“The Cynic’s Guide to Wine, by Sunny Hodge… is one of the best wine books I have read in a long while.” — Yorkshire Post

“All in all it’s a very useful and enjoyable read…” — Life

“…if you are remotely curious about the science of wine, this is an excellent guide. I found myself questioning some of my own beliefs, and while I may not be ready to discard them, “The Cynic’s Guide to Wine” is a timely reminder of the importance of skepticism in all facets of wine.” — NY Times 

Much of what is written about wine, whether in wine books, on bottle labels or in the Sunday supplements uses language that gives wine an air of mystery. While compelling and enticing for the consumer this can also lead to confusion regarding the science of wine as well as fear on the part of the inexperienced wine drinker of ‘getting wine wrong’. In The Cynic’s Guide to Wine Sunny Hodge strips wine back to its basic science and unravels the facts behind wine flavours, showing readers a clear path through the verbiage. The text takes in elements of horticulture, soil science, botany and sensory science as well as oenology and is provided in bite-sized chunks aimed at the curious non-scientist. This is a straightforward and eye-opening book for anybody who has ever wanted to question the stories told around wine but was afraid to ask.

• The wine book all novice wine drinkers need: strips away the pretension and explains what really matters when it comes to producing the flavours in your glass of wine.
• Questions many of the things we take for granted when it comes to wine, from terroir to the science of wine making.
• Author is the award-winning owner of two London wine bars who has earned a reputation as a disruptor in the wine trade.

Dirty Old River brings together 12 essays penned by British architect Tom Emerson over the past three decades. Written on very different occasions as contributions to books or articles in magazines, they explore a wide range of topics through the lens of architecture. The book’s title is borrowed from the British rock band The Kinks’ cult song ‘Waterloo Sunset’ to symbolise a journey through the interweaving of culture, imagination, and the built environment.

Naturally, the architect Emerson writes about architecture: how it is designed, drawn, and built. Yet he also turns his attention to other, wider fields, from the transformation of materials to the nuances of human creativity, the explosive early works of his celebrated fellow architect Frank O. Gehry, and the intimate craftsmanship behind the literary spaces of French writer Georges Perec.

Emerson’s unique approach to writing is often inspired by sideways glances and disciplines beyond architecture. He offers a new perspective on how things are made, why they take shape the way they do, and what these processes reveal about humanity.

Contemporary sculptor Ahuva Zeloof is known for her stone carving and bronze figures that play with texture and the point of artistic completion. She’s exhibited internationally alongside luminaries such as Tracey Emin and David Hockey and has had three solo shows in London. Despite being a latecomer to art, she’s proved she’s a fast bloomer – her success is testament that anything is possible.
FAITH represents the volta – or turning point – of Zeloof’s artistic journey. The artist pulls back on physical manipulation, instead focusing on the spiritual expressions that onlookers can ‘read’ from the shapes. Or, in Zeloof’s own words: “Created by nature and found by the artist.”
Zeloof explores the power of art on our psyche, whilst revealing the astounding results of trusting the world around us and allowing our instincts to guide us. This body of work, collectively titled FAITH, includes numerous sculptures of Nubian stones collected on the beaches of Israel’s Mediterranean coast. Later anthropomorphised and cast in bronze, they lend their organic shapes to the viewer’s suggestion.
Alongside fine art photography by Georgia Metaxas and full pages detailing Ahuva Zeloof’s artistic process in creating this series, there is an introductory essay by author and independent curator, Federico Poletti, which discusses Ahuva Zeloof’s contribution to contemporary sculpture.
FAITH was edited by Shelly Verthime, long-time curator and author of Guy Bourdin’s global exhibitions and books, including Guy Bourdin: Image Maker at Somerset House (2014-2015) and Guy Bourdin (1928-1991) at V&A (2003), among many others.

The Khalili Anīs al-Hujjāj (Pilgrims’ Companion) presents a ground-breaking new exploration of Safi ibn Vali Qazwini’s richly illustrated manuscript dating from 1676-77. This beautifully produced volume, with a scholarly introduction by Qaisra M. Khan and translation by Michael Burns, documents the author’s year-long journey to Mecca and Medina from Mughal India via the Indian Ocean and Red Sea.

