Nowadays we have stopped watching the sky. We are so submerged by our towns’ lights, constantly busy, hypnotized by the television, that we hardly have time to contemplate the sky at night. We forget the stars’ beauty, the planet’s slow sliding, the lunar rhythms and the rotations of planets, season after season. This book is here to capture people’s imagination through pictures, and to stimulate the reader to regain an interest in the stars, which was part of people’s daily life less than one century ago. It teaches us how to use binoculars to discover the Moon and the stages of Venus, and allows one to find their own constellation of the zodiac. It keeps us fascinated by this science, the first real science of man, as was the case with thousands of studious and keen people all those years ago; it allows one to have a closer look at the universe thanks to a modern and powerful machines and gives one the opportunity to see the Sun, the planets and the stars too, in a different and unexpected way. It enables one to discover the existence of evanescent waves and galaxies about which we can only voice a theory of a beginning and an end. It is not just a dry text book but also one of philosophy of how this information could have been gathered together, what are the certainties and the limits, and where to find help and future indications to make a link with our own horizons. This book was neither written for people who work in this sector nor for the adepts of astrology. This book was conceived for those who don’t like formulae and for those who are interested in the sciences and the world in general and may have been put off by the harsh teaching methods at school. It’s a book made for those who would like to spend an evening with the Infinite or their spend their holidays in rediscovery of the dark skies of isolated towns, a distant, strange and silent world which one is able to understand better and discover more of each day. easy to understand with stories about astronomy and spatial researches, from the most easily observable objects in the darkness to the most recent astrological knowledge. • 48 celestial cards concerning 3 different areas of the north and south allow plotting the most beautiful constellations in the night anywhere you are. Those reproduce at midnight the Milky Way of Equinox and Solstice but that also allows one to represent the sky, at 11.00 pm as it was 15 days before, at 10.00 pm as it was 30 days before or at 9.00 pm as it was 45 days before. In the same way, at 1.00 am it is possible to produce it as it will be the next 15 days, at 2.00 am as it will be the next 30 days or at 3.00 am as it will be the next 45 days. • The 7 best pictures of the moon will allow anyone to reproduce the most important satellite formations using just a simple set of binoculars: first, a moving passage through the sky. Simple suggestions and indications allow one to quickly recognise and reproduce the main constellations and to complete some of the more delicate ones with a telescope. A website and bibliography will mean that the reader can further expand their horizons in the future. • The glossary and the analytic index allow one to either quickly clarify any eventual problems which are linked to the terminology, or to easily spot a subject.

Atlas of the Skies

Reference

Mazzucconi, Fabrizio Professor

Atlases & Maps

Taj Books International

Leonardo da Vinci was the true Renaissance man. Not only was he one of the greatest artists ever to live, but he was also a truly gifted architect and creative mind who devised amazing machines centuries ahead of his time. His list of interests and achievements are extraordinary; as well as artist and architect, he was astronomer, researcher, scientist, experimenter, anatomist, and inventor. Leonardo's most acclaimed paintings are the Mona Lisa in the Louvre, Paris and The Last Supper in the refectory at Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan, Italy. But in many ways his greatest legacy are the hundreds of pen and ink drawings and sketches which are now in museums and collections around the world. These explain, in his remarkable mirror writing, his calculations and hypotheses for the mechanical operation of his various ideas. This book attempts to explain who this great genius was and why he became such a creative man. It looks at where he came from and his education, who his influences were, and how he made his way in the world to become the most remarkable man of his time. His work was founded in strict science and based on a profound analysis of ancient and traditional sources, but it was his curiosity which really drove him. His inquisitive mind led him to investigate every field of knowledge and his life's work is an extraordinary synthesis of art, science, and technology fused in theoretical and practical experience gathered from a long and productive life.

Leonardo Da Vinci

Arts & Photography

Pedretti, Carlo

History & Criticism

When Frank Lloyd Wright died in 1959 at the venerable age of 91 he was the most famous architect in the United States. During his long career―over 70 years―he designed over a thousand buildings, almost all of them for clients in North America. Of these around half―532―were completed and most of these, 409 in total, still exist, 17 of them recognized by the American Institute of Architects to be primary examples of his architectural contribution to American culture. Of the 17, Fallingwater is frequently viewed as the greatest piece of architecture in American history. His prodigious output is all the more surprising when one considers how few of his projects reached completion in the first quarter of the 20th century. Much of the reason for this paucity of commissions was his lifestyle. Frank Lloyd Wright led a colorful life full of conflict and controversy, particularly in his personal affairs. He left his first wife and children for the wife of one of his clients. After she and her children had been hacked to death by their deranged cook, his next wife was a morphine addict. He would end his days with a Bosnian Serb aristocrat 33 years his younger. Frank Lloyd Wright thoroughly enjoyed being a celebrity, he loved making special appearances and giving interviews. At the time his self-promotion―and, during World War II his pacificism―made him as many enemies as admirers. But he was untroubled by self doubt, and today his character is irrelevant: his work speaks for itself. In spite of his very human weaknesses, his work helped give American architecture an identity of its own, free from the constraints of the Old World. No longer an imitation of European style, U.S. architecture evolved its unique style in the 20th century, and Wright played a key role in this. The Atlas of Frank Lloyd Wright examines a hundred of his finest buildings, state-by-state. From his earliest work in Chicago, most of the key buildings are covered including: Fallingwater, the Californian textile-block houses―Storer, Ennis, Barsndall and his Oak Park Home and Studio; both Jacobs houses, the Robie House and the Taliesin complex.

