Articles tagged "Paul Staiti"
Booklist’s Best Biographies of 2017
Booklist recently shared their Top 10 Biography reading lists of 2017*, including these five Macmillan titles:
Top 10 Biographies (full list)
BLACK ELK: The Life of an American Visionary by Joe Jackson
Jackson meticulously chronicles the struggle of the Sioux visionary and medicine man Black Elk to help his embattled people preserve their culture and traditions.
THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF WILDE: Oscar Wilde and His Family by Emer O’Sullivan
O’Sullivan tells the great Irish writer’s story in concert with those of Wilde’s physician, archaeologist, antiquarian, and folklorist father, William; translator, poet, and mythographer mother, Jane; and brother, William, a gifted and troubled society journalist.
MAD ENCHANTMENT: Claude Monet and the Painting of the Water Lilies by Ross King
With vivid specificity and poignant insights, King eloquently tells the wondrous story of the great impressionist Monet’s long struggle against war, grief, and fading eyesight to paint his monumental Water Lilies at Giverny.
NOT PRETTY ENOUGH: The Unlikely Triumph of Helen Gurley Brown by Gerri Hirshey
Hirshey’s entrancing biography reveals the full and astonishing tale of Helen Gurley Brown, the audacious powerhouse behind Cosmopolitan magazine, who was forever haunted by her hardscrabble Arkansas childhood.
Top 10 Biographies on Audio (full list)
IF AT BIRTH YOU DON’T SUCCEED: My Adventures with Disaster and Destiny by Zach Anner, read by the author
Reality-show winner and YouTube star Anner tells funny, outrageous stories while also admitting his regrets and fears with quiet honesty in his hilarious and heartfelt memoir.
Core Collection: Group Biographies (full list)
ALL WE KNOW: Three Lives by Lisa Cohen
Cohen tells the stories of three singular women who helped shaped modern culture as part of the “close-knit and fractious lesbian networks of New York, London, and Paris”: the brilliant Esther Murphy, feminist writer Mercedes de Acosta, and British fashion star Madge Garland.
AMERICAN RHAPSODY: Writers, Musicians, Movie Stars, and One Great Building by Claudia Roth Pierpont
Pierpont’s scintillating portrait gallery includes such embattled yet influential American artists as Dashiell Hammett, James Baldwin, Katharine Hepburn, and Nina Simone, as well as New York’s incandescent Chrysler Building.
THE FELLOWSHIP: The Literary Lives of the Inklings, J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis by Philip Zaleski and Carol Zaleski
The Zaleskis showcase the Oxford fantasists who called themselves the Inklings, focusing on J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Owen Barfield, and delving into how they shared a commitment to a vibrantly Christian creativity.
FLAPPERS: Six Women of a Dangerous Generation by Judith Mackrell
Mackrell chronicles with drama and panache the lives of six intrepid, stylish, trailblazing women artists who exemplify the flapper revolution: actors Lady Diana Cooper and Tallulah Bankhead, performer Josephine Baker, writers Nancy Cunard and Zelda Fitzgerald, and painter Tamara de Lempicka.
THE GLAMOUR OF STRANGENESS: Artists and the Last Age of the Exotic by Jamie James
James profiles artists who undertook “transcultural” adventures, from Gauguin in Tahiti to Raden Saleh, who left Indonesia for Holland; Swiss writer Isabelle Eberhardt roaming late-nineteenth-century North Africa dressed as a man; and the avant-garde American filmmaker Maya Deren in Haiti.
GROUP F.64: Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, and the Community of Artists Who Revolutionized American Photography by Mary Street Alinder
Alinder’s landmark group study brings into sharp focus the California photographers who fought to establish photography as an art form.
IDENTITY UNKNOWN: Rediscovering Seven American Women Artists by Donna Seaman
The painters and sculptors under scrutiny here—Gertrude Abercrombie, Joan Brown, Lois Maïlou Jones, Ree Morton, Christina Ramberg, Lenore Tawney, even Louise Nevelson—achieved fame only to be quickly relegated to the shadows.
OF ARMS AND ARTISTS: The American Revolution through Painters’ Eyes by Paul Staiti
Staiti zestfully portrays five artists whose paintings helped forge the new American ethos in the midst of the Revolutionary War: Charles Willson Peale, Benjamin West, John Trumbull, John Singleton Copley, and Gilbert Stuart.