Commissioned by Zeb un-Nisa, the daughter of Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, this delightfully vivid account belongs to a long-established tradition of guides to the Holy Sanctuaries. It gives comprehensive advice to prospective pilgrims on every aspect of the maritime journey, such as which ships to select, the best foods to consume, rituals to observe, significant places to visit and the people one might encounter.

This volume extensively explores the original manuscript’s detailed illustrations and text, providing an invaluable window into 17th-century religious practices, maritime travel, and the cultural landscape of the Indian Ocean world.

This book documents the transformation of the Ancien Manège in Geneva, a horse riding hall that was built in the 19th century and converted into a garage in the 1950s. The book brings together texts, photographs, plans, construction details and specifications in both French and English. The publication traces the history of the Manège, the participatory process that led to its transformation into a civic building, the architectural project, the execution of the works and the building’s current use. With graphic design by Studio Mut, it includes a series of conversations curated by Isabel Concheiro and photographic essays by David Grandorge, Andrés Fraga, Didier Jordan and Luis Díaz y Díaz. The book highlights contemporary issues relating to heritage transformation, sustainable development and shared governance. Intended for both professionals and the general public, it offers an in-depth perspective on an exemplary reuse project within a complex urban and historical context.

Text in English and French.

Behind It Something Intimate brings together a selection of İnci Eviner’s drawings and the poetic texts she wrote between 2023 and 2024. Known for her multidisciplinary practice—including drawing, video, performance, sculpture, and installation—Eviner invites readers into an intimate dialogue between image and word. Each text responds to a drawing, revealing the inner landscapes that inform her evolving visual language. Drawing lies at the core of Eviner’s artistic process, serving both as a means of unconscious expression and a space for conceptual inquiry. Her lines trace the tensions between the personal and the collective, the psychic and the political. Through this artist’s book, she extends her creative process into a shared textual space, inviting readers to engage with her world. Enriched by the artist’s own design concept, the book explores how drawing can challenge dominant forms of social, historical, and discursive representation.

“The way we eat Indian food in this country changed forever the day The Cinnamon Club opened its doors, and we should all be, as I am, eternally grateful.” Giles Coren The Times
“The Cinnamon Club has always been more than a restaurant … Vivek Singh has established its place in the hospitality pantheon over a remarkable quarter of a century.” James Stagg The Caterer
Marking twenty five years of culinary brilliance, Spirit & Spice celebrates the extraordinary journey of chef Vivek Singh and his acclaimed restaurants. From the grandeur of The Cinnamon Club within the historic Old Westminster Library, to Cinnamon Kitchen, where the spices of the subcontinent meet the finest British ingredients, through to Cinnamon Bazaar, inspired by the bustling markets of the Old World, Vivek Singh’s fusion of Indian flavours with Western techniques has come to define modern Indian dining in London.
Photography by Jean Cazals accompanies signature recipes from the restaurants’ most popular dishes – many appearing in print for the very first time – interwoven with stories from the kitchen and reflections on 25 years in an ever-changing restaurant landscape. Spirit & Spice is a landmark celebration of one of Britain’s most influential restaurateurs, and the people, places, and plates that have shaped a gastronomic legacy.

Justice for All brings together the most powerful insights from the Justice for All Series hosted at the Old Bailey. Drawing on keynote speeches, panel discussions and commissioned research, the book explores a central proposition: why justice for all is not only a moral imperative but also makes clear economic sense.

Featuring contributions from judges, policymakers, academics, business leaders and those with lived experience of the justice system, the book examines how fair, accessible and effective justice systems underpin stable societies, functioning markets and sustainable economic growth.

Capturing the ideas and debates from the series, Justice for All offers a forward-looking analysis of how justice systems must evolve to strengthen institutions and ensure justice works for everyone.

Malak Mattar grew up in occupied territory and has been creating art since her teenage years. She left Gaza just before the war broke out on 7 October 2023. She was the first artist from Gaza to have a solo exhibition at Central Saint Martins in London, where she studied a masters of fine art, and her work has since been exhibited in over 80 countries. Mattar’s paintings bear witness to resilience, femininity and hope, and stand as a defiant stance against war, injustice and inequality. No words … (for Gaza) is Mattar’s first monograph. Experts Louisa MacMillan, Dr Winnie Wong, Dr Vijay Prashad and Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, shed light on the significance of her work, and her paintings enter into dialogue with poems by the Palestinian authors of the collective We Are Not Numbers.

