Hardcover Books 320 Items

A different, colorful picture book about culture and everyday life.

Rap, Breakdance, Graffiti & DJ:ing – now for the very youngest! My First Hip Hop Book is a different, colourful picture book about culture and everyday life with fun and clear pictures for small children. A charming book with lots of humour and attitude.

You can point at events and objects related to hip hop culture, but that also occur pretty much everywhere in everyone's life. The book takes place over a day and every page features everyday situations that children can relate to.
Ageing B-Boys and B-Girls will love teaching their children and grandchildren their first simple words with a hip hop twist. No one is too small for the four elements!

Carole King'sTapestryis both an anthemic embodiment of second-wave feminism and an apotheosis of the Laurel Canyon singer-songwriter sound and scene. And these two elements of the album's historic significance are closely related insofar as the professional autonomy of the singer-songwriter is an expression of the freedom and independence women of King's generation sought as the turbulent sixties came to a close.

Mechanical Reproductions stay true to their original mission statement of being ‘an outlet for editions of print and vinyl’ and, for their third release, serve up a 48 page archive of some of the posters created by Young Echo’s Amos Childs & Sam Barrett for the long running nights the collective have been running since 2010.

‘Heavyweight Champion is the result of six years’ collaborative collage works for Bristol’s Young Echo collective.

The collective’s 12 members have been running club nights, radio shows and releasing music since 2010. Two of them, Amos Childs & Sam Barrett (who also make music together as O$vmv$m), have been responsible for creating the posters to promote the club nights since the start.

These posters are a regular fixture in the visual landscape of the city, on walls, bins, bus stops and pretty much any other available surface in the lead up to each event. Their informal visual language immediately sets them apart from the other flyers vying for attention. They’re intriguing: through not having the artist names featured as prominently as possible they encourage the viewer to take a deeper look. There’s dense layers of images and cut-and- pasted phrases to be deciphered – ultimately a far more engaging experience than being shouted at by a generic and large-fonted neon specimen.

Thanks to the local council (and keen fans who would rather see them on their walls at home), more often than not these works are gone soon after they’re tacked up, meaning the only archive of them is as low resolution images on various social media channels. ‘Heavyweight Champion’, then, aims to provide a lasting document of this unique and vital part of Bristol’s musical culture…’

Cover with damaged spine and corner.

deadHYPE CLTV is the first issue of the new hardcover book from Berlin-based collective deadHYPE. In this ever-changing, ever-evolving, relentless digital realm, the fleeting lifespan of content falls short of their aspirations, so they made it their mission to create a physical platform not only for themselves, but more importantly, for the incredible talent within their community.

This unique history of rock tells the musical story in a new way: through infographics that illustrate the evolution, influences, and connections between different genres&;such as blues, pop, punk, progressive, and heavy metal. For each artist, including The Beatles, Dylan, Janis Joplin, Springsteen, Bowie, the Ramones, Amy Winehouse, and Nirvana, the powerful visual representation gives at-a-glance information on how many records sold, how much money was made, how long a record stayed on the charts, how many days was required to record a disc, how many followers on Twitter, and so much more&;plus a timeline of the artist&;s career. Full-page photographs and introductory text round out this fascinating volume.

A lyrical, poignant ode to wrinkles and the stories they tell, by the world renowned photographer and public artist JR

This first-ever picture book by internationally acclaimed artist-photographer JR allows young readers to consider the lives and stories of the older people around them. Memories, experiences, and emotions are touched on in a welcoming way, creating the perfect conversation-starter between children and their elders. Evocative black-and-white photographs of faces and simple, poignant read-aloud text consider the literal and lyrical meaning of wrinkles, leaving readers of all ages with a well-justified appreciation of aging and natural beauty. Published to coincide with a major exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, opening in October 2019.

Helmut Newton’s lens captured the essence of elegance and glamorous sexuality, showcasing the allure of women as never before. His images tell stories of desire, seduction, intrigue, and powerplay, leaving an indelible mark in our cultural history.

The Captivating World of Helmut Newton - Eternal fashion icons and legendary celebrity portraits

Helmut Newton’s unforgettable images, at once sophisticated and provocative, constitute a rich and ever-relevant artistic legacy. This book presents a compact but wide-ranging and impactful portfolio of his work, supported by an insightful introduction and a detailed biographical chronology.

