London’s record shop scene is at its most vital and buoyant point since the 1990s, following a resurgence of interest in vinyl over recent years. Tom Greig, who has immersed himself in the world of London’s record shops for close to two decades, profiles and tells the story of 60 distinctive independent record stores, selling both new and used vinyl. Vinyl London is at once a practical guide, featuring maps, addresses, opening times and stock information, and an attractive visual celebration of London’s record shops. The book is organized geographically, and contains the following chapters; Soho; North; East; South; West; Suburbs; Markets; Vinyl Cafes. Also in the series: Art London ISBN 9781788840385 London Peculiars ISBN 9781851499182

“This compact book is a real treat… Unlike so many wine books, Pressing Matters is genuinely readable – so much so that I devoured it in a matter of days.” — Decanter
Pressing Matters explains the fundamental debates in wine, from terroir, production and farming, to tasting, wine’s cultural significance and the economic value of wine. By focusing on wine through the prism of the key fights within each topic, the book presents readers with a story that includes the messiness, human fragility and disagreement about core principles that so often gets skipped at the outset of wine knowledge. The book fairly showcases all sides of the most important debates in wine today, giving the available evidence as well as commenting on what we don’t know. Aimed at those just starting on their wine journey, Pressing Matters is a lively and thoroughly researched history of all the key current wine controversies, written by an author with wine making in his blood, who knows the wine business from the inside.
– Lays out the key current wine controversies in a way that is easily accessible for the non-scientist and those new to wine literature.
– Examines the evidence from experts on both sides of each argument to allow readers to make up their own minds on current hot topics in wine.
– Goes behind the label to explain the buzz words, trends and wine speak used by the wine media.
– Helps readers see clearly today’s bigger wine picture in order to make better informed wine-buying decisions.
– Author is active within the wine scene in California and beyond, and a popular speaker at wine events.

Exploring the dos and don’ts of sustainable corporate innovation, this book explains the most frequently made mistakes and highlights the most common pitfalls in the innovation process. To remain successful, organizations must be able to respond effectively to the fast pace of change or even stay one step ahead of it. To make this possible, it is crucial to look at the future in the right way. This means embracing uncertainty, seizing opportunities and recognizing threats in good time. Through the author’s insightful and knowledgeable text, you will gain greater insight into the technological evolutions of the next 10 years and discover how this insight can be turned into a concrete approach that will build future-proof and successfully innovating companies and organisations.

In Why Now? Michael Humblet teaches you how to create the right pitch to maximize your impact and speed up the conversion of prospects into customers. Learn how to tailor sales and closing techniques to the needs of your prospects to formulate the ultimate sales pitch. Humblet’s phone rings: ‘Michael, people are interested in our product, and we write scores of offers but take-up is poor. What are we doing wrong?’ Humblet’s reply is invariably: ‘Why should a customer buy from you today? Why now?’ Sales pitches will fail if this fundamental issue is not addressed, a problem Humblet encounters in 90% of his client companies. They know how to identify prospects, but they do not have a compeling story, tailored to individual prospects. Humblet’s clients want to know how to speed up the sales process and close more deals. Humblet tells you how in Why Now? Having optimised more than 500 sales pitches, in Why Now? Humblet shares the five elements needed to turn prospects into customers. With case studies and before and after examples, Why Now?  gives you a blueprint for how to best describe your offer in a sales pitch, website, brochure or sales offer and gives you proven tools to close deals. You will learn how to create the ultimate sales flow. It’s closing time! 

Will Ukraine ever be an EU member? Why don’t we have a European army yet? Does crisis make the EU stronger? The European Union has great influence on the lives of its citizens. That situation can prove to be controversial. Decisions made by the EU often lead to misunderstanding and resentment. Aside from these controversies, it is clear that the Union today, is the result of a myriad of choices by policy makers throughout the years. A better understanding of these choices and of the recent history of the EU allows us to better grasp its impact, and offers insight into why certain subjects are harder to place. Why Europe? offers a historical as well as thematical insight into the development of the European Union. Drawing from six questions that put main events, key figures as well as the defining moments of the past 70 years in the foreground, this book lays out the essence of European integration.

