Abrams Hardcover Books 18 Items

This official tie-in book to Marilyn Agrelo’s (Mad Hot Ballroom) documentary Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street supplements the film’s exploration of the origins and legacy of Sesame Street with exclusive interviews and unseen photographs from first two seasons of this globally beloved series. Author Trevor Crafts, who was given unprecedented access to archival footage and photography, presents 150 of photographer David Attie’s behind-the-scenes images of Jim Henson, Frank Oz, Matt Robinson, Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch, Bert and Ernie, and dozens of other pioneering puppeteers, animators, actors, and Muppets. Crafts uses Attie’s photos to expand upon the film’s story of how show creator Joan Ganz Cooney, along with Sesame Workshop cofounder Lloyd Morrisett and director Jon Stone, took the values and goals of the civil rights movement and revolutionized children’s television. The Unseen Photos of Street Gang is a tribute to the enduring achievements of a rebellious group of artists, educators, and freethinkers who believed that the values of equality, education, and inclusion should not just be championed but also made available to all—a dream that Sesame Street has carried forward for more than fifty years. Contributors include: Sesame Street creator Joan Ganz Cooney, head writer Norman Stiles, lyricist and composer Christopher Cerf, cast members Roscoe Orman (Gordon), Sonia Manzano (Maria), Emilio Delgado (Luis), Bob McGrath (Bob), Caroll Spinney (Big Bird and Oscar), Brian Henson, and Sesame Street's first female puppeteer Fran Brill

Wisdom and musings on creativity and life from one of the world’s most beloved musicians, producers, and mentors, Quincy Jones12 Notes is a self-development guide that will affirm that creativity is a calling that can and should be answered, no matter your age or experience. Drawing from his own life, and those of his many creative collaborators past and present, Quincy Jones presents readers with lessons that are hardworking and accessible, yet speak to the passion of self-expression.

On February 11, 2012, Whitney Houston was found submerged in the bathtub of her suite at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. In the decade since, the world has mourned her death amid new revelations about her relationship to her Blackness, her sexuality, and her addictions. Didn’t We Almost Have It All is author Gerrick Kennedy’s exploration of the duality of Whitney’s life.

From a talented young journalist on the rise, a deeply reported, timely new biography of the Notorious B.I.G., publishing for what would have been his 50th birthdayThe Notorious B.I.G. was one of the most charismatic and talented artists of the 1990s. Born Christopher Wallace and raised in Clinton Hill/Bed Stuy, Brooklyn, Biggie lived an almost archetypal rap life: young trouble, drug dealing, guns, prison, a giant hit record, the wealth and international superstardom that came with it, then an early violent death.

George Michael was an extravagantly gifted, openhearted soul singer whose work was both pained and smolderingly erotic. He was a songwriter of true craft and substance, and his music swept the world, starting in the mid-1980s. His fabricated image—that of a hypermacho sex god—loomed large in the pop culture of his day. It also hid—for a time—the secret he fought against revealing: Michael was gay. Soon his obsession with fame would start to backfire. As one of the industry’s most privileged yet tortured men began.

Featuring never-before-seen unit photography, storyboards, costume and concept designs, and behind-the-scenes photos from Academy Award–winning director Steven Spielberg’s first musical, West Side Story: The Making of the Steven Spielberg Film is a loving chronicle of the years of effort that went into bringing a beloved story back to the screen for a new generation. Author Laurent Bouzereau was embedded with the film’s cast and crew and conducted original interviews with director and producer Steven Spielberg, screenwriter and executive producer Tony Kushner, Tony Award–winning choreographer.

A vibrant, unconventional, highly opinionated guide to the triumphs, joys, struggles, and heartbreaks of the modern era of the game, for every obsessive basketball fan who loves to hate hot takesThe Joy of Basketball celebrates the meteoric rise of basketball over the last quarter century by ignoring the bland, traditionalist binary of wins or losses. Instead, the book's focus is on everything else. Using text, charts, and illustrations that upend conventional jock wisdom, the book details the most incredible players in history, draft flops, long-limbed oddballs, superteams, the international talent wave, brawls, scandals, the rapid evolution of contemporary gameplay, coaching, fashion, crime, positional erosion, tragic tales, memes, and the sacred Kardashian Blessing. Bouncing between witty graphics and keen sociopolitical observations, The Joy of Basketball is a subversive sports manifesto camouflaged as a colorful reference book for your coffee table.

Count up to 25 with all of the friendly faces who call Sesame Street home, including Elmo, Big Bird, the Count, and more, in the latest title of the Abrams Block Book series! Each exciting spread highlights beloved characters for the board book age group, teaching counting with a fun Sesame twist, and making this book perfect for the youngest fans as well as seasoned collectors. As in previous Block Book titles, this title will include die-cut pages and the stylish art of British design team Peski Studio.

