FILM
Oscar Night:
75 Years of Hollywood Parties from the Editors of Vanity Fair
By Graydon Carter
and David Friend
Knopf, 384 pages, $100
What is it about celebrities that entices you to look at nearly 400 pages of photographs of people you've never met in poses you occasionally find silly at Academy Awards-night parties you have no hope of attending? The quick answer is that you have met them, regularly, in works of imagination that fired their images into your brains: Stan Laurel, Cary Grant (with a stunning Kim Novak), Audrey Hepburn (disastrous makeup), Jennifer and Brad. And they're dressed really, really nicely in this outsized compilation of frequently candid photos taken on 75 Oscar nights from 1929 to the present. A celebrity spotter's dream and great fun.
Cinema Year by Year:
1894 to 2004
Edited by Robin Karney
DK, 1,016 pages, $70
Anyone who has seen a copy of Chronicle of the 20th Century knows the formula: Compile historic news items alongside glossy photos, and gather them month by month, year by year, until you have a century's worth of stuff. Then bind it into a two-inch-thick doorstopper that's as hard to lift up as it is to put down. Who would not want to see more than a century's worth of square-jawed hunks and doe-eyed starlets, looking their very best in bygone publicity stills and movie posters, many in glorious colour?
Art by Film Directors
By Karl French
Mitchell Beazley, 208 pages, $50
Inside every film director, apparently, there is an artist struggling to get out, even if it's only to draw storyboards of scenes to be shot in upcoming movies. Martin Scorsese's preliminary sketches have no life beyond their role on the set, but the watercolours Alfred Hitchcock prepared for The 39 Steps are lovely. And some of the filmmakers here are actually famous for their drawings (Jean Cocteau, Terry Gilliam). Others (Federico Fellini, with his charming sketches, and Akira Kurosawa with his Van Gogh-inspired paintings) are a splendid, wonderful surprise.
In the Picture:
Production Stills
from the TCM Archive
By Alexa L. Foreman,
Ruth A. Peltason and Mark A. Viera
Chronicle, 160 pages, $41.95
This fascinating collection of rare, behind-the-scenes stills is an entrancing glimpse into the smoke and mirrors that created the Hollywood films from the era of Jean Harlow to Elvis Presley. The photographs, part of the Turner Classic Movies collection, reveal --among other things -- an astonishing crowd of production people and extras moved in close to get a good look at the intimate embrace of lovers Greta Garbo and Robert Taylor in Camille's boudoir. And you can only marvel at the fuss and bustle around the vast, water-filled lagoon where Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were Dancing Cheek to Cheek. This book is a must for any serious film buff .
NATURE AND ENVIRONMENTRendezvous with the Wild:
The Boreal Forest
Edited by James Raffan
Boston Mills, 92 pages, $49.95
In the summer of 2003, 10 crews of paddlers took to 10 rivers that flow through Canada's boreal region, which stretches from Newfoundland to Alaska, and is considered as important to the planet as the Amazon rain forest. At the request of outdoor educator James Raffan, the adventurers contributed essays, stories, songs, poems, photos and drawings of their travels. Among the 50 were John Ralston Saul, Courtney Milne, Tomson Highway, Justin Trudeau, Cathy Jones, Thomas King, David Suzuki and Ken Dryden. This is an inspiring and beautifully illustrated tribute to a vast, magnificent ecosystem.
Birds of the Raincoast:
Habits and Habitat
By Harvey Thommasen
and Kevin Hutchings
Harbour, 224 pages, $44.95
Somewhere between a field guide and a coffee-table tome, this book takes the reader for a series of bird-watching walks through nine different landscapes in British Columbia. It's a discursive walk, with descriptions of the seasons of the land and with lots of photos of birds you might see. Some of the birds are West Coast specialties, but many are familiar to birders anywhere in the country.
Sahel:
The End of The Road
By Sebastião Salgado
University of California Press,
140 pages, $50.50
A great sweeping sadness overwhelms the reader of this book about the drought and devastation in the African Sahel. Images flow from the page like visual poetry of a most unkind history. Empathy is perhaps Salgado's strongest tool, and he wields it with concise passion and the practised eye that has garnered him dozens of awards. The Sahel, here, is revealed as a desolate yet populated place, with death and suffering looming large and numb before the lens.
The Race to Save the Lord God Bird
By Phillip Hoose
Melanie Kroupa Books,
196 pages, $30
It's been 60 years since the last ivory-billed woodpecker was spotted for sure in the swamps of the southern United States, though a few of a similar species survive in Cuba. In the late 1930s, a biologist figured out that the hawk-sized woodpecker lived on grubs from trees that were being rapidly cut down. Hoose recreates the epic fight between conservationists and timber companies. The wood cutters won; the woodpeckers lost.
