Italian artist Ugo Rondinone was invited by the Musee d’Art et d’Histoire (MAH) in Geneva to curate a show that invites a dialogue between his work and the works in the permanent collection. The show he created centres around two emblematic figures of 19th and 20th century Swiss art – Felix Vallotton and Ferdinand Hodler – and considers the importance of love and desire in our relationship with art and creation. This book documents the museum’s halls and the exhibition, which includes works by Rondinone and art from the MAH Collection.

Text in English and French.

Maria Lai always had a special relationship with fairy tales. She considered them a metaphor for art and a way of communicating with the public in a simple, straightforward way. Starting in the 1980s, fairy tales became central to her art. Tenendo per mano il sole, Tenendo per mano l’ombra, Curiosape and Maria Pietra, are her most famous “sewn fairy tales” – books created by the artist using castoff textiles.

Maria Lai’s fairy tales are not merely children’s stories, but profound reflections on life and what it means to be a human being. They are often inspired by Sardinian myths and legends, to which the artist gives a personal twist, adding autobiographical details and philosophical reflections.
This edition of Tenendo per mano l’ombra is a printed version of Maria Lai’s 1987 tale. The original consists of fabric pages sewn together and collages of dyed textiles, on which the artist has embroidered geometric figures, yarn and other materials. The fairy tale tells the story of a human being (and his double) who must learn to accept shadows, the dark part of the world and of himself. The figure’s shadow, in Maria Lai’s fairy tale, is not a negative element to be rejected, but an integral part of his personality. To live an untroubled and complete life, one must learn to accept and live with it.

Elena Pontiggia’s concluding essay accompanies the reader in a fascinating page by page interpretation of the fable, and discusses Lai’s artistic and stylistic approach in the context of an extensive network of philosophical, literary and artistic references: from Kant and Manzoni to Klee and Malevič.

Text in English and Italian.

A Sino-Chinese family find their destiny is inseparably entangled with that of the country they have adopted as a home. Not long before the Communist revolution, Tong, sent by his peasant-parents in impoverished rural China to work with a relative in Siam, has risen to become a rice-trading tycoon in Bangkok’s Chinatown, married a former palace cook and built a large family in the town of Pad Riew. Haunted by the dream of returning to his true home in China, Tong, along with his wife and their five children, are swept along by the torrents of history as World War II breakout and China turns red, while the military strongman in Thailand act out the interminable cycle of power struggle, rebellion and coup d’état.

Memories of the Memories of the Black Rose Cat, the award-winning second novel by Veerapon Nitiprapha, is a generations-spanning family saga that explores the roots of the Chinese diaspora in Siam and how the tragedy of ruined love, maternal betrayal and futile ambition shape the lives of Tong’s clan members, each of them hounded by their own ghosts and burdened by their own sins. All of this is played out against the backdrop of Siam’s mid-century social and political history, the most chaotic period the formation of the nation.

The study Reimagining the Library of the Future investigates the various models of public buildings and civic space through the lens of the library. It takes a critical look at the history, present, and future transformation of this significant building typology that has recently emerged as a redefined community place, social condenser, and urban incubator for knowledge generation, storage, and sharing. In particular, the library has evolved as a vibrant and vital member of community development and as a basis for outreach efforts.

This book presents 40 recent public and academic libraries from around the world, with over 200 images. As the survey of precedents shows, the historical cases have informed the design of the recent libraries and the continuous development of the building type over time. Well-designed libraries are now in abundance, and the wider view of this study includes médiathèque and learning centres. The selection of contemporary projects focuses on urban libraries in Europe (Germany, Italy, Austria, Netherlands), the US, Canada, Mexico, Australia, Japan, and China.

The opening of celebrated British architect David Chipperfield’s extension building of Kunsthaus Zürich in the fall of 2021 will make this renowned institution Switzerland’s largest art museum. In the run-up to this milestone in the museum’s development, this new book looks back at its architectural history. It tells a lively story that starts in 1847 with the Zurich Artists’ Society’s initial gallery building and had its first culmination in 1910, when distinguished Swiss architect Karl Moser’s Kunsthaus was opened. Over the past century, three major additions were carried out in 1925, 1959, and 1976, and many attempts for a visionary large-scale extension were made. Illustrated with historic images, reproductions of plans and drawings as well as newly drawn floor and site plans, the book documents all stages of constructing Kunsthaus Zürich.

Scotland has produced an astonishingly high number of men and women whose lives have inspired and changed the world. This book, illustrating just over forty portraits, represents only a few of them, but with Robert Burns and Walter Scott, Eric Liddell and Alex Ferguson, Bonnie Prince Charlie and Queen Victoria, it represents the flavour of the collection at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery.

