Monday, December 29, 2014

New & Novel: Exhibitions


We love to go to art museums. Do you know you can still see Gods and Heroes: Masterpieces from the École des Beaux-Arts,Paris at the Albuquerque Museum until January 4, 2015? Later in 2015, we are looking forward to Killer Heels: The Art of the High-Heeled Shoe! If you like museums too, have you checked out our Museum Discovery Pass Program yet? It ends March 15, 2015, so take advantage of it now!

However, sometimes you don't get out to museums as much as you'd like. You get busy, you don't have the cash, the exhibition you want to see isn't coming to town. One of the coolest things the internet has made available is online museums and virtual tours - you can see a list of some below.  But, also, we have a collection of exhibition catalogues available for checkout in the library catalog! Here are some of our latest acquisitions:

Manuel Carrillo: Mi Querido México by Stuart A. Ashman, curator

Kandinsky: A Retrospective with essays by Angela Lampe and Brady Roberts

Art of the American Frontier: From the Buffalo Bill Center of the West with essays by Stephanie Mayer Heydt, Mindy N. Besaw, Emma I. Hansen

Abelardo Morell: The Universe Next Door by Elizabeth Siegel with Brett Abbott and Paul Martineau

Damage Control: Art and Destruction Since 1950 by Kerry Brougher, Russell Ferguson and Dario Gamboni

Art and Appetite: American Painting, Culture, and Cuisine edited by Judith A. Barter

Everything Loose Will Land: 1970s Art and Architecture in Los Angeles edited by Sylvia Lavin with Kimberli Meyer

Korea: Ein Fotoprojekt = Korea: A Photo Project by Dieter Leistner

Barbara Nessim: An Artful Life edited by David Galloway

Color Rush: American Color Photography from Stieglitz to Sherman by Katherine A. Bussard & Lisa Hostetler

Art and Music in Venice: From the Renaissance to the Baroque edited by Hilliard T. Goldfarb

Brassaï: For the Love of Paris by exhibition curator Agnès de Gouvion Saint-Cyr

Behind Closed Doors: Art in the Spanish American Home, 1492-1898 edited by Richard Ast

The Smithsonian's History of America in 101 Objects by Richard Kurin


Also consider taking a look-see at:

The Great Museums [DVD]

The Barnes Collection [DVD]

Louvre City [DVD]

Herb & Dorothy [DVD]

Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry [DVD]

Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present [DVD]

Hidden Treasures: What Museums Can't or Won't Show You by Harriet Baskas

The Ideal Museum: An Art Lover's Dream Collection by Phillippe Daverio

Stealing Rembrandts: The Untold Stories of Notorious Art Heists by Anthony M. Amore and Tom Mashberg  

Art is Every Day: Activities For the Home, Park, Museum, and City by Eileen S. Prince [eBook]


Online/Virtual Museums (a random sampling)

The Collection Online - The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Collections Online - Cleveland Museum of Art

Online Tours - Louvre Museum

Browse the Collection Online - Guggenheim Museum

British Museum - Online Tours

Diego Rivera Web Museum

Museum of Computer Art (MOCA)

Virtual Tour: The Frick Collection

Victoria and Albert Museum: Search the Collections
   

Friday, December 26, 2014

New & Novel: Military Romances


According our literary eResource NoveList, author Lindsay McKenna created the contemporary military romance subgenre in 1983 with her book Captive of Fate (though military heroes featured in Regency romance long before that). What is the appeal of the military romance?  NoveList suggests:

the appeal of  all romances, including military ones, may be described as character and plot driven with an intensifying pace as the relationship and sexual tension grows between the hero and heroine. Their tonal appeal elements vary, however, by time period, topic and setting, but most military romances are blends of romantic suspense with a suspenseful tone of high drama as a mission or rescue is carried out. Others deal with the experience of coming home, with loss or PTSD and obviously have a more bittersweet, emotionally intense or heart wrenching tone.

Author Lisa Marie Rice sums it up: "If you have a man who's stuck with you when bullets are flying, this is a man who will stick with you if you get breast cancer."