*Titles included were reviewed between June 2016, and February 1, 2017.
Booklist’s Best Books of 2016
Booklist revealed their Editors’ Choice picks for 2016, and they include 12 Macmillan titles:
Booklist Editors’ Choice: Adult Books, 2016 (full list)
MAD ENCHANTMENT: Claude Monet and the Painting of the Water Lilies by Ross King
King, a master at illuminating overlooked facets of art history, tells the full, wondrous, and poignant story of Monet’s three-decade struggle to paint his monumental Water Lilies at Giverny.
BLACK ELK: The Life of an American Visionary by Joe Jackson
Jackson’s exhaustively researched biography of the Sioux visionary and medicine man details his life and the landmark events that shaped it, evoking awe over Black Elk’s struggle to help his embattled people preserve their culture and traditions.
OF ARMS AND ARTISTS: The American Revolution through Painters’ Eyes by Paul Staiti
Staiti zestfully portrays five largely self-taught artists whose paintings helped forge the new American ethos in the midst of war and civic unrest: Charles Willson Peale, Benjamin West, John Trumbull, John Singleton Copley, and Gilbert Stuart.
THE HOUR OF LAND: A Personal Topography of America’s National Parks by Terry Tempest Williams
Williams, an ardent and scrupulous witness to the living world, eloquently reports on her visits to a dozen national parks, interweaving vivid history, precise and rhapsodic description, personal stories, and evocative thoughts about the future.
THE SPORT OF KINGS by C. E. Morgan
This ambitious epic of Faulknerian dimension tells multiple stories across many generations, as Morgan attempts to throw her arms around the history of southern racism with the same fervor that she tackles the region’s white family dynasties.
THE VIRGINITY OF FAMOUS MEN by Christine Sneed
Sneed investigates the dynamics of sexual power, the eroticism of fame, and the impossibility of sequestering pain in her marvelously lucid, empathic, and witty short stories. readmoreremove
Booklist’s Top Arts Books of 2016
Booklist recently unveiled their Top Arts Books of 2016*, including these Macmillan titles, and Bill Ott gave a preview of IDENTITY UNKNOWN by Booklist‘s own Donna Seaman!
Top 10 Arts Books: 2016 (full list)
THE LONELY CITY: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone by Olivia Laing
Laing imaginatively entwines memoir with profiles and astute interpretations as she looks to visual art in an effort to understand the true nature of loneliness.
MAD ENCHANTMENT: Claude Monet and the Painting of the Water Lilies by Ross King
With deep knowledge and mesmerizing skill, King tells the little-known story behind Monet’s 30-year effort to paint his magnificent Water Lilies at Giverny.
OF ARMS AND ARTISTS: The American Revolution through Painters’ Eyes by Paul Staiti
Staiti vividly profiles the five artists whose paintings helped inspire the vision of independence and unity that generated the American Revolution and the forging of a new nation.
Core Collection: Architects and Architecture in (Mostly) America (full list)
ARCHITECTURE’S ODD COUPLE: Frank Lloyd Wright and Philip Johnson by Hugh Howard
Howard portrays two iconic, outspoken, twentieth-century architects whose provocative ideas and innovative designs transformed America’s built environment, two artists who “were the yin and the yang, …the positive and negative charges that gave architecture its compass.”
BRICKS AND MORTALS: Ten Great Buildings and the People They Made by Tom Wilkinson
As the real-estate market recovers from a decade-long recession and new towers rise at breakneck speed around the globe, Wilkinson skillfully evaluates 10 notable structures, past and present.
THE FLATIRON: The New York Landmark and the Incomparable City That Arose with It by Alice Sparberg Alexiou
Alexiou, whose grandfather was once a co-owner of the Fuller Building, the New York landmark known as the Flatiron, recounts a tale of architectural innovation and the larger-than-life personalities responsible for this iconic structure, including the visionary architect and urban designer Daniel Burnham.