Written by Antony Penrose, son of American feminist icon Lee Miller and British artist Roland Penrose this delightful narrative introduces the fascinating lives of Lee Miller; War Correspondent and Surrealist photographer and her husband Roland Penrose; Surrealist artist and co-founder of the ICA, whilst taking a tour of their extraordinary home in the Sussex countryside. Farleys’s exterior has no hint of visual excitements to be discovered. Bright walls & corridors filled with remarkable & eclectic art. The book gives a glimpse into amazing lives of Lee Miller & Roland Penrose. This special anniversary edition, 75 years at Farleys, has new photography and never seen before insights to the house.

The National Holocaust Museum tells the story of the Nazi persecution and murder of the Jews of the Netherlands. Before the Second World War, Jews and non-Jews lived side by side. They had the same rights. But during the war, the Nazis and their collaborators killed around six million Jews in Europe. That was the Holocaust or Shoah. This is the first and only museum to relate the history of the persecution of the Jews of the entire Netherlands. Including the day-to-day life of Jews on the eve of the Second World War, the liberation as Jews experienced it, and how the Holocaust has been treated in our national culture of remembrance: all this is examined in the museum and this book.

Text in English and Dutch.

For the 550th anniversary of the birth of Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564) the Muscarelle Museum (Williamsburg, Virginia) hosted the exhibition Michelangelo: The Genesis of the Sistine, running from March to June, 2025. The exhibition was an extraordinary account of the master’s preparatory drawings for the Sistine Chapel frescoes, never before exhibited in America.

Before his death, Michelangelo destroyed many of his sketches, including numerous studies for the Sistine Chapel. Those that have been saved remain significant and iconic, providing a window into his creative process, highlighting his initial plans and his extraordinary vision for the frescoes of the Sistine ceiling. They range from what may be considered the first schematic study for the Sistine ceiling, to the numerous sketches of faces, limbs, and whole figures depicted in various positions, appearing as preparation for the figures later frescoed.

Thanks to rigorous scholarly research, this catalogue provides new insights into Michelangelo’s legacy, giving the reader an enriching and compelling experience.

The last work of Burne-Jones: a series of woodcut illustrations to the first chapters of Genesis, making a perfect epitome of his art. Reprinted from the original edition of 1902.

Reproduced from the finest surviving edition of a rare manuscript, The Sixty-Nine Stations of the Kisokaido brings Hiroshige and Eisen’s portrait of daily life in nineteenth century Japan to Western audiences for the first time. Each of the seventy-one images teems with unique characters, from beggars and brawling men to boaters and finely clothed women. Behind these travellers loom castles, cities, powerful waterfalls and many other sites familiar to lovers of Japanese history. Comments by Sebastian Izzard, Ph.D., accompany each image, not only providing insight into their subject matter, but also discussing their survival during the dramatic social shifts and economic hardship of Hiroshige and Eisen’s time. This book tells the story of a landmark, two immortal artists, and an enduring masterpiece.

A lone PSG sticker on a North‑London Street sign; the towering Maradona mural that watches over Naples. Europe’s fan‑made canvases tell football’s biggest stories. Timed perfectly for World‑Cup fever, Tifo: The Art of Football Fan Stickers—Revised & Expanded presents 500 plus images from over 100 clubs, printed on premium matte‑art stock and bound in a linen‑wrapped hardback with foil stamping.

Stickerbomb founders Suridh Hassan and Ryo Sanada spent more than two years tracking down these graphics and the tales behind them: the unlikely bond between Boavista and Aberdeen, St Pauli’s anti‑fascist iconography, Sevilla’s surprising love affair with Karl Marx, and how Parma became entangled in Europe’s biggest bankruptcy scandal. Insightful essays by award‑winning journalist James Montague and Design Museum curator Eleanor Watson deepen the cultural and historical context.

Equal parts visual archive and behind‑the‑scenes anecdote, Tifo is the ultimate gift for ground‑hoppers, quiz‑night champions and anyone who bleeds club colours.

Discover the magic of beloved the classic fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood with The Storyteller sound books. This innovative collection offers young children a new way to experience these timeless tales: designed for those who are not yet able to read independently, each book allows children to explore the stories by turning the pages while listening to the corresponding text read aloud at the touch of a button. The book becomes a modern storyteller, presenting the fairy tales with beautiful illustrations and engaging narration that brings the stories to life.

Other titles in the collection include:

9788854421707   The Storyteller: Peter Pan
9788854421714   The Storyteller: Pinocchio
9788854421721   The Storyteller: Snow White

Ages 4 plus.