Navy SEALs have become popular military romance heroes.  Author Suzanne Brockmann started researching SEALs in 1995 - they are known for "their use of stealth and being able to slip into a location unnoticed; their tight bonds with teammates; the fact that SEALs are alpha males who prefer to take action, they are in topnotch physical shape, highly intelligent and top scholars, intensely motivated and highly driven"* and are typically depicted in romance fiction as

testosterone-laden, commitment phobic, smart, handsome "bad-ass" accomplished lover[s] with six-pack abs who [are] attracted to, protective of, and supportive but not controlling of, smart women heroine...giv[ing] the reader the literary satisfaction of watching a gigantic redwood fall.*

Are you a fan of military romances? We have some titles for you! Here are some of the newest books from the catalog in this compelling subgenre:

Breaking Danger: A Ghost Ops Novel by Lisa Marie Rice

Free Fall by Catherine Mann

Hell For Leather by Julie Ann Walker

Light Up the Night by M. L. Buchman

Breaking Point by Lindsay McKenna

Dangerous Games by Lora Leigh

Return to Glory by Sara Arden

Bad Nights by Rebecca York

Feeling Hot by Elle Kennedy 

Headed for Trouble by Suzanne Brockmann

Navy Husband by Debbie Macomber [eBook]

A Hero To Come Home To by Marilyn Pappano

Killing Time by Cindy Gerard

The Officer and the Secret by Jeanette Murray

Her Perfect Mate by Paige Tyler

Back to You by Jessica Scott


Link

There Are More SEALs in Romance Fiction Than in the U.S. Navy: The Appeal of Military Romances [NoveList]*

Six Reasons to Love Military Romances [Huffington Post]

Popular Military Romance Books [Goodreads]

The Ultimate List of Military Hero Romance Books [Maryse's Book Blog]
organized by military branch

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Get to Know Your City...Website!


So you think you know Albuquerque? We bet many of you can tell us the best breakfast burrito or your favorite park, or even some our most famous authors.  But have you ever looked at the city's website?  It's a handy compendium of things to do, employment options, transportation info, community and business services, and more! We've cherry-picked a few links you may or may not have seen before, and encourage you to explore the site yourself.
  • Albuquerque Clean Team: The Albuquerque Clean Team (ACT) is a group of individuals keeping their communities clean and safe. Under the direction and support of the City of Albuquerque's Solid Waste Management Department, ACT brings together community groups and individual homeowners who want to take responsibility for creating and maintaining a clean community, and in the process create a better living, working, and playing environment.
  • Quick Facts: Quick facts, demographics, and statistics for Albuquerque and the surrounding metro areas.
  • Online Town Hall: A snapshot of what's going on in the City along with ways you can give input and get involved.  Have something to say? Want to learn more? Join the discussion that’s happening right now around the city.
  • Air Quality in Albuquerque: Air quality (includes indexes for carbon monoxide, fine particulates, and sulfur dioxide), pollen count, OK to burn?  You can sign up for alerts.
  • Rock Climbing Wall: Information about a climbing wall that can be transported to any location in Albuquerque! The use of the climbing wall is for people who want to participate in an introduction to climbing. Users must have at least 25 climbers participating. Users can not charge or profit financially from the use of the climbing wall. The climbing wall is best utilized by schools, youth groups or other learning organizations. All participants must be taller than 43” and under 300 lbs.
  • Bicycling: View an interactive bike map, the Paseo del Bosque bike map, learn about trail etiquette, Tingley Bike Rentals, the Esperanza Community Bike Shop.
  • Tree Information: suggested tree species for planting in Albuquerque; reporting dead trees; contact the City Forester.
  • ABQ Apps: Check out these mobile apps developed for the City of Albuquerque! Includes ABQ Ride, ABQ Parks, ABQ 311, Albuquerque Museum Sculpture Garden Guide, and more. 
Visit the city's website for even more links! You can also check out the Albuquerque A-Z page.  And check out the city on Twitter!