HOW ARCHITECTURE WORKS: A Humanist’s Toolkit by Witold Rybczynski
Architect and outstanding architectural writer Rybczynski takes palpable pleasure in revealing the complex, often contradictory demands of architecture, illuminating “the practical as well as the aesthetic” in this expert and invigorating guide to the field’s profound humanness. readmoreremove
2017 Carnegie Medals Longlist
We’re thrilled to have 7 nominees on the 2017 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction Longlist!
Fiction
THE SPORT OF KINGS by C.E. Morgan
THE LAST PAINTING OF SARA DE VOS by Dominic Smith
THE GOOD LIEUTENANT by Whitney Terrell
Nonfiction
MAD ENCHANTMENT: Claude Monet and the Painting of the Water Lilies by Ross King
CITY OF THORNS: Nine Lives in the World’s Largest Refugee Camp by Ben Rawlence
OF ARMS AND ARTISTS: The American Revolution through Painters’ Eyes by Paul Staiti
THE HOUR OF LAND: A Personal Topography of America’s National Parks by Terry Tempest Williams
The shortlist will be announced on October 26 and the 2017 Carnegie Medal winners will be announced on Sunday, January 22 at the RUSA Book and Media Awards at ALA Midwinter in Atlanta. Congratulations to the nominees!
Nonfiction Stars
The stars are aligning for these forthcoming nonfiction titles:
OF ARMS AND ARTISTS: The American Revolution Through Painters’ Eyes by Paul Staiti — THREE STARS!
“This is an impressive, ambitious undertaking, to tell the stories of five painters—Charles Willson Peale, John Singleton Copley, John Trumbull, Benjamin West, and Gilbert Stuart—while simultaneously showing how they were all interrelated and doing this against the complex history of the American Revolution. A lively, splendid history that captures the times with insight, acumen, and a juggler’s finesse.”
— Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“Highly recommended for those who want to learn about the American Revolution, art history, and message in medium.” — Library Journal, starred review
“As he interprets a vast amount of material with vigor and pleasure, Staiti brings new vibrancy and meaning to boldly revolutionary paintings that both commemorate the suffering, conviction, and valor of a specific time and address the timeless struggle for justice and freedom.” — Booklist, starred review
THE POPE OF PHYSICS: Enrico Fermi and the Birth of the Atomic Age by Gino Segrè & Bettina Hoerlin
“By placing stunning scientific advances into historical context, this engaging biography of Nobel Prize–winning Italian physicist Enrico Fermi (1901–1954) captures the life and times of one of the 20th century’s most creative and hard-working scientists. Segrè and Hoerlin draw an engaging portrait of a man with boundless curiosity who delighted in his work; fans of pop science and history will thoroughly enjoy this entertaining and accessible biography of a scientist who deserves to be better understood.” — Publishers Weekly, starred review
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Starred Nonfiction Roundup
We’re seeing stars for these books about travel, history, art, poetry, and music!
THE GLAMOUR OF STRANGENESS: Artists and the Last Age of the Exotic by Jamie James
A PW Best Summer Books of 2016 pick with THREE starred reviews! “In this exciting book, novelist and critic James examines six artists (and many interesting secondary figures) whose travels allowed them to find inspiration and belonging far from their homelands in locations across the globe. [THE GLAMOUR OF STRANGENESS] is a sharp, thought-provoking contribution to the ongoing conversation about transculturation.” — Publishers Weekly, starred review
“[A] richly detailed, absorbing cultural history… Abundant primary sources inform James’ sharply drawn, sympathetic portraits.” — Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“James is merrily entertaining in his exceptional erudition and nimble eloquence, and fluently and movingly insightful in his psychological, sexual, social, and aesthetic interpretations as he tells these astonishing, often tragic tales of intrepid self-creation and ardently chosen homelands.” — Booklist, starred review
LOOK: POEMS by Solmaz Sharif
A July 2016 Indie Next pick! “In form, content, and execution, Sharif’s debut is arguably the most noteworthy book of poetry yet about recent U.S.-led wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the greater Middle East.” — Publishers Weekly, starred review
“In these raw, unsparing poems, Rona Jaffe Award winner Sharif closes the gap, making language itself the issue as she investigates the consequences—particularly for herself and her family—of America’s invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq (“My life in the American/ Dream is a DOWNGRADE”). Highly recommended.” — Library Journal, starred review
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