In 1985, Nike released Michael Jordan’s first sneaker, the Air Jordan 1, and sneaker culture was born. Now thousands of people wait in line at Supreme, and companies throw millions of dollars at LeBron James to keep him in their marketing plans. The trend that saw steady growth for decades with the emergence of sports, hip-hop, and sportswear advertising has exploded into a phenomenon. And no one has watched that phenomenon more closely than Complex.

Sneaker of the Year explores the past 35 years of sneaker culture with the expertise, authority, and passion that only Complex can offer. With vibrant photographs and illustrations throughout, as well as input from some of the sneaker world’s most important voices, this compilation is a must-have for hypebeasts and sneakerheads everywhere.

Bestselling author and Sundance award-winning director Questlove offers a thrilling, music-driven ride through the last fifty years of American history​.

In Music Is History, bestselling author and Sundance award-winning director Questlove harnesses his encyclopedic knowledge of popular music and his deep curiosity about history to examine America over the past fifty years. Choosing one essential track from each year, Questlove unpacks each song’s significance, revealing the pivotal role that American music plays around issues of race, gender, politics, and identity.

Music Is History focuses on the years 1971 to the present, not only the country’s most complex and rewarding half-century when it comes to the ways that pop culture and culturally diverse history intersect and interact, but also the years that overlap with Questlove’s own life. Music Is History moves fluidly from the personal to the political, examining events closely and critically, to unpeel and uncover previously unseen dimensions, and encouraging readers to do the same. Whether he is exploring how Black identity reshaped itself during the blaxploitation era, analyzing the assembly-line nature of disco and its hostility to Black genius, or remembering his own youth as a pop fan and what it taught him about America, Questlove finds the hidden connections in the American tapestry.

Complete with playlists organized around personal, playful themes that touch on everything from the relationship of hip-hop to music’s past to the secret ingredient in all funk songs, Music Is History is filled with and informed by Questlove’s preferences, perspectives, and particularities. It feels like both a popular history of contemporary America and a conversation with one of music's most influential and unique voices.

Who had the greatest dunk of all time? Which version of Michael Jordan was the best Michael Jordan? What is allowed and absolutely not allowed in a game of pickup basketball? Basketball and Other Things takes readers through the most pivotal and ridiculous fan disputes in basketball history, providing arguments and answers to basketball’s greatest questions, explained with the wit and wisdom that is unique to Shea Serrano. Serrano breaks down debates that all NBA fans have considered, from the classics (Which years was Kobe at his best?) to the fantastical (If you could assign different values to different shots throughout basketball history, what would they be and why?). With incredible art from Arturo Torres, this book is a must-have for anyone who has ever stayed up late into the night debating basketball’s greatest moments, what-ifs, stories, and legends.

Illustrated by Arturo Torres, foreword by Reggie Miller.

Shea Serrano is an award-winning writer, author, and illustrator. His most recent book, The Rap Year Book, reached the bestseller lists of the New York Times and Washington Post, topped the Arts and Entertainment iBooks bestseller list, and was chosen for the Pitchfork book club. Currently, Serrano is a staff writer for The Ringer. He lives in Houston, Texas.

The ultimate love letter to the world's most magical plant: Weed. Best-selling author, rapper, chef, and television star Action Bronson is a marijuana superhero, and Stoned Beyond Belief is his masterpiece.

This is an exploration of every corner of the pot galaxy, from highly scientific botanical analyses and the study of pot’s medicinal benefits to a guide to the wild world of weed paraphernalia. It's also a very personal tribute to a substance Bronson refers to as life changing, horizon-expanding, a conduit for happiness, a connector. Weed is to Action Bronson what the madeleine was to Proust: the door to true consciousness.

Organized loosely as 100 entries, including 35 recipes, and packed with illustrations and photos, Stoned Beyond Belief is a trippy and munchie-filled experience as well as an entertainingly valuable resource for weed enthusiasts and scholars. Stoned Beyond Belief will delight Action Bronson fans and pot aficionados all across the universe.

Writer Ted Fox and artist James Otis Smith bring to life Harlem’s legendary theater in this graphic novel adaptation of Fox’s definitive, critically acclaimed history of the Apollo.

Since its inception as an African-American theater in 1934, the Apollo, and the thousands of entertainers who performed there, have led the way in the presentation of swing, bebop, rhythm and blues, jazz, gospel, soul, funk and hip-hop—along with the latest in dance and comedy. The Apollo has nurtured and featured thousands of artists, many of whom have become legends. The beauty they have given the world—their art—transcends the hatred, ignorance, and intolerance that often made their lives difficult. Today, the Apollo enjoys an almost mythical status. With its breathtaking art, this graphic novel adaptation of Showtime at the Apollo brings to life the theater’s legendary significance in music history, African American history, and to the culture of New York City.