Newton’s images straddle the knife-edge of ambiguity, teasing out allusions and social observations that both entice and challenge their viewers. In this portfolio, Newton’s unique perspective is effectively showcased, reflecting the complex undercurrents that give his images their distinct character across the breadth of his editorial work in the fields of fashion and portraiture.

This book reveals Newton’s evolution into a contrarian, a savvy and mischievous cynic, at once voyeur and satirist, whose lens framed contentious yet pivotal aspects of high fashion and high society in the latter decades of the twentieth century. He worked as a “gun for hire” while imposing his own perspectives and obsessions, defining most notably his idea of a powerful, self-assured woman. This figure became his most insistent theme, developed in erotically charged scenarios, most typically set in the seductive environment of opulent apartments or grand hotels, most notably in Paris, Monte Carlo, and Los Angeles.

From the mid-sixties, Newton’s dynamic images established his reputation in the world of fashion, through work published in leading magazines, among them Vogue Paris, Elle, Marie Claire, Nova, Queen, and British Vogue. From the mid-seventies his notoriety was extended through his first books and exhibitions. His images immortalize such luminaries of society, film, and fashion as Princess Caroline of Monaco, Charlotte Rampling, Paloma Picasso, and Karl Lagerfeld.

Helmut Newton’s glamorous, ground-breaking, and boundary-pushing photographs have an indisputable signature authority that maintains their hold on our imaginations.

The photographer Helmut Newton (1920–2004) was one of the most influential photographers of all time. He first achieved international fame in the 1970s while working principally for the different internation editions of Vogue, where he was celebrated for his controversial scenarios and the ability to make a thoroughly planned photograph seem fresh and dynamic. His many titles and awards include Commandeur dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

The author Sarah Mower is a fashion critic for Vogue, with a longstanding career as a commentator on fashion movements and their place within broader sociological and cultural contexts. In 2011 Mower was awarded an MBE for her contributions to the fashion industry.

The contributor Philippe Garner is an auction specialist in photographs and 20th century decorative art and design, a historian, writer, exhibition curator, and vice-president of the Helmut Newton Foundation.

Hardcover, 14 x 19.5 cm, 0.43 kg, 192 pages Edition: Multilingual (English, French, German)

A visual catalog of site-specific rap lyrics in New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Houston and more.

With lyrics from Jay Z, Snoop Dogg, Andre 3000, Kanye West, Scarface and more.

Since 2013, multi-disciplinary artist Jay Shells (Jason Shelowitz) has been travelling to major US cities, installing his Rap Quotes campaign. At the time of this publication, the campaign has touched down in New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Houston and the Bay Area.
Part art book and part guide book, The Rap Quotes Coast to Coast takes you on a new kind of journey, with gorgeous photography by Aymann Ismail to offer context for the hip hop lyrics that mark locations in these major cities. Each city/chapter opens with remarks by local hip hop journalists and ends with a map plotting every site-specifc rap lyric for that city, giving the reader the ability to take their own hip hop-specific tour of the city they love. The Rap Quotes campaign is ongoing, and in the next few years will launch in Chicago, New Orleans, Miami and other cities around the globe.

“Taking lyrics from well-known rap songs, artist Jay Shells creates street signs and installs them at the physical locations referenced on the tracks. The “Rap Quotes” project is one of the greatest hip-hop themed street art projects of all time ...”
Andrew Lasane, Complex

“When I wrote the lyric, I wasn’t thinking anything like this would ever happen, but it’s an honor, it’s an honor honestly.”
Masta Ace

Desperately Seeking Van Gogh adopts a very refreshing new way of looking at the life of this most brilliant of artists: by following in his footsteps around all the locations which meant the most to him and which most influenced his work.

We capture the mood of bourgeois respectability of his mother’s family in The Hague, the fields and dyke banks of the sleepy provincial town of Zundert on the Dutch/Belgian border where he grew up, to the boarding schools which he hated. We go with Vincent to The Hague where he was an apprentice art dealer, to his time in England and his dreams of maybe escaping to South America, Brussels, Antwerp, Paris and then to all the detailed locations in Provence, and many more.