In November 2026, the new Kanal museum of modern and contemporary art, architecture, and landscape architecture will open in Brussels. Operated in partnership with the Centre Pompidou, it will be one of Europe’s largest cultural venues, with space for up to ten exhibitions at a time over 49,000 m2 of floor space. The building itself is one of Kanal’s main attractions: the converted former headquarters of French car manufacturer Citroën’s Belgian branch with its landmark showroom—a 21-m-high cathedral of the automobile made of concrete, steel, and glass.

Kanal #1: Thinking is the first part of a three-part journal by Atelier Kanal, the consortium formed by architecture firms EM2N (Zurich), noAarchitecten (Brussels), and Sergison Bates Architects (London and Zurich) that won the commission to convert the Citroën garage, built in the 1930s, into an arts and culture centre for the 21st century. It explores a collaborative working method in which boundaries of individual authorship were blurred and co-authorship became the norm. A polyphonic concert of images, texts, voices, and perspectives, this attractive book highlights the spirit of exchange and collaboration that shapes this novel cultural venue.

Kanal #2: Making is part two of a three-part journal by Atelier Kanal, a consortium formed by architecture firms EM2N (Zurich), noAarchitecten (Brussels), and Sergison Bates Architects (London and Zurich). It is dedicated entirely to the actual building for the Kanal arts and culture centre in Brussels—and the challenges that the architects, engineers, construction firms, and their client were facing during the construction process. The project is exemplary due to its scope and scale: repurposing, restoration, and partial demolition and rebuilding of the entire former Citroën garage with a floor space of 49,000 m2, including an iconic 21-m-high showroom.

The Kanal project is significant within contemporary architecture discourse because it touches on closely intertwined key topics: the task of transforming a notable existing building, the demand to minimise demolition and waste while the entire vast structure is repurposed completely, the revaluation of comfort standards in relation to public spaces and uses, and the newly constructed interventions required by the intended new purpose.

Kanal #2: Making explores these questions through texts and a wealth of visual material that played a core role in Atelier Kanal’s collaborative process. The book explains strategic considerations and investigates the challenges and risks inherent to such an undertaking, as well as the inspiring insights that working with an existing structure of this scale entails.

Also available is Kanal #1: Thinking ISBN 9783038605096.

“Fully illustrated, the charm of his English Roses comes across on every page, even if the reader has to imagine their scent.” – The Irish Garden

“Experts will appreciate the notes on each rose’s breeding.” – Historic Gardens Foundation

Informative, accessible and stunningly illustrated, David Austin’s English Roses introduces the reader to the world of rose propagation and care. The book focuses on English Roses, bred by David Austin to combine the sumptuousness of Old Roses with the strength and practical virtues of Modern Roses. It will be greatly prized by rose-growers and rose-lovers everywhere, whether professional or amateur.

Buried in deep valleys, there are citadels of ochre earth. Near the sea there are white chalked casbahs and vast tranquil palm-gardens and deserts of coloured sands run into soot black mountains. Pungent and bustling souks offer spices and potions to ward off malevolent spirits. Slender arched doorways open out into darkened alleys. Scented mint tea is served in pattern-draped tents. The sky is as clear as ever over the Sahara. This is the Moroccan South – a legendary land, sumptuous and austere. This series presents a fascinating chronology of the spread of Islamic art in the form of 12 Exhibition Trails in 11 countries. The programme is based on the unique idea of visitors viewing exhibitions without the works of art being transported – discovering artefacts in their natural environments and within their cultural and historical context. Each trail is presented and written by experts who live in the specified areas and are accompanied by beautiful illustrations.

Text in French.



Also Available:Paris Plaisir ISBN:9782867701139 £55.00Lebanon: The Phoenician Pearl ISBN:9782867701443 £55.00

Throughout its history, the Ashmolean has evolved to meet changing needs and reflect new ideas. In the process, it has transformed from a cabinet of curiosities, representing the world in microcosm, to a museum of art and archaeology, illustrating connections between cultures over time. This book tells the story of that remarkable transformation. It shows what the Ashmolean was like at various points in the past and introduces the people who helped to make it the museum it is today. It looks at the buildings that have housed the Ashmolean and how they have been continually altered and adapted, as well as at the collections and how they have been interpreted and reinterpreted over the centuries.