The Wes Anderson Collection: Isle Of Dogs takes readers behind the scenes of the beloved auteur’s newest animated film. Set in Japan and centered on a young boy’s search for his missing dog, Isle Of Dogs features the voices of Anderson regulars Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, Jeff Goldblum, F. Murray Abraham, Tilda Swinton, Kunichi Nomura, Bob Balaban, Harvey Keitel, and Edward Norton. Also lending their voices to this star-studded production are Bryan Cranston, Liev Schreiber, Scarlett Johansson, Yoko Ono, Greta Gerwig, and Courtney B. Vance. In the newest addition to the Wes Anderson Collection,
the story of Isle Of Dogs’S conception and production unfolds over the course of several in-depth interviews with Wes Anderson, all conducted by film critic Lauren Wilford . Wes reveals entertaining anecdotes about
the making of the film, his sources of inspiration, his relationships with his actors, the ins and outs of stop-motion animation, and many other insights into his moviemaking process. In keeping with Anderson’s signature aesthetic vision, The Wes Anderson Collection: Isle Of Dogs is meticulously designed and rife with colourful behind-the-scenes images, photographs, concept artwork, and ephemera.

This book collects the best artwork from the first five years of “Bad Dads,” an annual exhibition of art inspired by the films of Wes Anderson. Curated by Spoke Art Gallery in San Francisco, “Bad Dads” has continued to grow and progress and has featured work from more than four hundred artists. From paintings to sculptures to limited-edition screen prints, the artworks vary greatly in style, but share the imagery and beloved characters from the mind of one of Hollywood’s most noteworthy and imaginative filmmakers. The book features an original cover by graphic artist Max Dalton, a foreword by writer and director Wes Anderson himself, and an introduction by TV and movie critic Matt Zoller Seitz, author of the bestselling Wes Anderson Collection books.

Wes Anderson’s eighth feature film, The Grand Budapest Hotel, is the fullest expression to date of Anderson’s varied thematic and stylistic idiosyncrasies and influences—a meticulously crafted, visually resplendent matryoshka-doll caper set primarily in an alternate-history version of 1930s Europe. This supplementary, one-volume companion to The Wes Anderson Collection (Abrams 2013) is the only book to take readers behind the scenes of The Grand Budapest Hotel, with in-depth interviews between Anderson and cultural critic and New York Times bestselling author Matt Zoller Seitz. Anderson shares the story behind the film’s conception, the wide variety of sources that inspired it—from author Stefan Zweig to filmmaker Ernst Lubitsch to photochrom landscapes from turn-of-the-century Middle Europe—personal anecdotes about the making of the film, and other reflections on his filmmaking process. These interviews are accompanied by behind-the-scenes photos, ephemera, and artwork, as well as exclusive critical essays by Ali Arikan, Steven Boone, David Bordwell, Olivia Collette, and Christopher Laverty; interviews with costume designer Milena Canonero, composer Alexandre Desplat, lead actor Ralph Fiennes, production designer Adam Stockhausen, and cinematographer Robert Yeoman; and an introduction by playwright Anne Washburn.

23,8 cm x 28,6cm, 256 pages, hardcover.

Wes Anderson is one of the most influential voices from the past two decades of American cinema. A true auteur, Anderson is known for the visual artistry, inimitable tone, and idiosyncratic characterizations that make each of his films—Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Darjeeling Limited, Fantastic Mr. Fox, and Moonrise Kingdom—instantly recognizable as “Andersonian.” The Wes Anderson Collection is the first in-depth overview of Anderson’s filmography, guiding readers through his life and career. Previously unpublished photos, artwork, and ephemera complement a book-length conversation between Anderson and award-winning critic Matt Zoller Seitz. The interview and images are woven together in a meticulously designed book that captures the spirit of his films: melancholy and playful, wise and childish—and thoroughly original.

10x 12 inches, 336 pages, hardcover.

Music is a universal human experience that’s been with us since the dawn of time. You’ve listened to music all your life . . . but have you ever wondered why? It turns out music isn’t just about entertainment—it’s a deeply embedded, subtly powerful means of communication. Songs resonate with your brain wave patterns and drive changes in your brain: creating your moods, consolidating your memories, strengthening your habits (the good ones and the bad ones alike) . . . even making you fall in or out of love. Your music is molding you, at a subconscious level, all day long. And now, for the first time ever, you can take charge. From executive editor Peter Gabriel and the minds behind It’s All in Your Head (the ultimate user’s guide for your brain), Reverberation unlocks a world where you can actively leverage the power of music to improve and enhance every aspect of your life. You’ll learn specific songs (...)