Showing results by publisher "Audible Studios" in Art

Henri Matisse was one of the most important and beloved artists of the 20th century, rivalled only by his friend and competitor Pablo Picasso. Hilary Spurling's The Unknown Matisse and Matisse the Master were together heralded as the definitive biography of the artist, and Matisse the Master went on to win the Whitbread Book of the Year award in 2005. This essential abridged edition of The Life reveals the origins of Matisse's astonishing talent, provides a unique insight into his life and work and places him at the front rank of those who made art modern.

First published in 1973, this is a study of the force of photographic images, which are continually inserted between experience and reality. When anything can be photographed, and photography has destroyed the boundaries and definitions of art, a viewer can approach a photograph freely, with no expectations of discovering what it means. This collection of six lucid and invigorating essays, with the most famous being "In Plato's Cave", make up a deep exploration of how the image has affected society.

In an age unhealthily obsessed with substance, this is a book on the importance of pure style, from the best-selling author of The Etymologicon and The Horologicon. From classic poetry to pop lyrics and from the King James Bible to advertising slogans, Mark Forsyth explains the secrets that make a phrase - such as 'Tiger, Tiger, burning bright', or 'To be or not to be' - memorable. In his inimitably entertaining and witty style he takes apart famous lines and shows how you, too, can write like Shakespeare or Oscar Wilde.

Britain's empire has gone. Our manufacturing base is a shadow of its former self; the Royal Navy has been reduced to a skeleton. In military, diplomatic and economic terms, we no longer matter as we once did. And yet there is still one area in which we can legitimately claim superpower status: our popular culture.

Embodiment is not an easy business. From violence to illness, sexuality to racism, the fact of a body can be impossibly hard to inhabit. Olivia Laing draws on her own background in protest and alternative medicine to investigate the reasons why. Laing’s exploration of the complexities of bodily life takes in some of the most significant and beguiling figures of the past century, among them the psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, the painters Francis Bacon and Agnes Martin and the singer and civil rights activist Nina Simone.

McQueen had risen from humble beginnings as the youngest child of an East London taxi driver to scale the heights of fame, fortune and glamour. He designed clothes for the world's most beautiful women, including Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell. In business he created a multimillion-pound luxury brand that became a favourite with both celebrities and royalty, most famously the Duchess of Cambridge, who wore a McQueen dress on her wedding day. But behind the confident facade and bad-boy image lay a sensitive soul who struggled to survive in the ruthless world of fashion.

You'd know Fred Stoller if you saw him. He has appeared on practically every great sitcom you've ever seen - Everybody Loves Raymond, Friends, and Murphy Brown just to name a few. But he has never been a regular on a series, always the guest star. He longs to find a showbiz home. Instead, he is a television foster child, shuttling from show to show in the vain hope that one will finally agree to keep him.

When he died in 1992, Brett Whiteley left behind decades of ceaseless activity - some works bound to a particular place or time, others that are masterpieces of light and line. Whiteley had arrived in Europe in 1960 determined to make an impression. Before long he was the youngest artist to have work acquired by the Tate. With his wife, Wendy, and daughter, Arkie, Whiteley then immersed himself in bohemian New York. But within two years he fled, having failed to break through.

Nice women never wore makeup. Even the word was taboo in polite society—until Max Factor entered the scene. Born in Poland in 1877, Factor worked as a beautician for the Russian royal family, the Romanovs. In 1904, he fled to America, where he opened a cosmetics store in Los Angeles. Creating makeup originally for silent films, then the talkies, and, ultimately, color motion pictures, Factor designed looks for Katharine Hepburn, Rita Hayworth, Bette Davis, and countless other beauties of the day. Soon women everywhere wanted to look like their favorite glamorous stars, and Factor was there to help, bringing his innovative cosmetics to the general public.

This story of the Elgin marbles re-creates in full detail "the greatest art theft in history." Almost 200 years after they were "purchased" from Greece, the finest and most famous marbles of antiquity still remain a burning issue. This compelling, controversial story of the Elgin marbles re-creates in full and colorful detail "the greatest art theft in history", a steamy tale of obsession, intrigue, adultery, and ruin.

What would the world look like if everybody had everything they wanted or needed? Trekonomics, the premier book in financial journalist Felix Salmon's imprint PiperText, approaches scarcity economics by coming at it backward - through thinking about a universe where scarcity does not exist. Delving deep into the details and intricacies of 24th-century society, Trekonomics explores postscarcity and whether we, as humans, are equipped for it.

Shiva, 'the destroyer' among the Hindu trinity (of gods), is depicted in many contradictory manners. The author, Devdutt Pattanaik, introduces listeners to these varied aspects and representations, and then sets about interpreting them. He explains the different anomalies and conflicts in beliefs, as well as the symbolism, rituals and reasons behind Hindu worship.

When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped onto the lunar surface in July of 1969, they wore spacesuits made by Playtex: 21 layers of fabric, each with a distinct yet interrelated function, custom-sewn for them by seamstresses whose usual work was fashioning bras and girdles. This book is the story of that spacesuit. It is a story of the triumph over the military-industrial complex by the International Latex Corporation, best known by its consumer brand of "Playtex" - a victory of elegant softness over engineered hardness, of adaptation over cybernetics.

Take a peek inside the heads of some of the world's greatest living graphic designers. How do they think, how do they connect to others, what special skills do they have? In honest and revealing interviews, 19 designers, including Stefan Sagmeister, Michael Beirut, David Carson, and Milton Glaser, share their approaches, processes, opinions, and thoughts about their work with noted brand designer Debbie Millman. The internet radio talk host of Design Matters, Millman persuades the greatest graphic designers of our time to speak frankly and openly about their work.

Here is a tautly paced investigation of one the 20th century's most audacious art frauds, which generated hundreds of forgeries - many of them still hanging in prominent museums and private collections today. Provenance is the extraordinary narrative of one of the most far-reaching and elaborate deceptions in art history.

Julian Barnes began writing about art with a chapter on Géricault's The Raft of the Medusa in his 1989 novel A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters. Since then he has written a series of remarkable essays, chiefly about French artists, for a variety of journals and magazines. Gathering them for this book, he realised that he had unwittingly been retracing the story of how art made its way from Romanticism to Realism and into Modernism.

Critical Mass is a treasure trove of sparkling, spiky prose and a fascinating portrait of our lives and cultural times over the past decades. In an age where a great deal of back scratching and softball pitching pass for criticism, James Wolcott’s fearless essays and reviews offer a bracing taste of the real critical thing.

Ray Kurzweil, the world-renowned inventor, futurist, and author, addresses the graduating class at Worcester Polytechnic Institute's 137th commencement in Worcester, Mass. Kurzweil talks about what he calls "the three great revolutions:" genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics. His message to the graduates: "Creating knowledge is really what the human species is all about." Ray Kurzweil is one of the world's leading inventors and innovators.

Veteran director John Badham explains the elements of action and suspense and dissects the essentials of any good scene from any genre. Continuing the work begun in his best-selling book I'll Be in My Trailer, Badham shares more insights into working with difficult actors, rehearsal techniques, and getting the best performance from your cast.

Emotional Branding is the best-selling revolutionary business book that has created a movement in branding circles by shifting the focus from products to people. The “10 Commandments of Emotional Branding” have become a new benchmark for marketing and creative professionals, and emotional branding has become a coined term by many top industry experts to express the new dynamic that exists now between brands and people.