Best Book Design
A beautifully illustrated guide to more than 75 of the world's most celebrated, rare, and seminal books and handwritten manuscripts ever produced, with discussions of their purpose, features, and creators. Michael Collins is a native of Ireland and studied theology at the University College Dublin.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Absolutely beautiful coffee table book and very interesting to read."
"The definition of a good coffee table book, this work is almost impossible to avoid picking it up and paging through. Along with photographs of pages from the first edition which include a discussion of 16th century typesetting, is a general synopsis of the book’s subject matter, a thumbnail biography of the author, an over-view of culture during the book’s release and an In Context section which explores its impact in history which in this case is a look at the founding fathers of the U.S. Not every work in the book is covered as lavishly, for example in the final section most books, On the Road by Jack Kerouak has four or five columnar inches and a picture of the cover of the book. The inclusions cover a vast range of subjects from definitive botanical and anatomical works, ancient Egyptian Books of the Dead and the I Ching to Beatrice Potter’s Peter Rabbit along with Penguin publishers first 10 paperback books creating a thoroughly engaging volume."
"From earliest times, when books were laboriously written on clay tablets, papyrus, parchment, and paper, until the present, with millions of us obtaining books, magazines, and other reading matter electronically, books have been a hallmark of civilization. While doing so, you will discover a treasure trove about the Gutenberg Bible, Leonardo da Vinci's remarkable notebooks, Vesalius's studies of the human body that set "a new standard for anatomical illustration," Samuel Johnson's extraordinary dictionary, Audubon's masterpiece, "Birds of America," Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and Baum's "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.""
"I thought not...). "Remarkable Books" is too big to sit down with and read all at once. However, it's a wonderful book to start at the beginning - 3000BCE - and goes on through the ages to modern times."
"A stunning volume spanning centuries of beautiful books from all cultures."
In this book, Margaret Shepherd, America's premier calligrapher, shows you that calligraphy is not simply a craft you can learn, but an elegant art form that you can make your own. * Provide context for calligraphy as an art, exploring the rich tradition of hand-lettering and mapping the evolution of the most popular styles.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Of the many books on calligraphy that I've purchased, this one had the most useful, everyday ideas for simple calligraphy."
"I recommend three manuals for the novice calligrapher: Calligraphy and Illumination: A History and Practical Guide by Patricia Lovett, The Calligrapher's Bible by David Harris (see my reviews of both texts) and this text, Learn Calligraphy by Margaret Shepherd, one of the foremost experts on the subject."
"So far, I find this to be very informative, and easy to understand."
"very fine layed out book with exelent instructions."
"Great artwork, easy to learn from :)."
According to the Huffington Post, “Chip Kidd is the Meryl Streep of book design.” At the forefront of a revolution in publishing, Kidd’s iconic covers, in large part inspired by memorabilia and comics, have influenced an entire generation of designers, artists, and the book world. Orhan Pamuk is a Turkish novelist, screenwriter, academic and recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"In this gorgeously designed book, Chip takes you on a tour of many of his magnificent projects and includes anecdotal backstories, rejected art and amazing commentary from Neil Gaiman, and more."
Best Design
Also available: The Laws Sketchbook for Nature Journaling , a blank journal constructed to withstand excursions in the field and containing several exercises from The Laws Guide to Nature Drawing and Journaling. “This beautiful art book will teach you how to be ‘still, quiet, and attentive…to organize your thoughts, piece together answers, and ask richer questions.’ The overall goal is to stimulate your curiosity, and you won't find a better guide.” -- Foreword Reviews.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I originally purchased this book to have easy access to the information on John Muir Laws blog and in the videos. I believe the strength of John Muir Laws blog, classes, and books lies in the fact that he is dyslexic. Having read the blog, I recognize Jack's voice, but she lends a harmony and richness that is strikingly beautiful. Using large photos from his own journal, John details 13 different types of field investigations, noting their strengths and potential problem spots. For an amateur naturalist, this chapter will provide at least a year's worth of projects that will open the door to a lifetime of investigation. He begins with a nod to the (insanely tedious) Grinnell Method, and then moves on to teach techniques for presenting information graphically. We have all grown accustomed to slick infographics produced on the computer, but learning how to accomplish this in field journaling is an entirely different beast. One quick note here: the "Elements to Include in Your Journal" intended to be copied isn't photocopyable -- it lies next to the gutter and the background/text don't have enough contrast to photocopy well. From color theory to edges to values, he succinctly shows how to capture your subject in a way that is scientifically accurate and artistically compelling. John Muir Laws employs a method of teaching drawing/painting that allows students to catch scientifically unique features with a minimum of fuss. Fans of his blog and video classes will notice some of the details missing from these pages -- the clock trick for placing a bird head and tail, for instance. John and Emilie clearly demonstrate their love, passion, and experience with nature journaling throughout all three hundred pages of this book. (The blog contains an elementary level curriculum with complete lesson plans) Amateur naturalists will be ecstatic to find a resource that is entirely devoted to and illustrated with field work."