Every spread features great imagery – both photographic and of Vincent’s works – and a fascinating commentary. For any enthusiast or art history student of Vincent, this title is a must. For anyone new to his work, it is a very accessible, friendly and insightful way to look at his life.

Explore the geography of genius in Desperately Seeking B**ksy, a pocket-sized, smaller sibling of Wheres B**ksy that illuminates the interaction between artist and space. Where its predecessor featured in-depth analysis of each piece displayed, Desperately Seeking B**ksy offers accessibility and brevity for the more casual fan. The maps are streamlined, and analysis has been replaced by individual quotes that offer insight into the inspiration behind each piece. The artwork selection is up-to-the-minute, featuring 2017s Bridge Farm Primary School and The Walled Off Hotel.With a size and price point perfect for gifting or impulse buying, it makes Banksys work available to a wider audience than ever before.Like the other titles in the Desperately Seeking series, Desperately Seeking B**ksy looks at a major cultural icon from a brand-new perspective, providing context for his work and legacy.

A Field Guide to ... delves into music’s most influential genres to uncover the innovators and agitators who changed music history forever. In A Field Guide to Britpop, Steve Wide explores a scene fueled by north–south rivalries, tribal fashion and a good cup of tea. Uncover the artists and albums, the who’s who and hangabouts that defined the era. From Blur’s jaunty pop, Pulp’s working-class poetry and Suede’s dark tales of the elegantly wasted, to the pub sing-alongs of Oasis.

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.

A meditation on faith, art, music, grief and much more - from cultural icon and bestselling author Nick Cave Faith, Hope and Carnage is a book about Nick Cave's inner life. Created from over forty hours of intimate conversations with Sean O'Hagan, it is a profoundly thoughtful exploration, in Cave's own words, of what really drives his life and creativity. The book examines questions of faith, art, music, freedom, grief and love. It draws candidly on Cave's life, from his early childhood to the present day, his loves, his work ethic and his dramatic transformation in recent years. From a place of considered reflection, Faith, Hope and Carnage offers ladders of hope and inspiration from a true creative visionary.

Written by award-winning Black British children’s author Sharna Jackson, Black Artists Shaping the World celebrates the diversity of work being produced today by Black artists from around the globe, introducing young readers to twenty-six contemporary artists from Africa and of the African diaspora.

Sharna Jackson’s experience as a children’s author who has worked for over a decade in the cultural sector, both at Tate in London and at Site Gallery in Sheffield, is combined here with the curatorial expertise of Dr Zoé Whitley, Director of London’s Chisenhale Gallery and co-curator of the landmark Tate exhibition ‘Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power’. Their book features artists working in a variety of media from painting, sculpture and drawing to ceramics, installation art and sound art. Artists featured include British Turner Prize-winning painters Lubaina Himid and Chris Ofili; renowned South African visual activist Zanele Muholi; Nigerian sound artist Emeka Ogboh; Sudanese painter Kamala Ibrahim Ishag; Kenyan-British ceramicist Magdalene Odundo; African-American artists Kerry James Marshall, Faith Ringgold, Amy Sherald and Kehinde Wiley; performance artist Harold Offeh; and moving image artist Larry Achiampong.

The result is a refreshingly contemporary celebration of Black artists at work today that will serve as inspiration to a new generation of aspiring young artists.

The birthplace of graffiti, New York City, has evolved into a global center for street art. Its public surfaces host a range of media from handmade stickers and wheatpastes to huge installations and murals. Artists from across the globe routinely travel to New York City to grace its walls as they refashion the city into one huge never-ending unofficial street art festival. Among these are such contemporary urban legends as Shepard Fairey, Ron English, Okuda, MaClaim, Faith Xlvii, Stik, Nick Walker, JR and Swoon. Street Art NYC showcases both sanctioned and unsanctioned works captured in the course of a transformative decade that saw the emergence of over a dozen distinctly engaging projects. The hugely popular Bushwick Collective, L.I.S.A Project NYC and Welling Court Mural Project are highlighted with introductory essays. Local community-based projects and festivals, as well as those responding to specific environmental and social issues, are also represented. Banksy’s one month 2013 residency, “Better Out than In” is documented with words and images. And homage is paid to the legendary 5 Pointz graffiti and street art mecca. Street Art NYC is is a beautifully designed hardcover book. The full color photographs by Lord K2 captures the art in the city, printed on thick coated paper, and Lois Stavsky’s text provides the context. This is the only book to spotlight the transformational decade that marked the shift from largely unsanctioned to widely curated street art throughout New York City’s five boroughs. This book is a collaboration between Lord K2, an award-winning photographer and curator of the online Museum of Urban Art and Lois Stavsky, a noted street art documentarian and editor of the popular blog, Street Art NYC.