The Elements:
Earth Air Fire Water
By Art Wolfe
Text by Craig Childs
Sasquatch, 169 pages, $63
The four elements so familiar to us are transformed through the lens of acclaimed nature photographer Art Wolfe into dynamic and evocative shapes. Some images shout at you, others quietly pull you in. Australia's Remarkable Rocks look like giant chunks of sponge toffee, the sub-aerial Colorado River Delta, like a spray of ferns, and sunrise at Montana's Grinnell Point a pulsating chunk of red hot coal. Each element has its own section with introductions by nature writer Craig Childs. And for photographers, there's information on cameras, settings and film. You will see the world with new eyes.
The Lost Amazon:
The Photographic Journey
of Richard Evans Schultes
By Wade Davis
Douglas & McIntyre,
160 pages, $45
In 1941, Richard Evans Schultes took a leave from Harvard University and disappeared into Colombia's Amazon region. He didn't reappear for 12 years. He returned not just with thousands of botanical specimens -- 300 of which were previously unknown to science -- but also with thousands of astonishingly good photographs. The Lost Amazon is the first collection of his best images, not just of his beloved jungle flora, but also of the people and places he came to know so well.
Himalaya
Photos by Eric Valli
Abrams, 400 pages, $75
Eric Valli has created a book as imposing as his subject. For the world-renowned French photographer, his 20 years among the mountains and people of the Himalaya were a kind of pilgrimage. These 200 full-colour photos are his offering. Many of these brilliant images reveal the nomadic life of the gurung, people of the high valleys, who eke out an existence in the shadow of the towering mountains. Women cook over open fires; men hang by rope ladders and use bamboo poles to extract honey from cliffside hives, as they have for 12,000 years. As industrious and unique as the people are, in the end, they are dwarfed by the power of the land.
Untamed
By Steve Bloom
Abrams, 421 pages, $82.50
Certainly one of the most beautiful collections of animal photographs available, this work by noted wildlife photographer Steve Bloom offers something jaw-dropping on virtually each of its double-page spreads: Adelie penguins resting on a blue Antarctic iceberg, a great white shark leaping from the water in South Africa, zebras during a heavy rain in Kenya, a giant panda resting on the rocks in China, an unearthly aurora borealis in Manitoba, bottlenose dolphins in Honduras. And so on and brilliantly on.
The Encyclopedia of Animals:
A Complete Visual Guide
University of California Press,
607 pages, $51.95
Beginning with an introductory overview of animal evolution, biology, behaviour, classification, habitats and current conservation issues, the Encyclopedia of Animals offers more than 2,000 species illustrations -- including many spectacular wildlife photographs -- along with discussions of classification information, naming, distribution maps, anatomical drawings and conservation panels that focus on endangered species.
Call of the Desert: The Sahara
Photography by Philippe Bourseiller
Abrams, 419 pages, $75
There is a smattering of text in this magnificent volume, by several different contributors, but the point of the exercise is clearly the wealth of breathtaking photographs by Philippe Bourseiller. Some of these pictures are of the people of the Sahara, but the majority are sweeping vistas, abstract shapes and glorious colours. Especially the colours, which range from deep red skies to brilliant blue lakes.
Deserts:
The Living Drylands
By Sara Oldfield
Photography by Bruce
Coleman Collection
MIT Press, 159 pages, $38.95
Environmentalist Sara Oldfield is interested in the abundant life that thrives in seemingly inhospitable deserts, and in conserving it as much as possible. The photographs are splendid, but the point is really as much the text, which discusses the arid lands of Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the Americas, especially the amazing adaptations of dryland species, both fauna and flora. She also goes into changes that are occurring in desert ecologies, and the effects on endangered species and human populations.
HOME AND GARDEN
Ornamental Foliage Plants
By Denise Greig
Firefly, 400 pages, $49.95
Like many of the 1,500 plants it describes, this book provides a good foundation about the backbone of a garden: the leafy varieties that offer constancy as other plants' flowers come and go. And like all gardening books of a global scope, there's a bit too much information here for a Canadian gardener. Still, it will make a valuable, easy-to-use reference for novice or pro, covering the uses and needs of architectural plants, climbers and creepers, grey, blue or silver foliage, ground covers and conifers.
Best Rose Guide:
A Comprehensive Selection
By Roger Phillips and Martyn Rix
Firefly, 288 pages, $49.95
Are you pricked by the urge to grow roses? This handsome gardening and scientific compendium will help you cut the guesswork. There are no fewer than 1,300 stunning colour photographs, which are grouped into 24 categories of glorious, gorgeous blooms. The section on the wonderfully scented modern romantica roses is a must-read for gardenistas with a prejudice against the skinny, no-scent, hybrid tea roses. Read on and dream of spring.