"He demonstrates step by step how to document nearly every aspect of Nature, so you can record your own nature observations- covering landscapes, insects, flowers, mammals, rocks, trees and much (much!)."
"I loved the way he taught and bought the book to support his work. As a former middle school and high school science and math teacher, I highly recommend this book to teachers and students."
"As soon as Jack’s book Law’s Guide to Nature Drawing and Journaling was being shipped one of our students purchased it and it has been as popular as the play yard water fountain on a hot August day. Our students find it a consent source of reference and is quoted freely not only from his How to Draw sections, “You draw the rocks not the river.” But also his use of awareness and divergent thinking, “Come up with as many explanations for a phenomenon, and begin each one with ‘Could it be…’ “. Law’s Guide to Nature Drawing and Journaling with over 300 packed pages is a detailed and comprehensive work."
"This is one of the most beautiful books I've ever seen."
Best Book Publishing Industry
This seventeenth edition of The Chicago Manual of Style has been prepared with an eye toward how we find, create, and cite information that readers are as likely to access from their pockets as from a bookshelf. It offers updated guidelines on electronic workflows and publication formats, tools for PDF annotation and citation management, web accessibility standards, and effective use of metadata, abstracts, and keywords. The citation chapters reflect the ever-expanding universe of electronic sources—including social media posts and comments, private messages, and app content—and also offer updated guidelines on such issues as DOIs, time stamps, and e-book locators. ( Washington Post ). “This manual stands as an indispensable and thoughtfully constructed English language and style resource for those compelled, by enthusiasm or responsibility, to attend to the minutiae of written expression.”. ( Publishers Weekly ). “As it incorporates contemporary examples (e.g., NOOK, Lady Gaga), CMS, as expected, offers sensible, clear advice on matters great and small for authors’ guidance—such as the treatment of names of ships and spaceships, use of the en dash, how to edit electronic manuscripts, and the ins and outs of documenting and citing works of many kinds.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I bought CMOS 17 primarily for two reasons: (1) my CMOS 16 was battered and torn, beaten down by years of abuse and page-cornering; (2) I like to keep up with the changes, even if Bowie is dead. The biggest changes in content in CMOS 17, compared with CMOS 16, are an added subsection on syntax and expansion of the discussions of copyright and permissions. Another change one may not notice without CMOS 16 in hand, unless one happens to be a publisher/typographer, is with fonts. If so, I recommend GARNER'S MODERN ENGLISH USAGE by Bryan Garner (still weighty and not quite as comprehensive, but a bit more entertaining—and Garner is the contributor of the Usage chapter in CMOS, so the information in his book is consistent with that provided in CMOS) and EDITOR-PROOF YOUR WRITING by Don McNair (nice and short but absolutely loaded with information that can make a subpar writer an above-average one—maybe). Given the number of discordant reviews of his book by obviously failed writers (and because I've read it cover to cover and can attest to its quality), I'd say McNair has a live one."
"Even so, this is a very good resource to clarify some rules of usage that we can forget or we never learned in school. It would be lovely if folks who bought a copy of this pricey tome also got access to more examples at the CMOS site and ongoing notifications of revisions of rules before the next edition released. Some changes to hyphenation-- head hunting becomes head-hunting; e-mail is now email--and some differences in certain uses of commas are also included in the new edition."
"Briefly, I like the organization and I love the index--a real old-fashioned index done by a professional indexer that means if it's in the book you can find it However, I simply haven't used it was much as I though I would."
"What's to like or not like: it's a guide that one needs for one's professional life."
"The Chicago Manual of Style is the gold standard."