Saturday, December 20, 2014

On Reading Young Adult Fiction as an Adult

Every now and then, an adult patron will tell me, "I actually really like young adult books. They're so good," in a hushed, embarrassed way, as if admitting that they enjoy young adult fiction is a problem.

This happens more often than I'd like, but let's be honest: when you're an adult, it can be hard to admit that you enjoy fiction written for teens, particularly when online essays talk about all the reasons why we should be embarrassed to like young adult fiction. In June, Ruth Graham posted an essay called Against YA, in which she stated that while it's okay for people to read whatever they want, adults should be embarrassed when they read books written for young adults. To summarize, here are some of Graham's key points:

  • Her essay isn't about books like Twilight and Divergent, which she calls "transparently trashy," and which "no one defends as serious literature."
  • She is, however, writing about realistic fiction, which can also be called contemporary fiction or contemporary realism. Examples of realistic fiction include The Fault in Our Stars, and according to Graham, "These are the books that could plausibly be said to be replacing literary fiction in the lives of their adult readers. And that's a shame."
  • Graham wonders if her reaction to The Fault in Our Stars (she apparently said, "Oh, brother," out loud, more than once, while reading it) makes her heartless or if it makes her an adult.
  • And then there's this: "But crucially, YA books present the teenage perspective in a fundamentally uncritical way. It’s not simply that YA readers are asked to immerse themselves in a character’s emotional life—that’s the trick of so much great fiction—but that they are asked to abandon the mature insights into that perspective that they (supposedly) have acquired as adults."
  • Graham then goes on to say that all young adult books have satisfying endings, which are created for readers who like things to be wrapped up nicely by the end of a book.
  • Finally, Graham says that adults are "better than this" and that if we're reading young adult fiction instead of "the complexity of great adult literature, than we're missing something."
Graham's essay resulted in a lot of talk among the community about why adults shouldn't feel embarrassed to read young adult literature. It's a topic that comes up again and again in the online book community, because we are told again and again that we should be embarrassed to read young adult literature. And I disagree--I don't think we should be embarrassed at all. So, if you're an adult and you're embarrassed to read young adult literature, here's why you don't need to be ashamed of it:

  • Adult fiction has just as much "trash" as Graham thinks young adult fiction has. Would anyone argue that 50 Shades of Grey or Danielle Steele is good, literary writing? Probably not. All genres will have books that people consider fluff or trash, whether it's young adult fiction, adult fiction, or even non-fiction. That's just the way it is, and there's nothing wrong with reading and enjoying things that can be described as fluff--sometimes, it's a nice break from the more intense books that are out there.
  • Contrary to what Graham says, young adult fiction might not be replacing adult fiction for readers at all. I read a small amount of adult fiction (mainly Stephen King and a few of the classics). But what about non-fiction? Graham didn't talk about that at all, and while I don't read as much non-fiction as I do young adult fiction, I still read a decent amount of it.
  • Adult fiction isn't always that interesting. Of course, young adult fiction isn't, either, but that's why I don't read certain young adult titles, just like I don't read every adult fiction book that's published.
  • Plenty of young adult books do present the teenage perspective in a critical way. It happens all the time, as the characters in young adult books look at themselves critically. Books like I'll Give You the Sun, The Beginning of Everything, The Girls of No Return, and Dangerous Girls are just a few examples of books that take on a critical teenage perspective, whether the narrators are looking at themselves or other characters in a critical manner.
  • Not all young adult books have satisfying endings. If you've read Atlantia or Dangerous Girls, you'll know that not every ending is satisfying. Also, what's satisfying to one person might not be satisfying to someone else, so it's hard to use an objective argument for something like this.
  • Are we really missing something if we read young adult fiction instead of adult fiction? Sure. I suppose, after all, that I'm missing the unhappiness I would have if I were reading something like Cloud Atlas or Ayn Rand. I'm missing the misery I would be putting myself through if I forced myself to read a book I didn't like. Do I feel like I'm missing out on something amazing by not reading books I don't enjoy? Not really.
What it comes down to is, I'm not a fan of book shaming, and I'm not a fan of telling people why they should be ashamed to read young adult fiction when the argument is based on generalities, especially when some of those generalities also hold true for adult literature.