The Most Beautiful Gardens
in the World
Photographed by Alain Le Toquin
Text by Jacques Bosser
Translated by Clare Palmieri
Abrams, 260 pages, $90
There are two ways to enjoy a garden: Create your own or stare enviously at someone else's. Alain Le Toquin allows us to stare from the comfort of our own homes as he celebrates the spectacular diversity of human-made landscapes. This book takes us to 32 of the greatest public and private gardens on five continents, including the fountain gardens of the Iranian desert, the stunning gardens of Versailles and the modern "garden of cosmic speculation" in Scotland.
A-Z Encyclopedia of Garden Plants:
Canadian Edition
Edited by Christopher Brickell
and Trevor Cole
DK, 1,096 pages, $95
This comprehensive, monumental work lists some 15,000 ornamental plants, alphabetically by botanical names, with the many common names cross-referenced and indexed. Every plant has a profile compiled by teams of experts. More than 6,000 of the plants are illustrated with specially commissioned colour photographs, which often show the different growth stages for the individual plants. The back of the book features a glossary of terms as well as visual glossaries for flowers and leaves. For the serious gardener.
Bringing Tuscany Home:
Sensuous Style
From the Heart of Italy
By Frances Mayes
Broadway Books, 240 pages, $42
Frances Mayes's infatuation with Tuscany has become a veritable industry. First there was the wildly popular memoir Under the Tuscan Sun, which spawned two further books on la dolce vita. She parlayed those into a Martha Stewart-like leap into furniture and dinnerware design. Mayes obviously believes there can never be too much of a good thing. This book, a sumptuous mix of prose and photography, offers philosophical reflections ( la vita e cosi; life is like that), decorating ideas, recipes and Tuscan shopping venues.
SPORTS
Heart of the Game:
An Illustrated Celebration
of the American League, 1946-60
By Andy Jurinko
Sport Classic, 240 pages, $38.95
Sure it covers just a few years in "the junior circuit." So what? Lots happened in those years, including integration. For a young fan, the book offers a way to become immersed in Mickey Mantle and Ted Williams and Satchel Paige. New generations may demand new heroes, but don't deny them the older ones, too. The drawings are full of action and humanity.
Hotshots:
21st Century Sports Photography
Edited by Rob Fleder
Sports Illustrated Books,
192 pages, $36.95
It may seem way too soon to be thinking about the 21st century, let alone publishing a book about it. But here is Sports Illustrated, offering the best sports photographs of the last four dozen months. To be sure, there are some phenomenal pictures here, including one of Canadian high jumper Mark Boswell floating over a 7-foot, 4-inch bar. But you might want to wait 96 years for the definitive edition.
Sports Illustrated: 50
Edited by Rob Fleder
Sports Illustrated Books,
304 pages, $43.95
Most sports fans will likely skip the long essay on Sports Illustrated's 1954 origin to get to the good stuff: pictures by decade, excerpts from 35 of the magazine's best articles and an illustration of every single magazine cover over the 50 years. Who knew so many of the early editions featured dogs and ducks on their covers? One quibble: It might have been nicer to read a dozen articles at full length rather than three dozen excerpts.
The Official Illustrated NHL History:
The Story of the Coolest Game
on Earth
By Arthur Pincus
Reader's Digest,
240 pages, $39.95
Most of them are here: Morenz, Richard, Howe, Hull, Sawchuck, Beliveau, Orr, Gretzky -- even if too much attention is paid to "heroes" of the 21st century. There's enough history, anecdotes and personal data in these pages to satisfy most fans, and it's noteworthy that this "official" history restores some of the lustre to the career of convicted player agent Alan Eagleson.
COMICS
The DC Comics Encyclopedia:
The Definitive Guide to the
Characters of the DC Universe
By Scott Beatty et al.
DK, 352 pages, $50
It's easy to get pleasantly lost in this full-colour, richly illustrated reference book, moving beyond DC comic-book icons Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman to discover 1942's Ghost Patrol, "deceased French Foreign Legionnaires who returned as phantoms to thwart the tyranny of Nazi Germany." The authors apologize for not fitting in every single character from 1935 to the present, which explains the sad absence of The Fox and The Crow, but they did include Mr. Mxyzptlk, the imp from the fifth dimension who made Superman's life hell until Superman tricked him into saying his name backwards.
