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Tag: Best Of 2010
Favourite Books 2010: Siobhan Long
by Dan
Art & Photography + Design & Typography + News / December 09, 2010
Stickwork
Patrick Dougherty
Princeton Architectural Press ISBN 9781568989761
$39.95
The sculptures that Patrick Dougherty makes from twigs and sticks completely amaze me. If I could live in one of his stick houses, I would. They are magical.
If you like Andy Goldsworthy, or were envious of the huge wooden fort they built in the Where the Wild Things Are movie, then you should check out this book.
The Small Stakes: Music Posters
Out of Sight
Siobhan Long is the Marketing Manager at Raincoast. When not thinking about books, she's likely daydreaming about fabric patterns, paint swatches or heirloom tomatoes.Favourite Books 2010: Jamie Broadhurst
by Dan
News / December 08, 2010
Picture This: The Near-Sighted Monkey Book
Lynda Barry
Drawn & Quarterly ISBN 9781897299647
$31.95
When Lynda Barry attended the Vancouver International Writers Festival in October she sold more books than any other author the creative director called her “a rock star”. But she doesn’t act like a rock star. Lynda is one of the warmest, funniest and interesting writers I have met during my, *gulp*, twenty years in the book business. You get a good idea of what makes her so compelling by reading Picture This. It is full of inspiring and hilarious suggestions on how anyone can create art. Anyone who teaches should read this book. A perfect follow-up to the best-seller What It Is.
Big, Bigger, and Biggest: Trucks and Diggers
Caterpillar
Chronicle Books ISBN 9780811864329
$16.95
Technically I am cheating with this recommendation as it came out in 2008, but it was huge hit in my house this year. For any parent who is trying to get up to speed on all things digger and dump truck-like this book is full of information and very good illustrations that sparks lots of discussion at bedtime. For example, Caterpillar doesn’t call its mini-diggers “Bobcats”, they have their own name. Who knew? The 30 minute DVD is riveting for the sandbox construction audience particularly the theme song; “I Love Those Cat Machines”. It is very catchy.
Big Trucks and Diggers Matching Game also came out this year and with 72 cards is the perfect memory game for kids of all ages.
Writing in the Sand: Jesus, Spirituality, and the Soul Of the Gospels
Thomas Moore
Hay House ISBN 9781401925628
$17.95
Thomas Moore is well known to readers as the Benedictine monk and Jungian therapist who through a number of New York Times bestsellers brought the traditions of the Renaissance and Pre-Renaissance sense of the self to a large modern audience. It part of our modern chauvinism to believe the past has nothing personal to teach us. Thomas Moore shows how wrong we are. In this book he turns his attention to the Gospels and to offer a new reading of the parables of New Testament that is well worth reading whether you are religious or not. When Jesus says the Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed, he is saying that it is something right in front of us and is so nondescript we don’t notice it. It's hard to read Thomas Moore and not have your own ideological or theological preconceptions blown away like, as he says, writing in the sand.
BONUS:
Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin
Timothy Snyder
Basic Books ISBN 9780465002399
$35.95
Technically not a Raincoast book, but distributed by our sister company PGC on behalf of Basic Books, I read this book on the strength of the international reviews. Timothy Synder’s revisionist account of the politics and mass murder that saw13 million killed by starvation, bullets and gas in the death zones between Berlin and Moscow between 1933 and 1945 is not easy reading, but it is historical research, writing and analysis of the highest calibre. Bloodlands is destined to become the standard work on the subject and the conclusion will become a classic piece of historiography on what we owe the victims of history.
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Jamie Broadhurst is VP of Marketing at Raincoast Books. When not marketing books or teaching Jamie is reading or playing with his three and a half year old son or doing both.
Favourite Books 2010: Dan Wagstaff
by Dan
Art & Photography + Design & Typography + News / December 07, 2010
Born Modern: The Life and Design of Alvin Lustig
Steven Heller and Elaine Lustig Cohen
Chronicle Books ISBN 9780811861274
$58.00
Responsible for the iconic book covers of New Directions’ New Classics series from the 1940’s and early 1950’s, Alvin Lustig is the book designers’ book designer. Although he died tragically young aged 40 in 1955, Lustig changed the face of modern American design forever.
I tweeted about Born Modern the moment I heard about it at sales conference and immediately discovered that A LOT of other people just could not wait to get their hands on it. This really is my favourite, favourite book of the year and if you're at all interested in design (or just want a taste of genuine Mad Men era chic), you need this in your life.
Large Scale: Fabricating Sculpture in the 1960s and 1970s
Jonathan D. Lippincott
Princeton Architectural Press ISBN 9781568989341
$52.00
A couple of years ago, PAPress published an amazing collection of Pedro Guerrero's work that include photographs inside the homes of sculptors Alexander Calder and Louise Nevelson. Then earlier this year, PAPress published Large Scale, a collection of behind-the-scenes photographs that capture the fabrication and installation of gigantic (GIGANTIC!) sculptures by Nevelson and other amazing post-war American artists like Claes Oldenburg, Ellsworth Kelly, Robert Indiana, and Barnett Newman. Like the book of Guerrero's photographs, Large Scale is beautiful, rare and candid glimpse of artists in their element, and it captures a very particular moment in 20th century art history. Stunning.
KENK: A Graphic Portrait
Richard Poplak, illustrated by Nick Marinkovich
Pop Sandbox ISBN 9780986488405
$27.95
I think KENK caused me more anxiety and nail-biting than any other book we distributed this year, but the down-to-wire production and the subsequent controversy was all worth it in the end. The launch party at the Cadillac Lounge in Toronto was one of the most surreal book events I have ever been to (and yes, Kenk, like a moth to the flame, did arrive in person sending the attendant CBC camera crew into something of a tizzy). And although the book sadly wasn’t eligible for any of the major book awards in Canada, it was gratifying to see it picked by the Quill & Quire as one of their books of the year.
Dan Wagstaff lives in Toronto and works in online sales and marketing for Raincoast. He also drinks a lot of coffee and blogs about books, design and related stuff at The Casual Optimist.
Our Favourite Books of 2010
by Dan
News / December 07, 2010
Talking with a few colleagues at our recent sales conference, the conversation turned to our favourite books on this year's Raincoast list. We each work on a lot of different books and everyone came up with amazing suggestions, so we thought it would be really cool to ask other folks around the office about their favourites and collect all the answers here before the end of the year.
We'd also love to hear from you! If you're a bookseller, or you've bought or reviewed a bunch of our books this year and you'd like to share your favourites, email your list (or your questions!) to me: dan [at] raincoast.com as we'll post your selections. There are more details on what we need on our Facebook page. We'd love to hear from you!
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