"The best style manual in print."
"The gold standard of English usage."
"Sure, Turabian distills this book (and the sin of the latest Turabian is that in a misguided attempt to appeal to more people, they've added a parenthetical reference system to the footnote system she popularized), but sometimes you must turn to the Chicago for more information."
Best Drawing
Also available: The Laws Sketchbook for Nature Journaling , a blank journal constructed to withstand excursions in the field and containing several exercises from The Laws Guide to Nature Drawing and Journaling. “This beautiful art book will teach you how to be ‘still, quiet, and attentive…to organize your thoughts, piece together answers, and ask richer questions.’ The overall goal is to stimulate your curiosity, and you won't find a better guide.” -- Foreword Reviews.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I originally purchased this book to have easy access to the information on John Muir Laws blog and in the videos. I believe the strength of John Muir Laws blog, classes, and books lies in the fact that he is dyslexic. Having read the blog, I recognize Jack's voice, but she lends a harmony and richness that is strikingly beautiful. Using large photos from his own journal, John details 13 different types of field investigations, noting their strengths and potential problem spots. For an amateur naturalist, this chapter will provide at least a year's worth of projects that will open the door to a lifetime of investigation. He begins with a nod to the (insanely tedious) Grinnell Method, and then moves on to teach techniques for presenting information graphically. We have all grown accustomed to slick infographics produced on the computer, but learning how to accomplish this in field journaling is an entirely different beast. One quick note here: the "Elements to Include in Your Journal" intended to be copied isn't photocopyable -- it lies next to the gutter and the background/text don't have enough contrast to photocopy well. From color theory to edges to values, he succinctly shows how to capture your subject in a way that is scientifically accurate and artistically compelling. John Muir Laws employs a method of teaching drawing/painting that allows students to catch scientifically unique features with a minimum of fuss. Fans of his blog and video classes will notice some of the details missing from these pages -- the clock trick for placing a bird head and tail, for instance. John and Emilie clearly demonstrate their love, passion, and experience with nature journaling throughout all three hundred pages of this book. (The blog contains an elementary level curriculum with complete lesson plans) Amateur naturalists will be ecstatic to find a resource that is entirely devoted to and illustrated with field work."
"He demonstrates step by step how to document nearly every aspect of Nature, so you can record your own nature observations- covering landscapes, insects, flowers, mammals, rocks, trees and much (much!)."
"I loved the way he taught and bought the book to support his work. As a former middle school and high school science and math teacher, I highly recommend this book to teachers and students."
"As soon as Jack’s book Law’s Guide to Nature Drawing and Journaling was being shipped one of our students purchased it and it has been as popular as the play yard water fountain on a hot August day. Our students find it a consent source of reference and is quoted freely not only from his How to Draw sections, “You draw the rocks not the river.” But also his use of awareness and divergent thinking, “Come up with as many explanations for a phenomenon, and begin each one with ‘Could it be…’ “. Law’s Guide to Nature Drawing and Journaling with over 300 packed pages is a detailed and comprehensive work."
"This is one of the most beautiful books I've ever seen."
Best Visual Arts
A battered town left for dead, one that almost a million people abandoned and where those who remained had to live behind triple deadbolt locks, was reinvigorated by the twinned energies of starving artists and financial white knights. Covering culture high and low, the drama and scandal of politics and finance, through jubilant moments and immense tragedies, the magazine has hit readers where they live, with a sensibility as fast and funny and urbane as New York itself. From its early days publishing writers like Tom Wolfe, Jimmy Breslin, and Gloria Steinem to its modern incarnation as a laboratory of inventive magazine-making, New York has had an extraordinary knack for catching the Zeitgeist and getting it on the page. It was among the originators of the New Journalism, publishing legendary stories whose authors infiltrated a Black Panther party in Leonard Bernstein’s apartment, introduced us to the mother-daughter hermits living in the dilapidated estate known as Grey Gardens, launched Ms. Magazine, branded a group of up-and-coming teen stars “the Brat Pack,” and effectively ended the career of Roger Ailes. “When New York magazine began in 1968, it was unique: a brash conglomeration of ingenious writers, editors, and graphic designers who generated narrative journalism that was so classic it became new again. Highbrow, Lowbrow, Brilliant, Despicable: 50 Years of New York encapsulates those five convulsive decades in lavish illustrations, vivid oral histories, and evocative recreations by, among others, Tom Wolfe, Jimmy Breslin, Nora Ephron, Nicholas Pileggi, Julie Baumgold and Gael Greene from the magazine’s more than 2,300 issues.” —Sam Roberts, The New York Times. “A delicious compendium of the magazine’s coverage from the half-century of its existence, this is the kind of book that incites nostalgia even for the moments you didn’t live though (there’s the original Tom Wolfe “Radical Chic” cover!). The editors reproduce material that speaks not just to passing moments and fashions, but also to constant editorial emphases, such as high-quality artwork and portraiture.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"excellent in any ways - great design, great texts, it is a heavyweight champion."