Do you read young adult fiction? If so, tell me what your favorite young adult books are in the comments!

Thursday, December 18, 2014

Come Fly With Me

Are you traveling by air this holiday season? Travel in the past has seemed so glamorous - loading your steamer trunk onto a passenger ship (unless, of course, it's the Titanic, Lusitania, or other famous disaster), flying in a propeller plane.  Maybe we've watched old movies too many times, or too many Indiana Jones movies (where you see Indy's itinerary traced out on a map), but in our heads, every time we get on our plane and sit in our economy class seat and are served our lackluster airplane meal (if we get one), it's a bit disappointing.  Whether you are an armchair traveler or heading out into the wild blue yonder this season - well, you can dream, can't you?  Or, at least, check out what travel was really like in the past.



In October 1958, Pan American World Airways began making regularly scheduled flights between New York and Paris, courtesy of its newly minted wonder jet, the Boeing 707. Almost overnight, the moneyed celebrities of the era made Europe their playground. At the same time, the dream of international travel came true for thousands of ordinary Americans who longed to emulate the "jet set" lifestyle. Bestselling author and Vanity Fair contributor William Stadiem brings that Jet Age dream to life again in the first-ever book about the glamorous decade when Americans took to the skies in massive numbers as never before, with the rich and famous elbowing their way to the front of the line. Dishy anecdotes and finely rendered character sketches re-create the world of luxurious airplanes, exclusive destinations, and beautiful, wealthy trendsetters who turned transatlantic travel into an inalienable right. 


written and designed by Keith Lovegrove
This fascinating book examines every aspect of airline style, from the company liveries and interior designs of planes to advertising, haute couture and airborne haute cuisine. Divided into four sections covering fashion, food, interior design and identity, Airline shows how airborne culture has changed since the 1920s. The book spans the conservative to the outrageous, from saris to hotpants, from Hugh Hefner's private jet to the huge Airbus A380. A wide selection of retro styles are illustrated with illuminating archive material and images of ephemera. Airline uncovers the style, image and experience of the parallel universe that exists at 39,000 feet.   *book blurbs are taken from the catalog unless otherwise noted  Links   Take a One-Way Trip from Tatty to Natty [Slate]   All Aboard AirBnB's Airplane Apartment [Messy Nessy Chic]   Come Fly Away [RL Magazine]   What It Was Really Like to Fly During the Golden Age of Travel [Fast Company]  Forget 1960, The Golden Age Is Now [New York Times]   The Endless Holiday [Vanity Fair]  

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Funny Books: What's Your Humor Style?



Laughter is the best medicine, they say. We all love to laugh - but we certainly don't all find the same things funny! Psychology Today once featured an article about humor styles - according to them, there are four. In the spirit of reader's advisory (that's what librarians call book suggestions), we thought we we would try to suggest new humorous stories based on your humor style. So, if your style is:

Put-Down Humor
"This aggressive type of humor is used to criticize and manipulate others through teasing, sarcasm and ridicule."

Bonding Humor
"People who use bonding humor are fun to have around; they say amusing things, tell jokes, engage in witty banter and generally lighten the mood."
Try: The Amazing Thing About the Way It Goes by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

Hate-Me Humor
"In this style of humor, you are the butt of the joke for the amusement of others."

Laughing at Life
"When we admire someone who 'doesn't take himself too seriously,' this is the temperament we're talking about. More than just a way of relating to other people, it's a prism that colors the world in rosier shades. Someone with this outlook deploys humor to cope with challenges, taking a step back and laughing at the absurdities of everyday life."
Try: Yes Please by Amy Poehler


How did we do? If none of the suggestions suit, you can also try:

  •  A search of "Humorous stories" in the catalog. This will include funny kids' books.
  • A search of "Humorous stories" in the library catalog, using the Advanced Search to filter out "juvenile" and "easy". Should be primarily YA and above.
  • A search "Wit and humor" in the catalog for jokes, quotes, and miscellaneous.