Exploring the dos and don’ts of sustainable corporate innovation, this book explains the most frequently made mistakes and highlights the most common pitfalls in the innovation process. To remain successful, organizations must be able to respond effectively to the fast pace of change or even stay one step ahead of it. To make this possible, it is crucial to look at the future in the right way. This means embracing uncertainty, seizing opportunities and recognizing threats in good time. Through the author’s insightful and knowledgeable text, you will gain greater insight into the technological evolutions of the next 10 years and discover how this insight can be turned into a concrete approach that will build future-proof and successfully innovating companies and organisations.

Will Ukraine ever be an EU member? Why don’t we have a European army yet? Does crisis make the EU stronger? The European Union has great influence on the lives of its citizens. That situation can prove to be controversial. Decisions made by the EU often lead to misunderstanding and resentment. Aside from these controversies, it is clear that the Union today, is the result of a myriad of choices by policymakers throughout the years. A better understanding of these choices and of the recent history of the EU allows us to better grasp its impact, and offers insight into why certain subjects are harder to place. This revised and updated edition of Why Europe? offers a historical as well as thematical insight into the development of the European Union. Drawing from six questions that put main events, key figures as well as the defining moments of the past 70 years in the foreground, this book lays out the essence of European integration.

Data is not the new oil – it is the oxygen of your organization. Why Data Wins unravels why so many data initiatives fail and shows how managers can achieve success by turning data into strategic insights. It offers a practical guide to building a data-driven culture, introducing innovative and practical tools such as the 6V Compass™ and the Black Box Canvas™, while tracing the history of data through to modern applications such as data mesh and AI. Free from heavy technical jargon, it combines inspiring stories, case studies and concrete strategies for leaders across sectors. A must-read for executives who want to make their organization data-excellent and future-proof.

Will Ukraine ever be an EU member? Why don’t we have a European army yet? Does crisis make the EU stronger? The European Union has great influence on the lives of its citizens. That situation can prove to be controversial. Decisions made by the EU often lead to misunderstanding and resentment. Aside from these controversies, it is clear that the Union today, is the result of a myriad of choices by policymakers throughout the years. A better understanding of these choices and of the recent history of the EU allows us to better grasp its impact, and offers insight into why certain subjects are harder to place. This revised and updated edition of Why Europe? offers a historical as well as thematical insight into the development of the European Union. Drawing from six questions that put main events, key figures as well as the defining moments of the past 70 years in the foreground, this book lays out the essence of European integration.

First publication about the widely discussed films of Rinus Van de Velde

Rinus Van de Velde (b. 1983) is one of the most talked-about contemporary artists. Since 2019, this artistic all-rounder has added the medium of film to his wide-ranging oeuvre of drawings, installations and ceramics. This publication provides insight into how his amazing films and the beautiful handmade sets are created.

In The Villagers the viewer enters Van de Velde’s world. An important role is played by the 17 life-size cardboard sets on which he worked for two years. Narrative evolved into a more abstract form of expression in La Ruta Natural. For this second film, which follows a surreal road trip, Van de Velde had a mask made resembling his face. His most recent film, A Life in a Day, is introspective and shows the inner workings of the artist. The result is an intimate and pure voyage of discovery in which Van de Velde analyses himself from a distance. Through impersonations, constructed lies, and appropriations, he comes closer to uncovering the truth about his own identity and artistry.

Numerous stills, drawings, sculptures, props, studio and exhibition views bring Van de Velde’s films to life in this impressive book, for which author Timon Karl Kaleyta wrote the texts.

Films will be published together with a vinyl pressing of Joachim Badenhorst’s films’ soundtracks.

Text in English, French and Dutch.

Hi-Fi Horizons is the definitive visual tour of the fast growing listening bar movement. Spaces that trade thumping dance floors for velvet seats, sculpted speakers and reverent communal listening. From Tokyo’s historic jazz kissa to Dante’s Hi Fi in Miami, Zurich’s Kasheme, Honeycomb Hi Fi, Barcelona’s Curtis and Mexico City’s Café de Nadie, it gathers photographs of glowing turntables and rapt audiences. Curated and narrated by London DJ and tastemaker Killian “Don Grizz” Radtke, it traces vinyl focused sessions and intimate rooms that fuse design, cocktails and hospitality, giving people a reason to leave the house.