Suddenly Silver:
Celebrating 25 Years of
For Better or For Worse
By Lynn Johnston
Andrews McMeel,
295 pages, $24.95
Hard to believe that it's been a quarter-century since Collingwood, Ont., native Lynn Johnston launched her smart, funny plumbing of the life domestic. This compilation of a strip loved by millions of people who can't get enough of Elly, John, Michael, Elizabeth and April, is divided into three parts, reflecting stages of Johnston's career -- and of her characters' lives. The artist intersperses musings about her own life and its relationship to her creations.
The Complete Peanuts:
1950 to 1952
Fantagraphics, 324 pages, $39.95
The Complete Peanuts:
1954 to 1954,
Fantagraphics, 325 pages, $39.95
Both volumes in slipcase, $69.95
These are the first two volumes of what will eventually be the entire Peanuts corpus in beautiful editions -- designed by the brilliant Canadian illustrator Seth -- from Fantagraphics Books. Happiness for Charlie Brown, Lucy, Snoopy and the gang may be a warm puppy, but for fans of this rich and complex series, it will definitely be owning these volumes.
Opus:
25 Years of His Sunday Best
By Berkeley Breathed
Little, Brown, 224 pages, $43.95
And it's just as difficult to credit that Berkeley Breathed has also been doing his thing for that same period. This colourful compendium featuring Opus and the other residents of Bloom County and Outland -- Binkley, Bill the Cat, Ronald Ann -- will appeal to both devotees and newcomers. It shows why Breathed is worthy company for the great cartoonists who created their own little worlds: Walt Kelly, Charles M. Schulz and Gary Trudeau.
PHOTOGRAPHY
A Passion for Trains:
The Railroad Photography
of Richard Steinheimer
Norton, 208 pages, $94
Another picture book certain to appeal to your inner ferro-equinologist. But this one lends perspective with a neat summary on the evolution of train photography beginning in the late 19th century and hinging on Richard Steinheimer's 50 years of work in the U.S. West as steam passed the baton to diesel. With about 150 full-page black-and-white shots, you can appreciate Steinheimer's knack for removing himself from trackside and finding a vantage point that captures the railway's place in life and lore.
Magnum Stories
By Chris Boot
Phaidon, 500 pages, $99.95
Magnum Stories delivers a global feast, visual and textual, of mid to late 20th-century photojournalism. Dozens of master photographers reflect on their images in self-selected photo stories, which distill moments as diverse as Gandhi's funeral and the Hungarian Revolution. The more than 700 images deliver a satisfying international blend of history and art, with text that raises the photographer's lens to the reader's eye.
Many are Called
By Walker Evans
Introduction by James Agee
Yale University Press,
208 pages, $52
Hats. That's what leaps out at you in Walker Evans's New York subway photographs, snapped by his hidden camera in 1938 and 1941. There are fedoras, and caps, and wimples and women's millinery of all sorts. They sit on top of sombre, unhappy-looking travellers, all of whom look as if they are taking a one-way train into a hell called the Great Depression. Wonderfully evocative, Evans's camera captures flawlessly just how much of history can't be separated from clothing style.
Ansel Adams:
Trees, with Selected Writings
Edited by Janet Swan Bush
Bulfinch, 103 pages, $73
A century ago, photographer Ansel Adams was born into a United States far removed from the one we grapple with understanding today. Trees is a pure tabletop tonic to reconnect with the natural beauty of America. Adorned with snippets from poets and authors, it's perfect for canoeists and visual artists alike. Peer into the 55 impeccably produced photos of the ancient trees of the Sierra and the American West to gain a meditative glimpse at a raw, idealized nature surely lost to the postmodern world.
In Focus:
National Geographic
Greatest Portraits
Edited by Leah Bendavid-Val
National Geographic Society,
504 pages, $43.50
A bit of anthropology, a lot of travelogue, striking pictures carefully posed (particularly of pretty women), plenty of skin (particularly of faraway peoples) -- National Geographic magazine has staked out a territory that sells. This book has hundreds of pictures, often arresting, pulled out of their story context to show the photographer's art.
The Great Life Photographers
Bulfinch, 608 pages, $73
Many of the photographs collected in this endlessly fascinating book are so iconic that their origins in Life magazine are long forgotten. Think of Philippe Halsman's Hitchcock, with a murder of crows perched on him, John Loengard's photo of Marian Anderson at the Lincoln Memorial in 1939 and, of course, Robert Capa's dying Loyalist soldier in Spain. This volume is both reminder of and introduction to the many great photographers whose work found a home in Life, including Margaret Bourke-White, Larry Burrows and Gordon Parks.