For books about  humor, try:

American Cornball: A Laffopedic Guide to the Formerly Funny by Christopher Miller

The Humor Code: A Global Search For What Makes Things Funny by Peter McGraw, PhD, and Joel Warner
 

Links

25 Books Guaranteed to Make You Laugh [Flavorwire]

32 Books Guaranteed to Make You Laugh Out Loud [Buzzfeed]

Ten Funny Books You Might Not Have Read [Electric Lit]

Laughing Matters: Five Funny Books With Substance [NPR]

15 funniest travel books every written (in English) [CNN]

The 15 best comedy books of all time [Telegraph]

Sunday, December 14, 2014

Serial is Almost Over... Now What?

On Thursday, December 18, one question will be on millions of people's minds: Did Adnan Syed commit the murder of Hae Min Lee?

Confused? If you haven't been following Serial, the new podcast from the creators of This American Life that has riveted listeners across the nation, there's still time to catch up before this Thursday's season finale (but hurry!). What's it all about? In journalist and Serial host Sarah Koenig's words, it's about "the basics: love and death and justice and truth. All these big, big things.”

If you're looking for specifics: Since October, Sarah has been reporting on her year-long investigation into Adnan, a Baltimore high school student sentenced to life in prison for strangling his ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee to death in 1999, even though he claimed his innocence. Sarah had two questions on her mind: was Adnan wrongly convicted? If so, what really happened? Since then, listeners have closely followed every twist and turn in her investigation and heard from Adnan and Hae's friends, his family, witnesses, jurors, and lawyers -- with few definitive answers.

And now, millions of people are hooked, talking about the new evidence unfolded in each week's episode, providing their own theories (even conducting their own investigations), and asking the same questions: did he do it? If not, who did?

Moreover, Serial has prompted discussions of its potential to revitalize long-term, in-depth investigative journalism and change the podcast landscape, the role of listeners in the age of social media and websites like Reddit (and their impact), and the ethical questions involved in crime reporting of this nature and representation of its subjects.

While we hope to have some answers on Thursday, many of us are coming to terms with idea that there may not be a clear resolution or justice for Adnan. The only thing we know for sure is that we'll have an extra hour or so of spare time every week. And if you're looking to fill that void with something like Serial, we have a some items here at ABC Library that you may enjoy.

Books:
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote [ebook / eaudiobook]
     (If you haven't read it yet, start here. Controversy aside, it's not to be missed!)
The Killer of Little Shepherds: A True Crime Story and the Birth of Forensic Science by Douglas Starr
Devil's Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three by Mara Leveritt
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson [ebook]
Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer by James L. Swanson [ebook]
Midnight Assassin: A Murder in America's Heartland by Patricia L. Bryan and Thomas Wolf
The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer

Media:
Capturing the Friedmans [DVD]

P.S. Have you tried our Playaways? If you have a pair of headphones, a AAA battery, and a library card, you have access our Playaway audio player collection. Check them out at any branch and listen to audiobooks without needing a CD player or other device!

Friday, December 12, 2014

Featured Author: Jill Lepore

Jill Lepore is a professor of history at Harvard University and a staff writer at the New Yorker. Her acclaimed books ("dramatic", "provides rare insight", "delightful, learned, and altogether beguiling") about topics in American history have been finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in History and the National Book Award for Non-Fiction. Her subjects have included colonial war, slavery in New York City, the Tea Party, and "a history of curiosity".  Lepore has also written a satirical novel, set in the 18th century, with a fellow historian.