Perfect for readers of Dust & Grooves, Hi-Fi Horizons lists the curtain on the curators, DJs and designers redefining nightlife. No longer the preserve of “audiophiles,” these Hi-Fi havens lure diners, crate diggers and night owls alike, delivering club quality sound without the crush. Featuring 200 colour images, venue spotlights and insider commentary, it invites readers to slow down and rediscover music at its best. 

London teemed with top-rated singers and musicians during the ’60s and ’70s, whether they were squatting, playing gigs or investing in multi-million pound mansions. Follow McCartney and co. to the quiet flat on Green Street that was their refuge before the Beatlemaniacs sought them out. Wind back time to when Loog Oldham locked Mick and Keith in their flat and demanded they compose a song. From the zany to the tragic – it was in St Mary Abbot’s Hospital, Kensington where Jimi Hendrix was pronounced dead – this is a guidebook like no other, a pilgrimage dedicated to the rock ‘n’ roll greats. Also in the series: Vinyl London ISBN 9781788840156, Art London ISBN 9781788840385, and London Peculiars ISBN 9781851499182.

“When one is tired of London, one is tired of life.” – Samuel Johnson London has long been a center of the literary world. From Shakespeare to Amis, Byron to Blake, Plath, Thomas, Christie and Rowling; many of the greatest names in literature have made this metropolis their home. Writers’ London guides the reader through homes, bookshops, pubs and cemeteries, in search of where literary greats loved and lost, drank and died. Discover the Islington building where Joe Orton was murdered by his lover, the Soho pub where Dylan Thomas left his manuscript, the Chelsea hotel where Oscar Wilde was arrested, and the Bank of England where Kenneth Graham was shot at (and missed) three times. Gathering hundreds of famous and less-well-known anecdotes, this meticulously researched volume will entertain any lover of literature. Also in the series: Vinyl London ISBN 9781788840156 Rock ‘n’ Roll London ISBN 9781788840163 Art London ISBN 9781788840385 London Peculiars ISBN 9781851499182

Organizations today face complex and fast-moving challenges. Many are navigating uncertainty and growing pressure to change from within and from the world around them. Signs of disconnection show up everywhere: between people and purpose, brand and behavior, profit and planet. While the world speeds up, many companies feel the weight of transformation without a clear path forward. This book is for leaders who recognize that tension and want to respond. Leaders who care about doing the right thing, making real impact, and bringing more coherence to how their organization thinks, acts, and feels. At the heart of this journey are two guiding tools: the Coherence Compass™ and the Transformational Spiral. The compass helps leaders and teams spot the cracks, misalignments between purpose, behavior, culture, and spaces and turn them into levers for meaningful change. The spiral walks you through a participative journey, connecting Human Transformation to Interior Transformation, because that’s where the real magic happens: when people and spaces evolve together to bring strategy and values to life. This is a practical and personal guide to help you make the invisible visible, reconnect what truly matters, and build an organization that is not only future-fit, but meaningful to work for and worth believing in.

Materials+: Creative Products focuses on original design ideas. It features wall clocks made from old vinyl records, comic books used as plant pots, vases made from sticks of dynamite, waste baskets constructed from sheets of recycled newspaper, lampshades made from eggshells, ornaments made from matchsticks; the materials used to make many of the products are not typically associated with the product, resulting in exceptionally creative designs. This innovative book offers access to many unique designs and is an excellent source of inspiration.

Mr. Rossi | Papik Rossi, the renowned skateboarder, contributes to Drago’s 36 Chambers series, exhibiting the cutting-edge of contemporary Roman counterculture. His images, shrouded in monochrome with luminous yellow highlights, stunningly capture the spontaneity of the streets and the magic of Trastevere, the Roman neighborhood that Rossi calls home. This neighborhood is also home to the ‘funkhouse’, Rossi’s nest and creative factory that inspires the vibrant imagery showcased in this book. The so-called King of the Roman streets is known for his skateboarding, music, street photography and the clothing brand, Trustever. He has worked on some of Rome’s most notable exhibitions such as Mania at Termini station and 30% Acrilico at the Museum of Rome in Trastevere. He has also held the position of director at the ‘Cuattro’ gallery in Rome where he worked on a series of extraordinary initiatives such as the production of the book Just Push the Button, with clothing brands Slam Jam, Stussy and Carhartt.