ART, DESIGN
AND ARCHITECTURE
Théâtre d'Amour:
The Garden of Love
and its Delights
Rediscovering a Lost Book from the Age of the Baroque
By Carsten-Peter Warncke
Taschen, 352 pages, $44.95
Beside an engraving of a cherub sternly whipping on a sad-eyed ox is a poem warning, "Cupid is a harsh tyrant . . . who never lifts the yoke." Similar wry, romantic observations, and 143 engravings, adorn this lush, gilded reprint of an album compiled around 1620 by an anonymous French aristo. An ideal gift for any lover -- or lover of the Baroque.
Art of Modern Rock:
The Poster Explosion
By Paul Grushkin
and Dennis King
Chronicle Books,
492 pages, $58.80
A sequel to The Art of Rock, this survey of 1,800 posters by 375 international artists is a screaming mosh pit of sass and raunch, ranging from an image of two ancient, billing-and-cooing drunks on a poster for Croatia's Club Mocvara ("The Swamp") to a Pearl Jam poster showing the Statue of Liberty getting mugged. The best rock art since album covers went the way of all vinyl.
Sir Winston Churchill:
His Life and His Paintings
By David Coombs
with Minnie Churchill
Running Press, 256 pages, $56.95
Churchill was 40 when he turned to the "muse of painting," which he credits for rescuing him from severe depression after he was forced to resign in 1915 from the British wartime government. His fascination began with a child's paint box and continued the rest of his life, depicted here through a chronological collection of his works. Churchill's love of landscape and colour leaps from the pages. Commentary, including two of his essays, helps place each work in context. "We may content ourselves with a joyride in a paint box," Churchill said of his muse. He could as easily have said it of Coombs's offering of the great statesman's oils.
Tamara de Lempicka:
Art Deco Icon
By Alain Blondel, Ingried Brugger
and Tag Gronberg
Royal Academy of Arts,
142 pages, $82.50
Tamara de Lempicka, the Warsaw-born toast of European society in the 1920s and '30s, did not paint shrinking violets. Her natty, sharp-angled men and voluptuous, self-possessed women strain at the frames of her paintings, staring the viewer down or glancing away, preoccupied by something more important. This is eye candy with attitude: page upon page of gorgeous portraits and poses, with three essays to put the artist and her era in perspective.
Automobiles of the Chrome Age
1946-1960
By Michael Furman
Abrams, 268 pages, $75
Here are more than 200 photos that put the lie to the belief that the automobile is mostly an ugly convenience. These cars of the automotive Gilded Age are often exquisitely beautiful, if as often horrifically gas-guzzling (but not that darling little 1956 Nash Metropolitan). This is the age of detailed Harley Earl-inspired design, of candy-apple red T-Birds, of Hudson Hornets and of one of the most beautiful objects ever designed, the Buick Roadmaster (the car from The Rain Man). An exquisitely loving book.
Glamour:
Fashion, Industrial Design,
Architecture
By Joseph Rosa, Phil Patton,
Virginia Postrel, Valerie Steele
and Ruth Keffer
Yale University Press,
192 pages, $58.50
Glamour is a lavishly produced catalogue designed to accompany an exhibit now going strong at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. On its own, the book stands out for its magnificent photos and incisive essays on the evolution of glamour, from its origins in the boom years following the Second World War to its current incarnation in the hands of digital artists. The fashions, industrial designs and architecture make this a browser's delight.
Calder Miro
Edited by Elizabeth Hutton Turner
and Oliver Wick
Philip Wilson/Phillips Collection/
Fondation Beyeler
307 pages, $72.95
The next best thing to attending a well-thought-out art exhibit is to have a thoroughly engaging catalogue. Alexander Calder and Joan Miro were remarkable artists. They were also close friends who shared artistic interests and held similar views on the relationship of space and balance in the structure of their art. Reproduced here are letters between the two gifted artists, as well as colour illustrations that show the influence each had on the other's monumental work.
Rauschenberg:
Art and life
Revised and updated
by Mary Lynn Kotz
Abrams, 352 pages, $97.50
Readable and gorgeous, this book chronicles Robert Rauschenberg's travels from Chinese paper mills to Samarkand's silk markets to graffiti-decked alleys in Cuba and Sri Lanka. All is grist for the dazzlingly creative mill of the multimedia artist-activist and his Rauschenberg Overseas Cultural Interchange project. With 112 splashy full-colour illustrations.
Dutch Seventeenth-Century
Genre Painting:
Its Stylistic and Thematic Evolution
By Wayne Franits
Yale University Press,
328 pages, $84
Sorry, Scarlett Johansson. The Girl with a Pearl Earring doesn't make it into this lavishly illustrated art book, but there are reproductions of other masterpieces by Johannes Vermeer and such illustrious fellow countrymen as Jan Steen and Frans and Willem van Mieris. The works are analyzed by home city, historical period, style and themes. Far from portraying contemporary life, the author notes, many of the artists merely reinterpreted old subjects, ignoring current fashions and architecture.