The Paris guide is focused on describing the complexity of this European metropolis through its 20th and 21st century architecture.
Following Haussmann’s transformations, Paris, the most densely constructed city in Europe, expanded thanks to a flexibility based on a matrix able to absorb and integrate the directional courses of the architecture of the period. However, the complexity of the urban transformations and the changes in the Parisian architectural panorama did not erase the solid identity of the city’s urban image. This book guides the reader through decades of Parisian architectural history beginning with the great names of the Modernist movement, Loos, Le Corbusier and Oscar Niemeyer. The second half of the 20th century is famous for the cultural vitality of the city reflected in the innovative architecture of the Centre George Pompidou designed by Piano and Rogers. The Pompidou Centre is both the symbol and result of the 1968 student revolution. The 1980s and 90s were defined by the forceful initiatives of President François Mitterrand, promoter and advocate of iconic projects like the Louvre Pyramid, the Musée d’Orsay renovation, the Parc de la Villette and the Arab World Institute. The present period is represented with several selected projects that have elevated the quality of certain areas on the outskirts of the urban agglomeration.

“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

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.

This series of board books will help children to make the right choice when coming to recycling and saving the planet! On each page, after a short explanatory introduction, children will find a turning wheel. If they place it on the right recycling action, the following page will result in a happy ending. If they make the wrong decision, something bad for the environment will happen… but they can learn from that experience and start all over again thinking about their choices! A simple yet effective idea to make children understand that their actions have an impact on the planet. They can learn from it and make the right choice also in real life. Ages: 5 plus

‘The publishers are to be congratulated for their exemplary production’ – Curtis’s Botanical Magazine‘…this will go down as one of the greats of plant exploration literature…’ – Roy Lancaster ‘The appeal of the book lies as much in Ward’s prose as in the thrilling story of exploration and discovery. He was a fine writer and it is a cause for celebration that one of his best books is now again available after a gap of 70 years’ – Ursula Buchan, The Independent ‘There’s no doubt that such an elegant and exciting book new book richly deserves a new readership… the story behind its reissue is no less gripping than Kingdon Ward’s own narrative’– Ambra Edwards, Gardening Which?

Little explored and virtually inaccessible, the Tsangpo Gorge in south-east Tibet is the world’s deepest gorge. Through it twists the Yarlong Tsangpo, Tibet’s great river, emerging from below on the plains of India. This is the story of its exploration and the rich plant and animal life found there. Riddle of the Tsangpo Gorges, first published in 1926, is the fascinating account of plant-hunter and explorer Frank Kingdon Ward’s most important expedition. Kenneth Cox, Kenneth Storm, Jr. and Ian Baker spent over ten years retracing the route of the 1924-25 expedition and managed to reach further into this magical and only partly explored land.

The book contains the original Kingdon Ward text and extensive additional material, including a history of the exploration, geography and religious significance of the area and more than 250 colour photographs with detailed captions on the plants of the area, most of which are described by Kingdon Ward in the original text. There are first person accounts of expeditions to the area by Kenneth Cox and Kenneth Storm. Jr. and a photographic essay documents, for the first time in a book, the new Hidden Falls located in the portion of the gorge left unexplored by Frank Kingdon Ward and Lord Cawdor in 1924.

Skyon is a twenty-two-acre sustainable residential development composed of five nine- to thirteen-story buildings and one thirty-nine-story iconic tower, organised around a community green space. This slender and elegant residential tower that anchors the site’s western edge is a simple composition of four stacked units radiating from a rectangular core. The organisation of the tower plan is based on the design of the Hindu symbol for good luck. This layout enables each unit to have unobstructed views in three directions. Balconies are modulated on the façade to create an undulating origami that provides visual interest and optimal shading from the sun. The minimal, sculptural form of the clubhouse is central to the calm serenity created by the design of this urban oasis in an otherwise chaotic offsite environment. Suman Sorg established her practice in 1986 and it has since become one of the largest female-owned architecture firms in the United States. As Chief Designer, Suman inspires her project teams with a strong commitment to thoughtful modern architecture that explores spatial, material, and visual experience. After careful examination of the unique characteristics of each place (site, climate, culture, community) and the programmatic requirements, Sorg Architects creates modern designs that are sculptural, and often monumental, yet geared toward the human scale. A long-standing interest in historic preservation complements Suman’s modernist leanings; by combining contemporary techniques and design strategies with the innovative handling of both traditional architectural language and indigenous building materials, Sorg Architects creates architecture that relates to its extended context in a meaningful way. Suman Sorg’s work has been recognized with numerous awards including 23 from the National American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the Washington, DC and Potomac Valley Chapters. Suman has lectured extensively for the AIA, the National Building Museum, the Urban Land Institute, the State Department and the National Trust for Historic Preservation and is frequently called upon to serve on design juries. An avid painter, Suman s large-scale works further explore relationships between form and color. Suman Sorg is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architect and sits on the board of the Washington, DC Building Industry Association. She is a Peer Reviewer for the General Services Administration (GSA) Design Excellence Program, serves on the board of directors for the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation, and is a member of the Urban Land Institute, the Washington Building Congress, Women in Washington, and the Lambda Alpha International Honor Society. Suman began her studies at the School of Planning and Architecture in New Delhi, India and completed her Bachelor of Architecture at Howard University in Washington DC (1970). She went on to study Design and Historic Preservation at Cornell University, in Ithaca, New York.

