Arts, Culture & Media
The visual arts, painting, drawing, sculpture and more, are where many readers first fall in love with art history. The starting point on WebToTell is E. H. Gombrich's The Story of Art, one of the best-selling art books ever written. Gombrich tells the history of art as one continuous story, from cave paintings to the twentieth century, in clear language for readers with no background, explaining why artists made the choices they did. It is the ideal first book before museum visits or further reading. More books will join this category; Art History and Cultural Criticism offer more now.
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Arts, Culture & Media
Art history for curious readers, from the most widely read introduction to the field to books that question how we look. E. H. Gombrich's The Story of Art tells the history of art as one continuous story, while John Berger's Ways of Seeing asks who paintings were made for and what they sell. David Freedberg's The Power of Images studies why people react to pictures and statues with real emotion, and The Monuments Men by Robert M. Edsel follows the soldiers and curators who saved Europe's art in the Second World War. Start with Gombrich for the overview, Berger for a new way of looking.
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Arts, Culture & Media
Architecture is the art we live inside: temples, cathedrals, palaces and cities that show how people in each age wanted to be seen. On WebToTell this shelf begins with E. H. Gombrich's The Story of Art, which places buildings beside painting and sculpture, from the pyramids and Greek temples to Gothic cathedrals and modern design. Read it to learn how styles grew out of one another and why a building looks the way it does. More books on buildings, cities and design will join this category as the library grows; for now, see the wider Arts, Culture & Media section for art history, criticism and heritage.
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Arts, Culture & Media
Books about the press, the people who make the news and the stories they chase. Katharine Graham's Personal History is the Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir of the woman who ran The Washington Post through the Pentagon Papers and Watergate, a first-hand account of journalism under pressure. Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, illustrated by Ralph Steadman, is the wildest product of "gonzo" journalism, where the reporter becomes part of the story. Two very different views of what reporting can be, for readers interested in media, power and storytelling. See Arts, Culture & Media for more.
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Arts, Culture & Media
Popular culture, from comic books and films to music and celebrity, says a great deal about the times that produce it. Michael Chabon's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay follows two Jewish cousins in New York who create a comic-book superhero, the Escapist, during the golden age of comics, as war spreads across Europe. It is a love letter to comics, escape and friendship, and a moving story about family and loss. More books on pop culture will join this shelf; see Arts, Culture & Media for related reading.
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Arts, Culture & Media
Books that question the ideas a culture takes for granted. John Berger's Ways of Seeing shows how art and advertising teach us to look; Neil Postman's The End of Education asks what schools are really for once they lose a shared purpose; and Amitav Ghosh's The Great Derangement argues that our novels and institutions have failed to imagine climate change. Short, sharp and argument-driven, these are books to read with a pencil and to discuss: a good fit for students, teachers and book clubs that like a debate.
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Arts, Culture & Media
Books about saving the things that hold our memory: art, objects and the stories attached to them. Robert M. Edsel's The Monuments Men tells how a small group of curators, architects and art historians in uniform tracked down artworks looted by the Nazis during the Second World War. Edmund de Waal's The Hare with Amber Eyes follows a collection of tiny Japanese netsuke through his family's history, from Paris and Vienna to Tokyo, and shows how objects survive when people and fortunes do not. For museum lovers, collectors and anyone who wonders where the treasures in a gallery came from.
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