Urgent 2nd Class
By Nick Bantock
Raincoast, 117 pages, $26.95
A Nick Bantock book is always a visual treat. This is a departure from his Griffin & Sabine series, since he seeks to interest the reader in his passion for mixing and matching old illustrated materials. He describes it as "a handbook for those who wish to learn how to embellish and tamper with old documents, envelopes and other ephemeral scraps." For those who don't wish to learn -- who think a rubber stamp is for bureaucrats and collage is a misspelled university -- the fun is in examining old postcards, cigarette cards, lurid paperback covers, postage stamps, photographs and more, all in lovely muted colours.
The Jewish World 365 Days:
From the Collections
of the Israel Museum, Jerusalem
Abrams, 744 pages, $50
A description on the left and a full-page colour picture on the right make up this dazzling trek through the calendar (ours, not the Jewish lunar one). From Jan. 1 (a small Torah scroll from 18th-century Poland) to Dec. 31 (a modernistic Hanukkah lamp from 1995 Italy), the book is chockablock with beautifully presented photos, artifacts and manuscripts, from ancient times to modern.
HISTORY
Posters of the Canadian Pacific
By Marc H. Choko
and David L. Jones
Firefly, 240 pages, $49.95
Now a freight railway, Canadian Pacific once carried passengers around the world on trains, boats and airplanes, and produced more than 2,000 posters to sell Canada to the world and world travel to Canadians. A century ago, it was luring immigrants to "ready made farms" in Western Canada. A generation ago, it was telling Canadians about its "service to five continents." Here are 700 samples of this bright and nostalgic commercial art.
Gulag:
Life and Death Inside the
Soviet Concentration Camps,
1917-1990
By Tomasz Kizny
Firefly, 496 pages, $69.95
Had Alexander Solzhenitsyn's forte been gathering photographs, he would have created a book like Tomasz Kizny's. The Polish national spent years meeting former Soviet prisoners to obtain images chronicling the bleak lives of those forced to live in Arctic labour camps. The surviving pictures show how the Soviets rounded up prisoners and shipped them to the gulags; how the prisoners were made to do the back-breaking work of transforming the unyielding Arctic tundra; how the weak perished from exhaustion, malnutrition and hypothermia; and how some semblance of humanity was kept by prisoners who moonlighted in the camps as actors, dancers and singers. Remote locations, passing years and fallen snow now obscure these stories. But unmarked posts in barren snowy fields stand testament to those who never made it out.
Ship
By Brian Lavery
DK, 400 pages, $55
This gorgeously produced work charts the development of ships over 5,000 years, and their role in the great events of world history. Illustrated in colour throughout, its authoritative text is enhanced with paintings, photographs and historical timelines, plus a plethora of lavish illustrations. From the voyages of the Vikings through the Battle of Trafalgar to the tragedy of the Titanic and beyond, it is guaranteed to engross both old sea dogs and landlubbers with a hankering for the tang of salt air.
Only a Beginning:
An Anarchist Anthology
Edited by Allan Antliff
Arsenal Pulp, 406 pages, $29.95
A number of small papers and zines served as mouthpieces for the radical left in Canada from the 1970s to the '90s. The revolution never arrived, and most of the anarchists grew up, yet their reprinted work in this anthology shows that not all Canadians are half believers in casual creeds. Some went so far as to perpetrate bombings --the Wimmin's Fire Brigade, for instance, hit a series of hardcore porn shops in B.C. during the 1980s -- while others penned polemics identifying with underdogs. Though much of the book serves as a time capsule, it also shows the continuing appeal of anti-establishmentarianism.
Osgoode Hall:
An Illustrated History
By John Honsberger
Special photographs
by Kenneth Jarvis
Dundurn, 240 pages, $60
Osgoode Hall on Queen Street in Toronto has been the seat of the Law Society of Upper Canada since 1832. While the building is ornate and splendid, the book is less about architecture than an account of the men and women who strode its halls and how they made their contributions to Canada's justice system. John Honsberger is a Toronto lawyer-historian whose affection for the place resonates on every page.
The Beatles:
10 Years That Shook the World
Edited by Paul Trynka
DK, 456 pages, $50
Any way you look at it, this book probably contains more information, pictures, anecdotes, timelines, lyrics and general Beatles silliness than has ever before been published. Among other gems, it offers the first telling (hard to believe) by John Lennon's friend Bill Harry of just exactly how the band was formed; how the mop tops got turned on to LSD; and anecdotes by the likes of Marianne Faithfull. The forward is by Brian Wilson, the biggest fan of all.