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.

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.

Continue to explore the geography of genius in Desperately Seeking Frida, a pocket-sized hardcover guide that catalogs and explores the most important locations in Frida Kahlo’s life. Detailed maps show her movements around the world, while archival photographs of the artist and the spaces she inhabited bring her international journey to life. Quotes from contemporaries and Frida herself accompany historical and biographical details that give context to the maps and images. Fans will be thrilled by this in depth, lifetime-spanning tour of her global trajectory, from La Casa Azul in Coyoacán, Mexico, to New York City, San Francisco and Paris. Like the other titles in the series, Desperately Seeking Frida looks at a major cultural icon from a brand-new angle, providing context for her life, work, and legacy.

Now completely revised and updated, with full-color photographs and family-friendly recipes throughout.

The deeply personal story of a father learning to share his love of nature with his children, not through the indoor lens of words or pictures, but directly, palpably, by exploring the natural world as they forage, cook and eat from the woods and sea.

This compelling, masterfully written tale follows Dylan Tomine and his family through four seasons as they hunt chanterelles, fish for salmon, dig clams and gather at the kitchen table, mouths watering, to enjoy the fruits of their labor. Closer to the Ground captures the beauty and surprise of the natural world — and the ways it teaches us how to live — with humor, gratitude and a nose for adventure as keen as a child’s. It is a book filled with weather, natural history and many delicious meals.

For fans, Boxer is a profound personal meditation. Life decisions have been based on it. Relationships have been created and dissolved by it. For the band that recorded it, Boxer symbolizes a do-or-die moment; a final, give-it-everything-you've-got effort to make it work.

Released in May 2007, The National's fourth full-length is the album that saved them. It's where the Ohio-via-Brooklyn five-piece found the sound, success, and spiritual growth to become one of the most critically acclaimed bands of their time. Obsessively researched and featuring intimate interviews with the fighters who were there in the ring, Ryan Pinkard captures a transformative chapter in The National's story, revealing how their breakthrough album is deeply intertwined with their personal lives, the New York indie rock renaissance of the early aughts, and a generational experience in America.

Kraftwerk's most concise and focused conceptual statement, Computer World, was also their most influential album, paving the way for a range of new musical styles and genres. This book explores the band's revolutionary sonic template, and their lyrical obsessions in detail.

An analysis of the bands work reveals a unifying theme, overlooked by other writers, of movement and transition. While many remarked on the prevalence of travel within Kraftwerk's art: Autobahn (1974) – cars, Trans-Europe Express (1977) – trains, The Man- Machine (1978) – space, and Tour De France (1982) – bicycles, Francis contends that this is a surface manifestation of a deeper theoretical subtext in their work. Movement is really a reflection of the concept of transition, through time and space, from one physical, emotional, or existential state of being to another. The book explores transition, as expressed on Computer World, via theories of post-humanism, cybernetics and the anthropology of transnationalism.

Breaking the global record for streams in a single day, nearly 10 million people around the world tuned in to hear Kendrick Lamar's sophomore album in the hours after its release. To Pimp a Butterfly was widely hailed as an instant classic, garnering plauditory albums reviews, many awards, and even a canonized place in Harvard's W. E. B. Du Bois archive. Why did this strangely compelling and masterful record stimulate the emotions and imaginations of listeners?