John Dixon Hunt introduces PWP Landscape Architecture: Building Ideas with a discussion of how we read landscapes and, hence, how they are designed with the reader/client in mind and the historical implications of such efforts. Peter Walker, Gary Hilderbrand, and Gina Crandell trace the history of Peter Walker’s various firms from the 1950s until 2000, and Jane Gillette discusses some recent projects in terms of using consultants to further design ideas. Twelve finished projects, seven works in progress, and three competitions, from roughly 2000 to 2015, demonstrate the firm’s goals and achievements with an emphasis on the expansion of landscape architecture from the surrounds of buildings to self-sufficient entities that express the highest accomplishments of both ecological function and design.

Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan and formerly part of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, is a city built on and with oil. In fact, oil and urbanism in Baku have been completely intertwined, economically, politically, and physically in the spaces of the city. Its first oil boom in the late 19th century was driven by the Russian branch of the Nobel family modernising the exploitation of oil fields around Baku, and local oil barons pouring their new wealth into building a cosmopolitan city centre. During the Soviet period, Baku became the site of an urban experiment: the shaping an oil city of socialist man. This project included Neft Dashlari, a city built on trestles in the Caspian Sea, housing thousands of workers, schools, shops, gardens, clinics, cinemas and more. This first off-shore rig in the world became the emblem of Baku’s second oil boom. Today, Baku is experiencing its third oil boom. For Baku’s city planners and business elites, that future is based on a careful reading of Baku as a project in which urbanism and oil are inextricably linked. This new book investigates how oil stimulated urban development in Baku, and explores in detail the more complex and important question of how the disparate spatial logics, knowledge bases, and practices of oil production and urban production intersected, impacted and transformed one another. Based on a vast research project and drawing on rich and previously unpublished material, Baku – Oil and Urbanism is organised into three broadly conceived historical periods defined by the political, economic, technological conditions in which the interwoven evolution of oil and urban production unfolded. The book also features a new photo essay by celebrated photographer Iwan Baan.

The artist Humphrey Ocean RA has painted portraits of Sir Paul McCartney and Philip Larkin, among many others. But alongside these prestigious commissions, he has always returned to drawing the simpler things in life: our ‘alluringly unnatural world’, as he puts it. The result is this idiosyncratic and charming collection of birds, all rendered in with humour and a bold brush. With a species to discover on every page, this book is the perfect gift for any keen ornithologist, aspiring twitcher or dedicated listener to Tweet of the Day. As well as birdwatching around his home and studio in South London, Ocean regularly visits his sister, who is a nun in Nairobi and has loved birds all her life. There, he paints Kenyan birds such as the Eurasian bee-eater, the bulbul and the flycatcher that are ‘local, a bit like our garden birds so nothing overly exotic, but of course to me they are’. They join the familiar gulls, thrushes and tits of the gardens, parks and hedgerows of the UK in this beautifully produced collection.

Author and photographer John Lander takes the magnificent UNESCO World Heritage sites of Japan as a starting point for exploring the country’s architecture, history, customs and festivals. Lander, who has lived in Japan for 35 years, travelled to almost all the country’s UNESCO sites: from well-known places like Mount Fuji to hidden temple gardens and hard-to-reach wild islands. This book also includes cultural elements listed as intangible world heritage, providing intimate portraits of Japanese cuisine, crafts and performance arts. With a lyrical preface by Pico Iyer and illustrated with over 180 full-colour photographs, World Heritage Japan is Lander’s personal photographic tribute to a diverse and ancient culture – a stunning visual journey across Japan.

Upon setting foot in Dhaka, with its beautifully landscaped gardens adorning ancient mosques and monuments, it becomes clear that this is a city steeped in history. One of the oldest settlements in Bangladesh, it is today among the largest cities in the world, and rapid, often unplanned, urbanisation has vastly outpaced sustainability, threatening the historic buildings and communities that make up the city’s cultural soul. But, despite bursting at the seams, Dhaka’s six centuries of history are still visible if we look carefully in the shadows of the tall buildings, in the spaces between the speeding cars. Dhaka-based architect Kashef Chowdhury’s camera captures a record of the capital city of the local character that may soon be lost due to urban development. In Chowdhury’s photographs, a woman hangs sheets of polythene to dry and resell, a blind man sings mystic love songs. Other photographs reflect Dhaka’s state of social and cultural flux, like an image of weary night-shift workers returning from a wholesale market in the late morning or of the barely visible lights of a pick-up truck concealed to prevent theft. Chowdhury is one of South Asia’s most renowned architects, and Dhaka: Memories or Lost constitutes his deeply personal tribute to the city.

