and all seasons, at night and at dawn, in sunlit reverie and moonlit walks, can the genesis of the poetry start to be understood.

June 1797 to September 1798 is the most famous year in English poetry. Out of it came Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and “Kubla Khan,” as well as his unmatched hymns to friendship and fatherhood, and William Wordsworth’s revolutionary songs in Lyrical Ballads along with “Tintern Abbey,” Wordsworth’s paean to the unity of soul and cosmos, love and understanding.

Excerpt from The Prelude by Wordsworth and Coleridge

The poetry Wordsworth and Coleridge made was not from settled conclusions but from the adventure on which they embarked, thinking of poetry as a challenge to all received ideas, stripping away the dead matter, looking to shed consciousness and so change the world. What emerges is a portrait of these great figures seen not as literary monuments but as young men, troubled, ambitious, dreaming of a vision of wholeness, knowing they had greatness in them but still in urgent search of the paths toward it.

The artist Tom Hammick accompanied Nicolson for much of the year, making woodcuts from the fallen timber in the park at Alfoxden where the Wordsworths lived. Interspersed throughout the book, his images bridge the centuries, depicting lives at the source of our modern sensibility: a psychic landscape of doubt and possibility, full of beauty and thick with desire for a kind of connectedness that seems permanently at hand and yet always out of reach.

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Profiles: The Minimalist Aesthetic Of London Architect John Pawson

From a The Modern House online article:

“Simplicity in architecture can sometimes only be achieved by the most complex of means.”

John Pawson Anatomy of Minimum PHAIDON Publishing 2019British architectural designer John Pawson has, in a career spanning over three decades, created an inimitable body of work characterized by its distillment of the fundamental ingredients of architecture into their most elemental, elegant expressions.

His design practice, which began primarily with residential commissions, now extends to churches, museums, ballet sets, textiles, kitchenware and furniture. Despite his minimalistArchitect John Pawson approach, Pawson is sensitive to the intimate rituals of daily life and his buildings are far from austere: instead, they elegantly make the case for the clarity and freedom to be found in the act of reduction.

In a new book published by Phaidon, writer Alison Morris explores Pawson’s most recent projects, shedding light on his working process and influences accompanied by stunning photographs, drawings and imagery from his personal journal.

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