In an essay called “Historians Who Love Too Much: Reflections on microhistory and biography", Lepore, herself a microhistorian, set out four propositions to show the difference between one and the other:

1) Unlike biography, the assumption in microhistory is that the value of an individual’s life story “lies in how it serves as an allegory for the culture as the whole”.
2) Microhistorians eschew cradle-to-grave projects because their interest lies in solving “small mysteries about a person’s life as a means to exploring the culture”.
3) Biography is about not betraying intimacy; by contrast, microhistory will use any means necessary “to resurrect those who did not [leave abundant records]”.
4) Biographers tend to identify with their subjects; microhistorians tend to judge them: “For this reason, a microhistorian may be a character in his own book”.*

We first heard of Jill Lepore with the publication of  her biography of Jane Franklin, Ben Franklin's sister, in 2013. Turns out she has an impressive back catalog, as well as publishing a new book on Wonder Woman this year. If you like to read about history, why not give Jill Lepore a try?




King Philip's War, the excruciating racial war--colonists against Indians--that erupted in New England in 1675, was, in proportion to population, the bloodiest in American history. Some even argued that the massacres and outrages on both sides were too horrific to "deserve the name of a war." Telling the story of what may have been the bitterest of American conflicts, and its reverberations over the centuries, Lepore has enabled us to see how the ways in which we remember past events are as important in their effect on our history as were the events themselves.



Over a frigid few weeks in the winter of 1741, ten fires blazed across Manhattan. With each new fire, panicked whites saw more evidence of a slave uprising. In the end, thirteen black men were burned at the stake, seventeen were hanged and more than one hundred black men and women were thrown into a dungeon beneath City Hall. In New York Burning, Bancroft Prize-winning historian Jill Lepore recounts these dramatic events, re-creating, with path-breaking research, the nascent New York of the seventeenth century. Even then, the city was a rich mosaic of cultures, communities and colors, with slaves making up a full one-fifth of the population. Exploring the political and social climate of the times, Lepore dramatically shows how, in a city rife with state intrigue and terror, the threat of black rebellion united the white political pluralities in a frenzy of racial fear and violence.




Stewart Jameson, a Scottish portrait painter fleeing his debtors in Edinburgh, has washed up on the British Empire's far shores—in the city of Boston, lately seized with the spirit of liberty. Eager to begin anew, he advertises for an apprentice, but the lad who comes knocking is no lad at all. Fanny Easton is a fallen woman from Boston's most prominent family who has disguised herself as a boy to become Jameson's defiant and seductive apprentice. Written with wit and exuberance by accomplished historians, Blindspot is an affectionate send-up of the best of eighteenth-century fiction. It celebrates the art of the Enlightenment and the passion of the American Revolution by telling stories of ordinary people caught up in an extraordinary time.




Jill Lepore, Harvard historian and New Yorker staff writer, offers a wry and bemused look at American history according to the far right, from the "rant heard round the world," which launched the Tea Party, to the Texas School Board's adoption of a social-studies curriculum that teaches that the United States was established as a Christian nation. Along the way, she provides rare insight into the eighteenth-century struggle for independence--the real one, that is. Lepore traces the roots of the far right's reactionary history to the bicentennial in the 1970s, when no one could agree on what story a divided nation should tell about its unruly beginnings. Behind the Tea Party's Revolution, she argues, lies a nostalgic and even heartbreaking yearning for an imagined past--a time less troubled by ambiguity, strife, and uncertainty--a yearning for an America that never was.



How does life begin? What does it mean? What happens when we die? “All anyone can do is ask,” Lepore writes. “That's why any history of ideas about life and death has to be, like this book, a history of curiosity.” Lepore starts that history with the story of a seventeenth-century Englishman who had the idea that all life begins with an egg and ends it with an American who, in the 1970s, began freezing the dead. In between, life got longer, the stages of life multiplied, and matters of life and death moved from the library to the laboratory, from the humanities to the sciences. Lately, debates about life and death have determined the course of American politics. Each of these debates has a history. Investigating the surprising origins of the stuff of everyday life—from board games to breast pumps—Lepore argues that the age of discovery, Darwin, and the Space Age turned ideas about life on earth topsy-turvy. “New worlds were found,” she writes, and “old paradises were lost.” As much a meditation on the present as an excavation of the past, The Mansion of Happiness is delightful, learned, and altogether beguiling.