This book takes a deep dive into the sounds, images, and lyrics of To Pimp a Butterfly to suggest that Kendrick appeals to the psyche of a nation in crisis and embraces the development of a radical political conscience. Kendrick breathes fresh life into the black musical protest tradition and cultivates a platform for loving resistance. Combining funk, jazz, and spoken word, To Pimp a Butterfly's expansive sonic and lyrical geography brings a level of innovation to a field dominated by the predictability of trap music. More importantly, Kendrick's introspective and philosophical songs compel us to believe in a future where we gon' be alright!

New York City in the 1970s was an urban nightmare: destitute, dirty, and dangerous. As the country collectively turned its back on the Big Apple, two musical vigilantes rose out of the miasma. Armed only with amplified AC current, Suicide's Alan Vega and Marty Rev set out to save America's soul. Their weaponized noise terrorized unsuspecting audiences. Suicide could start a riot on a lack of guitar alone. Those who braved their live shows often fled in fear--or formed bands (sometimes both). This book attempts to give the reader a front-row seat to a Suicide show.

Suicide is one of the most original, most misunderstood, and most influential bands of the last century. While Suicide has always had a dedicated cult following, the band is still relatively unknown outside their musical coterie. Arguing against the idea of the band's niche musical history, this book looks at parallels between Marvel Comics' antiheroes in the 1970s and Suicide's groundbreaking first album. Andi Coulter tells the origin story of two musical Ghost Riders learning to harness their sonic superpower, using noise like a clarion call for a better future.

The question of control for Black women is a costly one. From 1986 onwards, the trajectory of Janet Jackson's career can be summed up in her desire for control. Control for Janet was never simply just about her desire for economic and creative control over her career but was, rather, an existential question about the desire to control and be in control over her bodily integrity as a Black woman.

This book examines Janet's continuation of her quest for control as heard in her sixth album, The Velvet Rope. Engaging with the album, the promotion, the tour, and its accompanying music videos, this study unpacks how Janet uses Black cultural production as an emancipatory act of self-creation that allows her to reconcile with and, potentially, heal from trauma, pain, and feelings of alienation. The Velvet Rope's arc moves audiences to imagine the possibility of what emancipation from oppression--from sexual, to internal, to societal--could look like for the singer and for others. The sexually charged content and themes of abuse, including self-harm and domestic violence, were dismissed as “selling points” for Janet at the time of its release. The album stands out as a revelatory expression of emotional vulnerability by the singer, one that many other artists have followed in the 20-plus years since its release.

In a bar called The Bucket of Blood, a man shoots the bartender four times in the head. In the small town of Millhaven, a teenage girl secretly and gleefully murders her neighbors. A serial killer travels from home to home, quoting John Milton in his victims' blood.

Murder Ballads, the ninth studio album from Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, is a gruesome, blood-splattered reimagining of English ballads, American folk and blues music, and classic literature. Most of the stories told on Murder Ballads have been interpreted many times, but never before had they been so graphic or profane. Though earning the band their first Parental Advisory warning label, Murder Ballads, released in 1996, brought Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds their biggest critical and commercial success, thanks in part to the award-winning single, “Where the Wild Roses Grow,” an unlikely duet with Australian pop singer, Kylie Minogue.

Closely examining each of the ten songs on the album, Santi Elijah Holley investigates the stories behind the songs, and the numerous ways these ballads have been interpreted through the years. Murder Ballads is a tour through the evolution of folk music, and a journey into the dark secrets of American history.

Vs. is the sound of a band on fire. The same confluence of talent, passion, timing, and fate that made “grunge” the world's soundtrack also lit a short fuse beneath Pearl Jam. The band combusted between late 1992 and mid-1994, the span during which they planned, recorded, and supported their sophomore record. The spotlight, the pressure, the pace-it all nearly turned the thriving act to ash. Eddie Vedder, the reluctant public face of the band, responded by lashing out lyrically. Jeff Ament, Mike McCready, and Stone Gossard, who beheld success with varying degrees of anxious satisfaction, attacked their instruments in solidarity. Dave Abbruzzese welcomed the rock-star lifestyle, and left his mark on the record with more than just potent percussion. Vs. roils with fury-and at times, gently steams-over the trappings of fame, human faults, and societal injustice. The record is a thrashing testament to Pearl Jam's urgent creativity and greater-good interests, and the band's logistical calculations behind it drew a career-defining line in the sand. It promised the world that Pearl Jam would neither burn out nor fade away. This book weaves research, little-known details, and band members' memories into a definitive account of how Vs. set them on a path toward enduring integrity and relevance.

