Guest Contributor

Airline Maps: A Century of Art and Design (By the Book)

Airline Maps: A Century of Art and Design (By the Book)

In this gorgeously illustrated collection of airline route maps, Airline Maps: A Century of Art and Design, Mark Ovenden and Maxwell Roberts look to the skies and transport readers to another time. Enjoy this excerpt, courtesy of Penguin Books.

Michel Pastoureau’s ‘Yellow: The History of a Color’ (By the Book)

Michel Pastoureau’s ‘Yellow: The History of a Color’ (By the Book)

Focusing on European societies, with comparisons from East Asia, India, Africa, and South America, Yellow tells the intriguing story of the color's evolving place in art, religion, fashion, literature, and science. Enjoy this excerpt of historian Michel Pastoureau's Yellow: The History of a Color, courtesy of Princeton University Press.

Abjection Incorporated: Mediating the Politics of Pleasure and Violence (By the Book)

Abjection Incorporated: Mediating the Politics of Pleasure and Violence (By the Book)

Escaping abjection's usual confines of psychoanalysis and aesthetic modernism, the contributors to Abjection Incorporated examine a range of media, including literature, photography, film, television, talking dolls, comics, and manga. Enjoy this generous excerpt, courtesy of Duke University Press.

Face: A Visual Odyssey (By the Book)

Face: A Visual Odyssey (By the Book)

By turns alarming and awe-inspiring, Jessica Helfand's Face: A Visual Odyssey offers an elaborately illustrated A to Z—from the didactic anthropometry of the late 19th century to the selfie-obsessed zeitgeist of the 21st. Enjoy this excerpt of Face, courtesy of MIT Press.

PROTEST! A History of Social and Political Protest Graphics (By the Book)

PROTEST! A History of Social and Political Protest Graphics (By the Book)

From the French, Mexican, and Sandinista revolutions to the American civil rights movement, nuclear disarmament, and the Women's March of 2017, PROTEST!, by Liz McQuiston, documents the integral role of the visual arts in passionate efforts for change. Enjoy this excerpt, courtesy of Princeton University Press.

Irving Berlin: New York Genius (By the Book)

Irving Berlin: New York Genius (By the Book)

Exploring the interplay of Irving Berlin's life with the life of New York City, noted biographer James Kaplan offers a visceral narrative of Berlin as self-made man and witty, wily, tough Jewish immigrant. Enjoy this excerpt of Kaplan's book, Irving Berlin: New York Genius.

Jimmy Marble’s ‘Dream Baby Dream’ (By the Book)

Jimmy Marble’s ‘Dream Baby Dream’ (By the Book)

Dream Baby Dream showcases the photography of Los Angeles-based award-winning photographer, director, and designer Jimmy Marble. This excerpt of his photography book is bright, warm, sunny, and sexy.

Ted Gioia’s ‘Music: A Subversive History’ (By the Book)

Ted Gioia’s ‘Music: A Subversive History’ (By the Book)

"Sound," writes musician, author, and historian Ted Gioia in Music: A Subversive History, "is the ultimate source of genesis... A song can contain a cataclysm." In this beguiling excerpt, Gioia leads us to the sound of the universe itself.

The Cigarette: A Political History (By the Book)

The Cigarette: A Political History (By the Book)

Sarah Milov's The Cigarette restores politics to its rightful place in the tale of tobacco's rise and fall, illustrating America's continuing battles over corporate influence, individual responsibility, collective choice, and the scope of governmental power. Enjoy this excerpt from Chapter 5. "Inventing the Nonsmoker".

The City Beneath: A Century of Los Angeles Graffiti (By the Book)

The City Beneath: A Century of Los Angeles Graffiti (By the Book)

With discussions of characters like Leon Ray Livingston (a.k.a. "A-No. 1"), credited with consolidating the entire system of hobo communication in the 1910s, and Kathy Zuckerman, better known as the surf icon "Gidget", Susan A. Phillips' lavishly illustrated The City Beneath: A Century of Los Angeles Graffiti, excerpted here from Yale University Press, tells stories of small moments that collectively build into broad statements about power, memory, landscape, and history itself.

By the Book: Soviet Metro Stations (excerpt)

By the Book: Soviet Metro Stations (excerpt)

Underground palaces in communist spaces provide not only transport but also refuge in the former USSR. Enjoy this excerpt of photographer Christopher Herwig and author Owen Hatherley's Soviet Metro Stations, from FUEL Publishing.

The U.S. Anti-Fascism Reader [By the Book]

The U.S. Anti-Fascism Reader [By the Book]

Donald Trump's rise in American politics is not a resurgence of fascism, argues professor Enzo Traverso in his essay, "Trump's Savage Capitalism" -- it is something else. Traverso's essay is published in this excerpt from The U.S. Anti-Fascism Reader, courtesy of Verso Books.