Atlas of Frank Lloyd Wright

Hook, Alex

History

With the cruellest of timings, the Tsunami of 2004 struck when the world was full of hope for a New Year. Plans were being made for the future, loved ones and families were warm in each other’s company, and friends were revelling in the exotic atmosphere of Southeast Asia. Nothing should have marred the spirit of Christmas. Nothing should have blighted paradise. But then the wave came... On Boxing Day, as a new morning dawned for those in Southeast Asia, and as those across the globe enjoyed the feelgood factor of that special time of year. The seabed cracked, and the forces of earth and sea killed tens of thousands and destroyed the lives of millions in their angry wake. No-one will forget the images of the dead or the dying and the devastation. For many, all those thoughts for the future were now gone -- crushed in moments, without warning. The 2004 Tsunami was the deadliest in recorded history. The earthquake that preceded it was the fourth worst since 1900. It was, many in the region believed, the work of the devil when God had turned his back for a moment. We must never forget the events of December 2004. We must never forget the aftermath and its far-reaching consequences. Above all, we must never forget how human strength and compassion shines through when there is the greatest need. For, in an unprecedented response, the world became a powerful ally to relieve suffering and restore hope. People gave in all ways, through their hearts, through their prayers and through their presence in the stricken areas. Throughout the world, everyone from the youngest child to mightiest corporations made donations to the Tsunami Disaster Fund. In this book, we hope to provide a memorable record of The Tsunami as a humbling reminder to us all that ours is a very fragile world. It is dedicated to all those whose lives were touched by the disaster.

Tsunami

Blackhall, Susan

Asia

There are coffee tables across the land groaning under the weight of books that portray in glossy pictures and even glossier words the shining virtues of each and every corner of our 50 states. And in an age when even the tiniest town seems to have a Visitors and Convention Bureau, an unlimited budget to pump out its particular propaganda and a website on which to disseminate it, it would be easy to accept that everywhere across this fair land is uniformly wonderful. Well, it ain’t. We know it. You know it. A blind man sleeping in the back of a blacked-out van speeding across the country with earplugs in knows it. And this book aims to put the record straight. Worst Towns of The USA randomly chooses 50 towns across America which for one reason or another you wouldn’t want to live in.

The Worst Towns in the USA

Business & Money

Crow, Maurice

Real Estate

Need for Speed Jets (Illustrated Guide)

Sharpe, Michael

Albrecht Dürer (Minibooks)

Forty, Sandra

Gemstones of the World

Elisabeth Laws

Paul Cézanne, a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter, was an important catalyst to the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavor to the modern and radically different world of art that emerged full bore in the 20th century. Cézanne successfully melded the structural impulse of Classicism with the color and emotion of Romanticism, inspiring the generations of artists who followed him to see and portray the world in a more abstract manner. Unusual for an artist, Cézanne rotated his attention relatively equally throughout his career among portrait painting, figure painting, still lifes, and landscapes. As with all things, Cézanne adopted his own approach to painting a still life. Many of his still lifes contain optical contradictions and distortions. The landscapes of Cézanne emphasize the structure and form of nature and its elements’ relationships in space, while de-emphasizing the more minor details of the scene. Not until the end of his life and career―just 10 years before his death in 1906―did Cézanne gain the recognition he enjoys today as a truly talented and cutting-edge man of the arts. When Cézanne was finally embraced by the public and the art critics, many younger artists traveled to Aix-en-Provence in the south of France to observe Cézanne at work. Cézanne’s advice to his young admirers was to engage in their own artistic endeavor and to find their unique style rather than to replicate his.

Cezanne

Dixon, Kathryn

Collections, Catalogs & Exhibitions

Edgar Degas began as a classical painter of genre history scenes and died as one of the greatest and most innovative names in French art―although as with so many other artists, he did not receive a great deal of recognition in his lifetime. Along the way his style changed completely from strict academic formalism to near-abstract scenes of contemporary Parisian life. His primary subject was the human form, especially that of women, and he also loved the vibrancy of horse racing. Degas is usually labeled an Impressionist because he was friendly with many of the Impressionist painters and was a founder of the Impressionist movement, but he actually rejected the characterization and referred to his style as “realism.” Unlike the Impressionists, he painted only in a studio, forsaking the Impressionists’ embrace of painting en plein air. Degas first went to the Paris Opera to see the ballet when he was over 40 years old, and for the next 30 years made the dancers his principal subjects and grand obsession. He is particularly remembered for his paintings of young ballet dancers. He rarely shows the public performance of the dance, instead depicting rehearsals, dance classes, costume fittings, and the long waits between dancing. His main intrigue and desire was to show the strain behind the perfection.

Degas

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