Magazines That Make History:
Their Origins, Development,
and Influence
By Norberto Angeletti
and Alberto Oliva
University Press of Florida,
408 pages, $53.95
Full of interesting graphics and short articles, this soft-cover book discusses the history and influence of eight American and European magazines: Time, Der Spiegel, Life, Paris Match, National Geographic, Reader's Digest, ¡Hola! and People. The authors stay away from grand conclusions about the role of magazines in society and stick to how these specific publications have revolutionized the medium.
World War II
By H. P. Willmott,
Charles Messenger
and Robin Cross
DK, 319 pages, $55
This handsome book chronicles the causes and consequences of the "largest and costliest war" in human history. Written by military historians H. P. Willmott and Charles Messenger, with journalist Robin Cross, the book is a rich visual and textual presentation of how, why and where the conflict spread across much of Europe and Asia. About 40 maps and 500 images, timelines, coloured maps and posters accompany the text, including moving photographs of victims of the Blitz in London; the internment of Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland; and the opposing armies' airplanes and tanks.
Speak, So You Can Speak Again:
The Life of Zora Neale Hurston
By Lucy Anne Hurston
Doubleday, 35 pages, $44.95
"I would like just a little of her sunshine to soak into my soul." That line from the short story Drenched in Light, by Zora Neale Hurston, could easily apply to the woman and her work as it unfolds before your eyes in this delightful book. Hurston's life as a black woman in early 20th-century Florida is told neatly through words and pictures. But every other page has a pocket or an attachment containing faux clippings of her poems, stories and essays, sometimes in her own hand -- to soak into your soul.
The Exploration of Africa
By Jean de la Guérivière
Translated by Florence Brutton
Overlook, 215 pages, $90
There must be a reason why the fascination with the exploration of Africa supersedes that of any other continent. Perhaps it's tied up in race and the slave trade, perhaps because of the continent's dark unknowability and vivid animal life. Whatever the reason, its great white explorers -- Mungo Park, James Bruce, Henry Morton Stanley, David Livingstone, Mary Kingsley and others -- were all celebrities in their time and remain so today. This exquisite book by the Africa head of the French newspaper Le Monde uses words (often the explorers' own), photos and art to recreate the great ark of African discovery, from the first tentative Portuguese voyages to the shameful European colonial scramble at the end of the 19th century.
GEOGRAPHY
Venice Sketchbook
By Fabrice Moireau
St. Martin's, 96 pages, $44.95
One of a series -- the others include Loire Valley, Paris and London -- this book of sketches and observations around Venice would be a thoughtful gift for a retiree needing inspiration for two great pastimes: travel and painting. Moireau's eye for detail in the architecture, and his capturing of everyday human interactions and toil around Venice, is most impressive. Certainly beats boring your friends with a slide show on your trip to Venice.
New York Underground:
The Anatomy of a City
By Julia Solis
Routledge, 226 pages, $50.95
If you love New York -- and like to know how things work -- you'll enjoy Julia Solis's exploration of the city's tunnels. Subway lines and railways, huge water pipes and other utilities, hidden basements and wine cellars from the Prohibition era and before. Many are abandoned, and people like Solis sneak in to explore them, though that is getting harder, post 9/11.
New York, Empire City:
1920-1945
By David Stravitz
Abrams, 160 pages, $52
This is New York between the wars: the art deco charm of the Chrysler Building; Scott and Zelda and the Jazz Age; Babe Ruth and the Yankees. New York was the first great vertical, even vertiginous, city, and these superbly reproduced photos of buildings, bridges and streetscapes will create a nostalgia for time and place even among those who were never there.
Paris:
History. Architecture. Art.
Lifestyle. In Detail
Edited by Gilles Plazy
Flammarion, 479 pages, $135
Nirvana for Paris lovers. Oversized. Sumptuous. Beautiful. Pricey. Hundreds and hundreds of illustrations and photos illuminate every aspect of the City of Light, from photos of famous monuments, to cafés (Brasserie Lipp), to architectural features, to Parisians at work and play, and many, many rare archival shots of jazz clubs, occupying armies and restive workers. The accompanying detailed text provides a historical and artistic biography of a city unlike any other.
Paris:
City of Light and Fascination
By Guy-Pierre Bennet
Thunder Bay, 300 pages, $41.95
No city inspires more superlatives than Paris, home of the avant-garde, the modern, the traditional, of gardens and galleries and grandeur, of great public parks and spaces, of boulevards and boîtes. You'll find all of them, from Josephine Baker to the Eiffel Tower, from the gargoyles of Notre Dâme to the jewels of Cartier, from Sartre to the Marais, in this lavish (and quite affordable) tribute.