Having designed Roxy Music as an haute couture suit hand-stitched of punk and progressive music, Bryan Ferry redesigned it. He made Roxy Music ever dreamier and mellower-reaching back to sadly beautiful chivalric romances. Dadaist (punk) noise exited; a kind of ambient soft soul entered. Ferry parted ways with Eno, electric violinist Eddie Jobson, and drummer Paul Thompson, foreswearing the broken-sounding synthesizers played by kitchen utensils, the chance-based elements, and the maquillage of previous albums.

The production and engineering imposed on Avalon confiscates emotion and replaces it with an acoustic simulacrum of courtliness, polished manners, and codes of etiquette. The seducer sings seductive music about seduction, but decorum is retained, as amour courtois insists.

The backbeat cannot beat back nostalgia; it remains part of the architecture of Avalon, an album that creates an allusive sheen. Be nostalgic, by all means, but embrace that feeling's falseness, because nostalgia-whether inspired by medieval Arthuriana or 1940s film noir repartee or a 1980s drug-induced high-deceives. Nostalgia defines our fantasies and our (not Ferry's) essential artifice.

In the '80s, the Birmingham, England, band Duran Duran became closely associated with new wave, an idiosyncratic genre that dominated the decade's music and culture. No album represented this rip-it-up-and-start-again movement better than the act's breakthrough 1982 LP, Rio. A cohesive album with a retro-futuristic sound-influences include danceable disco, tangy funk, swaggering glam, and Roxy Music's art-rock-the full-length sold millions and spawned smashes such as "Hungry Like the Wolf" and the title track.

However, Rio wasn't a success everywhere at first; in fact, the LP had to be buffed-up with remixes and reissued before it found an audience in America. The album was further buoyed by colorful music videos, which established Duran Duran as leaders of an MTV-driven second British Invasion, and the group's cutting-edge visual aesthetic. Via extensive new interviews with band members and other figures who helped Rio succeed, this book explores how and why Rio became a landmark pop-rock album, and examines how the LP was both a musical inspiration-and a reflection of a musical, cultural, and technology zeitgeist.

Contradicting assumptions that disco albums are shallow and packed with filler, Donna Summer's double album Once Upon A Time stands out as a piece that delivers on its promise of an immaculately crafted journey from start to finish. A new interpretation of the Cinderella story, it is set in the then contemporary world of New York disco and takes the listener on a journey from urban isolation and deep despair to joy and vindication, all filtered through the mind of its naïve and fantasy-prone protagonist.

As well as charting the production of the album within the legendary Munich Machine in Germany, this book digs deep into the album's rich themes and subtexts. Approaching the book from inventive angles, the four essays within the book act as a prism connecting the reader to the classical aspirations of Eurodisco, the history of the black fairy tale and a queer knowledge that reads Summer's Cinderella tale in some surprising ways.

Shelved for over 20 years, Sam Cooke's Live at the Harlem Square Club, 1963, stands alongside Otis Redding's Live in Europe and James Brown's Live at the Apollo as one of the finest live soul albums ever made. It also reveals a musical, spiritual, emotional, and social journey played out over one night on the stage of a sweaty Miami club, as Cooke made music that encapsulated everything he had ever cut, channeling forces that would soon birth “A Change is Gonna Come,” the most important soul song ever written.

This book covers Cooke's days with the Soul Stirrers, the gospel unit that was inventing a strand of soul in the 1950s, and continues on to his string of hit singles as a solo artist that reveal far more about this complex man and the complex music he was always fashioning. A writer and an agent of social change, he absorbed the teachings of Billie Holiday and Bob Dylan while reconciling his own identity and what fans expected of him. Fleming explores how this towering soul artist came to reconcile so many disparate elements on a Florida stage on a winter night in 1963-a stage that extended well into the future, beyond Cooke's own life, beyond the 1960s, and into a perpetual here-and-now. Live at the Harlem Square Club, 1963 will resonate so long as we all have need to look into ourselves and square our differences and become more human, and more connected with others in our humanity.