From one of our most accomplished and widely admired historians—a revelatory portrait of Benjamin Franklin's youngest sister, Jane, whose obscurity and poverty were matched only by her brother’s fame and wealth but who, like him, was a passionate reader, a gifted writer, and an astonishingly shrewd political commentator.    

A riveting work of historical detection revealing that the origins of one the worlds most iconic superheroes hides within it a fascinating family story and a crucial history of twentieth-century feminism Wonder Woman, created in 1941, is the most popular female superhero of all time. Aside from Superman and Batman, no superhero has lasted as long or commanded so vast and wildly passionate a following. Like every other superhero, Wonder Woman has a secret identity. Unlike every other superhero, she has also has a secret history. Harvard historian and New Yorker staff writer Jill Lepore has uncovered an astonishing trove of documents, including the never-before-seen private papers of William Moulton Marston, Wonder Woman's creator... The Secret History of Wonder Woman is a tour de force of intellectual and cultural history. Wonder Woman, Lepore argues, is the missing link in the history of the struggle for women's rights a chain of events that begins with the women's suffrage campaigns of the early 1900s and ends with the troubled place of feminism a century later.   **all book blurbs taken from the library catalog unless otherwise noted 
Links
 Jill Lepore: A Historian's History [The Harvard Crimson]   The Microhistorian [Dissent]   The Public Historian [Humanities]

Jill Lepore and the microhistory of America [TLS] *  Inside the List [New York Times]     

Tuesday, December 9, 2014

New & Novel: Fashion

Fashion is very important. It is life-enhancing and, like everything that gives pleasure, it is worth doing well.
~Vivienne Westwood


Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening.
~Coco Chanel

We don't fancy ourselves to be fashionistas here at abcreads, but we do love discovering fashion! Whether it's about Marie Antoinette or Diana Vreeland, about creating the perfect frock or reminiscing about your favorite piece of clothing, pictures of shoes or a movie about Donatella Versace's triumph as the head designer of her brother's fashion empire, the library catalog has plenty of items to make you feel like you've got a front row seat at a fashion show!  We've compiled a list of items for you that includes several fashion topics, but if you have any requests, let us know in the comments!


History of Fashion

The Vogue Factor: The Inside Story of Fashion's Most Illustrious Magazine by Kirstie Clements

Glitter Plan: How We Started Juicy Couture For $200 and Turned It Into a Global Brand by Pamela Levy

The Lost Art of Dress: The Women Who Once Made America Stylish by Linda Przybyszewski

Marie Antoinette's Head: The Royal Hairdresser, the Queen, and the Revolution by Will Bashor [eBook]

Art & Sole by Jane Gershon Weitzman

Great War Fashion: Tales From the History Wardrobe by Lucy Adlington

Elegance In an Age of Crisis: Fashions of the 1930s edited by Patricia Mears and G Bruce Boyer


Create

Stylish Skirts: 23 Simple Designs to Flatter Every Figure by Sato Watanabe

Basic Black: 26 Edgy Essentials for the Modern Wardrobe by Sato Watanabe

Buffi's Dress Design: Sew 30 Fun Styles by Buffi Jashanmal

Famous Frocks: The Little Black Dress - Patterns For 20 Garments Inspired by Fashion Icons by Dolin Bliss O'Shea

The Language of Fashion Design: 26 Principles Every Fashion Designer Should Know by Laura Volpintesta


Fashion-Forward Faces 

The Woman I Wanted to Be by Diane Von Furstenberg

Mademoiselle C  [DVD]

Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History by Rhonda K. Garelick

House of Versace [DVD]

The Master of Us All: Balenciaga, His Workrooms, His World by Mary Blume

Elsa Schiaparelli: A Biography by Meryle Secrest

Champagne Supernovas: Kate Moss, Marc Jacobs, Alexander McQueen, and the '90s Renegades Who Remade Fashion by Maureen Callahan

Bold, Beautiful and Damned: The World of 1980s Fashion Illustrator Tony Viramontes by Dean Rhys Morgan


Miscellaneous

Worn Stories by Emily Spivack

Women in Clothes by Sheila Heti, [et al.]