"I found the FINsix Dart 65W in an airport store. It cost about half as much on line as in the airport. Then one day at work, I needed it for our system programmer to install a big program, and his mouth dropped when he saw how small the FINsix is."
"The unhelpful index indicated that my favorite cover, Gerald Ford ( as Bozo) to city, Drop Dead is in here, but I have yet to spot it."
"A fascinating look back at the past 50 years through the eyes of New York magazine."
"If you love the NYM, you'll love this book!"
"This book showcases a huge and terrific selection from the nearly half-century of New York Magazine's publication."
"It was like a history lesson, that I had lived through, unfortunately not in New York."
Best Paper Craft
Here is a collection of 32 simple projects for novice origami hobbyists — clearly illustrated and with easy-to-follow instructions that even beginning papercrafters can follow with success. Internationally renowned author John Montroll has significantly increased the origami repertoire with his original designs.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I bought this for my 13 year old daughter because she constantly complains about being bored."
"Easy Origami is just that....EASY."
"My son loves this book."
"My almost 7 year old loves this easy to use book!"
"This is a really good book with some very simple ones towards the beginning."
"This book is perfect for young kids just getting into origami."
"I thought it came with paper, but it is just instructions."
"Given as part of a gift set, so I can't say anything else except they liked it."
Best Calligraphy Guides
Chalkfulloflove was created to encourage, inspire and make you giggle, so just pour yourself a cup of coffee or a glass of wine and settle in to start your own unique, adorable lettering creations! Hardcover, oversized gold wire-o binding and gold corner protectors Step by step instructions on how to create various fonts and designs Thick premium paper, perfect for lettering Beautiful coffee table book and practical workbook. A day in her life looks like taking a crazy number of photos, dancing in the garage while packaging up orders, and cuddling with her pups.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"This book is beautiful!"
"I just started brush lettering and already trashed one pen on another book, so this book is perfect in my opinion."
"Love this!!!"
"BUT, the blank pages.... About 45% of the book is blank pages, not to mention all the white space. Pages 96-110 are ENTIRELY BLANK but for the page number, and so is almost half of the book."
"In purchasing a $30.00 book I expect more inside information, tips and tricks and showing me HOW she achieves her style of lettering, etc... For example, the flourishes pages literally just tells you that flourishes and illustrations are great to add to your lettering then shows you a 2" x 2" example of the author's own "Bless Your Heart" design (with zero instructions on how she achieved it) and has about a 6"x3" area next to that design that says "Practice Here.""
"I should have listened to the other people who reported that this book was full of nothing, but I was encouraged by the the claim that additional content was added."
Best Antique & Collectible Postcards
Celebrate the 20th anniversary of Pixar Animation Studios with film and concept art from every Pixar feature-length and short film to date.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"These are really cool, unique post cards that are absolutely beautiful."
"Some are the cards are super cute and awesome while some are eh and ok. Great gift for a Disney freak."
"These are very durable cards with lots of illustrations from Toy Story, some from CARS and the rest from other PIXAR movies."
"The images used are stills from the films or sketches of characters and scenes from the films during the planning stages, and a handful of pictures that look like they were drawn by children. I like to send the occasional post card to my preschool students to encourage them to use the postal service and send along a little cheer (who doesn't like getting a postcard?"
"He needed something on a large empty wall but I didn't like the idea of having frames on every wall space and I already had cool cartooney outer-space stick ons on two of them."
"I am impressed also by the thickness and quality of the cards - they have a nice weighted feel to them (but won't cost more to mail)."
"I bought them to use for postcrossing, but it will be hard to mail some of them, They are so cute."
"Great deal for postcards!!"