“It amazes me that after all these years and countless books, the scope of subject matter on The Beatles is so amazingly large that writers always find a new angle. This book does that in a very unique and clever way. It’s a must for every Beatles fan.” – Billy J. Kramer

“…It’s a magical mystery tour through the band’s life and times.”  —Yahoo Entertainment The It-List

“Part biography and part map to the stars, The Beatles: Fab Four Cities is your “Ticket to Ride” and walk in the footsteps of John, Paul, George and Ringo. It’s the next best thing to actually driving their car…”—Nina Violi, Capitol File. and Gotham magazine

“While the book can be used as a handy tour guide filled with addresses, maps and photos, it also makes for great reading.”  —Steve Matteo, The Vinyl District

“But now comes a “magic carpet volume” for Beatles fans that blends travel guide with historical reference in an expanded study of The Beatles’ homes, schools, pubs, venues, and important historic sites…”  —Jude Southerland Kessler, Culture Sonar

John Lennon said: “We were born in Liverpool, but we grew up in Hamburg.”
To paraphrase Lennon, we could say that: “The Beatles were born in Liverpool, grew up in Hamburg, reached maturity in London, and immortality in New York.”
Four cities. Four stars. The Fab Four – the Beatles – are revered the world over, but it is in these urban centres that their legacy shines brightest. Liverpool: where the band graduated from church halls, leaving their initial line-up as ‘The Quarrymen’ far behind. Hamburg: where their raucous stage act was honed; where arrests earned them a more notorious celebrity reputation, but they became a true emblem of rock ‘n’ roll. London: where The Beatles produced Sgt Pepper, and home to the iconic album cover for Abbey Road. And New York: the city that became John Lennon’s home, where their appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show announced them to 73 million Americans.
The Beatles: Fab Four Cities invites the reader on a cosmopolitan trek across continents, tracing the Beatles’ rise to fame from one metropolis to the next. Flush with timelines, stories, trivia, the numerous links and connections between the cities and both pop cultural and local history, this is a travel guide like no other.

“Dennis Tyfus appears like a punk-blasted sprite bursting from his pantaloons, a charmed creature’s tongue lolloping the golden inspirations both fresh and world-weary amid the gallery of noise freaks and intellectual elites.” – Thurston Moore, Sonic Youth

The practice of Antwerp-based artist Dennis Tyfus (b. 1979) encompasses a wide range of artistic media, including drawings, sculptures, installations, videos, magazines, books, music, vinyl records, tattoos, his own radio show, concerts and performances. In his oeuvre, everything flows into everything else, without a fixed definition, beginning or end. In doing so, he draws heavily on the work of artists such as Dieter Roth, Mike Kelley, Jim Shaw and Wim T. Schippers. By combining elements from his personal psyche with various aspects of high and low culture and approaching them on an equal footing, Tyfus creates a universe in which the personal, the everyday and the uncanny come together. This book brings together a wide selection from his oeuvre.
This publication accompanies the exhibition Don’t Tell Me Not to Tell You What to Do at de Warande, Turnhout, Belgium from 30 April to 13 August 2023.
With text contributions by Helena Kritis, curator at WIELS contemporary art centre in Brussels, Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, and artist Steven Warwick.

Text in English and Dutch.