The best-selling guide to the first year of fatherhood, trusted by hundreds of thousands of new dads and their partners.

This indispensable handbook, from the author of the million-selling Expectant Father, provides a reassuring month-by-month overview of your baby’s first year. It covers the milestones in your child’s development; ways you can bond with your child and support your partner; and what’s going on with you, as a new dad.

The fourth edition of The New Father features a user-friendly new design and is updated from cover to cover with the latest information about healthcare, financial planning, parental leave and work-life balance, and much more. It incorporates the expertise of leading pediatricians and researchers, and the real-life experiences of hundreds of dads and mums.

Illustrated with stress-relieving cartoons, The New Father is a friendly, readable, and inclusive companion for all new dads. (Mums will love it, too!).

‘Another chocolate book?’ you might say? The answer is: this book is different than any other book on the market!

The Chocolatier’s Kitchen offers over 270 simple, concrete and practical recipes, covering the entire spectrum in confectionary (from bonbon, to truffles, snack bars…). From short, to medium or long shelf life, inspired by the Callebaut five colours of chocolate and executed in different chocolate types. The proud collective of Callebaut Chefs have bundled their expertise to conquer hearts and deliver inspiration, motivation and knowledge for every chocolate artisan & Chef, whether you are starting or want to further grow your chocolate business.

With contributions from the Callebaut Chefs Tribe: Davide Comaschi, Philippe Vancayseele, Clare England, Beverley Dunkley, Mark Tilling, Ciro Fraddanno and Ryan Stevenson

This sumptuous book offers a behind-the-scenes look at the Grand Prix world, featuring rare on-track moments, fashion shows and extravagant parties that make up the glamour and excitement of this elite sport. A stunning collection of over 100 high-quality photographs that capture the flair of Grand Prix racing – from vintage black and white shots to vibrant colour photos of prized cars, legendary drivers and glamorous celebrities.  

High-quality photography captures the essence of a fascinating lifestyle full of beauty and prestige.

The book examines the contemporary Asian city through the prism of urban design in assimilating new and established drivers of growth. This includes intensified forms of residential development, specialised commercial centres and technology parks, that drive the momentum of the contemporary city, while acting to restructure and reshape forms of capital investment. New spatial patterns are facilitated by tranches of urban expansion, redevelopment, regeneration and suburbanisation that have emerged as by-products of both formal and informal development processes. The book also examines the Asian city language embodied in the local morphology — the essential values of the street, block, temple precinct and monument, and how these can be incorporated as drivers of new urban identities that relate to the changing culture and configuration of city neighbourhoods. All of these continue to impose different levels of impact on the creation of livable cities and the quality of life for their inhabitants. In this way urban design can look to the future while respecting the past.

The book frames a perspective on the urban design challenges presented by the rapidly expanding and regenerating Asian cities, and how these can be shaped by memory, meaning and identity while meeting sustainable, resilient and community concerns.

Great sports figures are the modern equivalent of heroes. An history of sport is necessarily a story of individuals: tales of redemption and emancipation from modest upbringings, stories of sacrifice and success. Each volume of WATCH, We are the champions, the new series from Officina Libraria, will narrate the history of a sport through 30 engaging biographies of its great champions. And since the publishing house is specialised in high-quality illustrated books, the riveting stories written by Giorgio Martignoni are illustrated by the masterful hand of Roberto Ronchi, in a colourful explosion of energy, icons of those magic moments in sports, from the goal that assigns a Champions League in the last minutes to the climb on the famous Alpe d’Huez, from the three-pointer that decides a collegiate championship to the knockout hook of a boxing match. The biographies of thirty great champions are exciting as a run toward the goal posts, they keep you holding your breath as in those seconds that precede a penalty kick, and in each of them there is a curious aspect, an heroic moment and a touch of poetry. The books starts with the great footballers of the pre-war era, such as Sindelar and Meazza, to finish with today’s idols, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, and those of all the champions that have gifted us with those unforgettable moments, at the stadium or in front of the small screen. Who doesn’t remember Pele or Maradona? Who has never heard of George Best or Cruyff? Beckenbauer or Jascin?