Georg Aerni is a photographic artist with a particular interest in architecture. Educated as an architect himself, he has been working with the camera on this subject with great precision and consistence for the past fifteen years. Paris, Barcelona, Hong Kong, Mumbai and Tokyo: each metropolis is also a zone where mankind’s will to create is driving constant change. Aerni documents this change in a scrupulously prepared and carefully designed series of images. But also when he focuses on receding glaciers in the Alps, his studies of cages in zoological gardens and of mankind’s interventions in nature, the extraordinary carefulness and quality inherent to all of Aerni’s work is captivating. It sets his oeuvre in sharp contrast to the quickly done, impromptu photography that has become so widespread in recent years. Sites and Signs is the first comprehensive monograph on Aerni’s photographic work. The book presents his complete work with an emphasis on the most recent series. Essays on his work in the context of contemporary photography and on images of architecture and landscape, and a complete catalogue of Aerni’s oeuvre so far round out the book. Text in English & German.

From the Palazzo Vecchio to the Forte Belvedere, through the Uffizi, the Vasari Corridor, the Pitti Palace, and the Boboli Gardens, Florence is honeycombed with a series of public art collections that is unparalleled in Europe for its size and for the variety and value of its holdings. Taken all together, the museums of Florence are one of the wonders of the world, for the spiritual values that they embody as much as for the works they contain.

The painting collections in the state museums of Florence are unequalled for their quality, historical significance, and for the sheer number of works; never before have they been presented in a publication of such splendid technical quality. Thus the reader can trace the various phases and great moments of Florentine painting, including lesser known works of the seventeenth century; can appreciate the presence of masterpieces from other, perhaps unknown, schools; and can examine details different from the standard ones consecrated by tradition.

Text in English and Italian.

Alongside the classical reading of the garden as a secluded and circumscribed place of yearning full of meditative, spiritual, and philosophical possibilities, it is viewed in the exhibition as a place of duality and contradiction: a threshold between reality and fantasy, utopia and dystopia, harmony and chaos, between being shut out and being included. In today’s world, defined by radical climate change and migratory flows, the garden can be seen as a place of paradise and exile, reflecting within its borders themes as pressing as the anthropocene, seed politics, the legacies of colonialism and historical segregation. In addition to deliberate political positions, the Garden of Earthly Delights features works that also bring to life the sensual dimensions of gardens: immersive installations and video works show an intensive abundance of nature, but also the fragility of the paradise-like state. Artists: Maria Thereza Alves, Korakrit Arunanondchai, Hicham Berrada, John Cage, Tacita Dean, Nathalie Djurberg & Hans Berg, Futurefarmers, Lungiswa Gqunta, Rashid Johnson, Yayoi Kusama, Louise Lawler, Renato Leotta, Isabel Lewis and LABOUR, Libby Harward, Jumana Manna, Uriel Orlow, Heather Phillipson, Pipilotti Rist, Maaike Schoorel, Taro Shinoda, Zheng Bo. Text in English and German.

The impressive Château de Chenonceau is the jewel of the French Loire Valley. The fairytale type castle has had a particularly rich history and has always been inhabited and curated by intelligent, strong-willed women such as Catherine Briçonnet, Diane de Potiers, Catherine de Medici and Louise de Lorraine – hence its nickname ‘Ladies’ Castle’. Through the ages the spaces have been imprinted with the souls of those who built, inhabited and loved the castle. Every part of Chenonceau’s interior and exterior – not in the least the castle’s impressive gardens – exudes peace, harmony and elegance. Since 2015 Jean-Francois Boucher has been appointed floral scenographer of the estate. Together with his small team he creates new floral compositions for the castle’s rooms every week. These ‘staged’ flowers emphasise the history of the estate just like any other piece of art or furniture does. Their designs blend in perfectly with the interiors and are in beautiful harmony with the room’s colour codes, perfumes and functions. Sometimes they even wink at poetry, art or the historical events that took place in these spaces. The Bouquets of Chenonceau is a magnificent coffee table book that will please both lovers of history and fans of floral design. Text in English and French.