“This exhaustive study will be an invaluable tool in identifying not only where a piece was made and when, but in understanding the processes of its manufacture” The Regional Furniture Society
“Cataloguers now have an impressive volume of new information to draw on when describing anything from a simple tea tray to those suites of papier mâché furniture which remain as impressive today as when they dazzled visitors at the great international exhibitions of the 19th century” Antiques Trade Gazette
As one of the few decorative arts about which little has been written, japanning is today fraught with misunderstandings. And yet, in its heyday, the japanning industry attracted important commissions from prestigious designers such as Robert Adam, and orders from fashionable society across Europe and beyond. This book is a long overdue history of the industry which centered on three towns in the English midlands: Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Bilston. It is as much about the workers, their skills, and the factories and workshops in which they labored, as it is about the goods they made. It tells of matters of taste and criticism, and of how an industry which continued to rely so heavily upon hand labor in the machine age reached its natural end in the 1880s with a few factories lingering into the late 1930s. Richly illustrated, it includes photographs of mostly marked, or well-documented, examples of japanned tin and papier mâché against which readers may compare – and perhaps identify – unmarked specimens. Japanned Papier Mâché and Tinware draws predominantly upon contemporary sources: printed, manuscript and typescript documents, and, for the period leading up to the closure of the last factories in the 1930s, the author was able to draw on verbal accounts of eyewitnesses. With a chapter on japanners in London, other European centers, and in the United States, together with a directory of japan artists and decorators, this closely researched and comprehensive book is the reference work for collectors, dealers and enthusiasts alike. Contents: From Imitation to Innovation; Enter the Dragon!; The Lion of the District; Japanning & Decorating; Not a Bed of Roses!; Clever Accidents?; Decline of the Midlands Japanning Industry; The Birmingham Japanners; The Wolverhampton Japanners; The Bilston Japanners; Japanners in London and Oxford; Products; Other Western Japanning Centres; Appendices.

The eruption of the absurd into normality: since he studied drawing, the easy option for Valentin Magaro would have been to represent people and objects naturalistically. However, he has chosen to go a different way in his drawings and paintings. Whereas he always depicts human beings schematically, for example in the form of lay figures, his grotesque architecture seems to have sprung from self-organizing growth. Born in Switzerland in 1972, Magaro seems unwilling to distinguish between inanimate matter and animate living beings in his work. Doll-like figures in his pictures are often placed in excruciating contexts. Nevertheless, Valentin Magaro is not concerned with creating gruesome effects. Far from it. He succeeds in engaging our empathy and stimulating our imagination through the very stringency of his draughtsmanship. What the viewer sees in his mind’s eye are new, monstrous images of unpleasant hybrids created from neutral, precise forms. Reality is deconstructed, only to be recombined in nightmarish scenes. References to the surreal illustrations of a Max Ernst are linked in this pictorial cosmos with associations of M. C. Escher’s impossible perspectives as well as narrative approaches borrowed from twentieth-century comics. And even though Valentin Magaro’s pictorial inventions may seem at first sight both under control and calculated, closer scrutiny reveals the exact opposite: the images born of his feverish imagination tend to take matters into their own hands and their content goes out of control.

Text in English & German.

History Today carried a feature in 2015, describing The Origin of Museums as “a cult book [that] spawned a new discipline in the history of collecting”. Indeed, the first publication of this book in 1985 undoubtedly marked a propitious moment in the development of interest, in what has since grown to be a dynamic subject-area in its own right. That an appetite for such matters was already there is confirmed by the fact that the first impression sold out within a few months, a second impression a year or two later, and the third in 1989. There was to be no further printing by the original publishers, Oxford University Press. However in 2001 a new edition appeared with a new publisher. Demand again proved buoyant, but within a few months the company failed; having operated on a print-on-demand basis, it left behind it no unsold stock. The Origins of Museums reverted to a scarce (though much sought-after) volume. With original copies now selling for hundreds, if not thousands of pounds, the Ashmolean is proud to make this important volume readily available again.

In this second book in the Dummie the Mummy series, Dummie, Angus and Nick travel to Egypt. It’s Dummie’s great wish to return to his country to visit the grave of his father, Pharaoh Akhnetut. Unfortunately, Egypt has completely changed in four thousand years and Akhnetut’s grave seems untraceable. To make matters even worse, Nick falls ill and Angus and Dummie set off without him. Then something terrible happens – Dummie has to give everything he’s got to save his best friend. Yet he is also determined to find his father’s grave. Fortunately, he remembers more and more about his life long ago and this proves to be very handy!