In Janelle Monáe's full-length debut, the science fiction concept album The ArchAndroid, the android Cindi Mayweather is on the run from the authorities for the crime of loving a human. Living in 28th century Metropolis, Cindi fights for survival, soon realizing that she is in fact the prophesied ArchAndroid, a robot messiah meant to liberate the masses and lead them toward a wonderland where all can be free. Taking into account the literary merit of Monáe's astounding multimedia body of work, the political relevance of the science fictional themes and aesthetics she explores, and her role as an Atlanta-based pop cultural juggernaut, this book explores the lavish world building of Cindi's story, and the many literary, cinematic, and musical influences brought together to create it. Throughout, a history of Monáe's move to Atlanta, her signing with Bad Boy Records, and the trials of developing a full-length concept album in an industry devoted to the production of marketable singles can be found, charting the artist's own rise to power. The stories of Monáe and of Cindi are inextricably entwined, each making the other more compelling, fantastical, and deeply felt.

He is known as the Mark Twain of American songwriting, a man who transformed the everyday happenings of regular people into plainly profound statements on war, industrialization, religion, and the human condition. Marking the 50th anniversary of the album's release, John Prine chronicles the legendary singer-songwriter's Middle American provenance, and his remarkable ascent from singing mailman to celebrated son of Chicago.“Illegal Smile,” “Hello in There,” “Sam Stone,” “Paradise,” “Your Flag Decal Won't Get You Into Heaven Anymore,” “Far from Me,” “Donald and Lydia,” and “Angel from Montgomery” are considered standards in the American Songbook, covered by legions of Prine's peers and admirers. Through original interviews, exhaustive research, and incisive commentary, author Erin Osmon paints an in-depth portrait of the people, places, and experiences that inspired Prine's landmark debut.

After exploring his roots in rural Western Kentucky and suburban Maywood, Illinois, the book takes readers on an evocative journey through John Prine's Chicago. Its neighborhoods, characters, and clubs of the 1960s and 70s proved a formative and magical period in Prine's life, before he was a figurehead of the new Nashville scene. It's both a journalistic inquiry and a love letter: to Prine's self-titled debut and the Midwestern city that made him.

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.

A zippy and compact introduction to Street Craft, from guerrilla gardening to urban crochet.

Surprising, controversial and often simply beautiful, street craft is the next chapter in the story of street art - an explosion of creativity that is reclaiming and transforming urban space around the world.

Featuring: • Tasha Lewis’s blue butterfly swarms bring beauty to derelict corners of New York. • Spidertag intertwines sturdy rope and nails to construct abstract graffiti in Madrid. • Mademoiselle Maurice’s origami and lace graffiti bring a light touch to the streets of Paris and Hong Kong and many more.

'Frequently thought-provoking, often funny, and at all times non-threatening' GQ

'Political, pretty, provocative' Simple Things

About the Author: Riikka Kuittinen is a freelance curator and writer. A contributing writer to the online journal Photomonitor, she curated the V&A show ‘Street Art: Contemporary Prints’ (2010–12), which toured the UK, with a version shown in Libya. She is the author of Street Art: Contemporary Prints, and contributed to Phaidon Archive of Graphic Design, Modernism 1914–1939: Designing a New World and 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die.

Format:PLC (no jacket) Size:22.0 x 17.5 cm Extent:224 pp Illustrations:250 Publication date:2 February 2015 ISBN:9780500517840

Again, we only have a handful of these, but for those interested, we can recommend this zine very highly. 125 pages of mad print technique, illustration and general ink splatter from the creative mind behind Bandulu Records artwork, and boss of printing studio 16 Tonne Press here in Bristol.

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.

Graham Sharpe's life has been played out to a background of personally significant vinyl-related events, and his own large and ever-growing collection of LPs not only reflects his musical addiction, but also represents an intensely direct link to many of his key experiences. In this unique book he considers all the elements of record collecting which he loves - and one or two he doesn't - as he continues his long-term project to visit every surviving second hand record shop in his own and other countries, and reports on the many characters he has encountered, and the adventures he has accrued along the way.