Living in Quebec
By Henri Dorion
and Nathalie Roy
Photos by Philippe Saharoff
Flammarion, 224 pages, $64.95
This book is in two parts, landscapes and interiors. The exterior shots give a nice idea of how varied Quebec is, from its many waterfronts to the round barns of English-speaking settlers in the Eastern Townships. But what really makes it appealing are the photographs of the interiors of homes ranging from renovated apartments at Moshe Safdie's Habitat 67 in Montreal to a Laurentian cabin without electricity that is occupied year-round.
The Canadian Atlas:
Our Nation, Environment and People
Edited by Andrew Byers
Douglas & McIntyre,
192 pages, $69.95
There is nothing like a glossy big atlas to bring out the trivia-lover in us. Just what is the population of the Arctic and what large Quebec lake was created by a meteorite? This new edition of The Canadian Atlas has the answers, as well as plenty of nicely presented charts and graphs on key statistics such as the aging of our population and education levels. As well as the many standard maps, there are satellite pictures, which provide a three-dimensional perspective on key features of each area.
SCIENCE
The Illustrated On the Shoulders
of Giants
By Stephen Hawking
Running Press, 256 pages, $49.95
In an ideal world you'd learn about the big ideas in astronomy and physics by reading Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler and Newton in the original Latin and Einstein in German. Most of us, however, will turn to that redoubtable packager of science, Stephen Hawking, who explains who each of these great thinkers was and what he did, and then gives a swatch (in English) of the great man's key writing.
The Architecture and Design
of Man and Woman:
The Marvel of the Human
Body Revealed
By Alexander Tsiaras
and Barry Werth
Random House, 256 pages, $70
The latest offering from Alexander Tsiaras is a dazzling treat for the eyes and mind. It's the second book from the New York-based photojournalist, whose remarkable computer imaging-assisted portraits of human anatomy have landed on the covers of Life, Time and many other magazines. His first book, From Conception to Birth, was a hit even among those who weren't expecting. Here, Tsiaras visually charts every system in the human body, from skeletal to circulatory, reproductive to respiratory. The book cleverly includes side-by-side shots of the many ways the human body mirrors the elements of the natural world, whether sea coral or the mouth parts of a Pacific lamprey.
Human:
The Definitive Visual Guide
By the Smithsonian Institution
DK, 512 pages, $70
This visually stunning guide to the human condition has thousands of photographs, charts, maps and diagrams. It's huge and all-encompassing, with chapters on the structure of the body, the workings of the mind, human life cycle, culture and peoples of the world. The emphasis is on the visual, while text is kept to bite-sized chunks. It has a good index, but is really meant for browsing rather than reference.
National Geographic
Encyclopedia of Space
By Linda K. Glover et al.
National Geographic,
400 pages, $59
An authoritative reference work that explores and explains what we know about space, using clear definitions and sharp, attractive diagrams, charts and photographs, documenting 50 years of space flight. The text consists of essays by astronauts, astrophysicists, historians and scientists that add up to a tale of observation, deduction and technology, exploring the universe from our own solar system to the farthest galaxies.
Ultimate Robot
By Robert Malone
DK, 192 pages, $40
Who would have believed that "robot," a word that was invented only in 1920, could have spawned such an amazement of creations? Everything robotic is here. Transformers. R2D2. Mars Landers. Robocleaners. Solarflies. Voracious Mouth -- the art form. The photographs are crisp; the text is smart and the result is a sense that there is nothing more human than dreaming up endless varieties of mechanized non-humans.
Folk Furniture:
Of Canada's Doukhobors,
Hutterites, Mennonites
and Ukrainians
By John Fleming
and Michael Rowan
University of Alberta Press,
155 pages, $60
The authors do a credible job assessing and describing the handiwork of untold Canadian craftsmen. Equally impressive are James Chambers's photographs, which impart a fine-art feel to this book in the way they make, say, a simple late-19th century tripod table itself look like a work of art.
Antiques Price Guide 2005
By Judith Miller
DK, 751 pages, $50
This weighty tome could be the perfect gift for the person who lives to haunt antiques shops and bargain barns. With more than 8,000 listings, a wealth of colour photographs and illustrations, and a price guide -- you can be your own Antiques Roadshow -- this beautiful book is good for hours of browsing between sessions of antique-hunting. This edition includes listings of important Canadiana, in jewellery, pottery, furniture, paintings and folk art. And while you're in the neighbourhood, don't forget to take a look at Miller's companion volume, 20th-Century Glass (DK, 239 pages, $50), another feast of beautiful photos and valuable information.