Contemporary Art History

The pantheon of big-budget, commercially successful films encompasses a range of genres, including biblical films, war films, romances, comic-book adaptations, animated features, and historical epics. In Epics, Spectacles, and Blockbusters: A Hollywood History authors Sheldon Hall and Steve Neale discuss the characteristics, history, and modes of distribution and exhibition that unite big-budget pictures, from their beginnings in the late nineteenth century to the present.

For Audrey Lind, working with clay still evokes memories of her favorite professor. The woman’s zeal for art history ignited Audrey’s own academic career—and her tweed blazers and British accent kindled her first female crush. After fate brings Audrey back to Northshire University to teach, she’s thrilled to be working alongside her former mentor, but the grumpy woman she encounters upon her return is nothing like the dynamo she remembers.

The meteoric rise of the largest unregulated financial market in the world -- for contemporary art -- is driven by a few passionate, guileful, and very hard-nosed dealers. They can make and break careers and fortunes. The contemporary art market is an international juggernaut, throwing off...

A groundbreaking reappraisal of medieval femininity, revealing why women have been written out of history and why it matters The Middle Ages are seen as a bloodthirsty time of Vikings, saints and kings; a patriarchal society that oppressed and excluded women. But when we dig a little deeper into...

From “literary superstar” (The Boston Globe) and Booker Prize finalist Brandon Taylor, his “most accomplished novel” (The New York Times): the story of a gay Black painter navigating the worlds of art, desire, and creativity New York simmers with heat and unrest as Wyeth, a painter...

The mysterious disappearance of Michael Rockefeller in New Guinea in 1961 has kept the world and his powerful, influential family guessing for years. Now, Carl Hoffman uncovers startling new evidence that finally tells the full, astonishing story. Despite exhaustive searches, no trace of...

The central argument of Chromophobia is that a chromophobic impulse—a fear of corruption or contamination through color—lurks within much Western cultural and intellectual thought. This is apparent in the many and varied attempts to purge color, either by making it the property of some foreign body—the oriental, the feminine, the infantile, the vulgar, or the pathological—or by relegating it to the realm of the superficial, the supplementary, the inessential, or the cosmetic.

An exploration into the curation of the self in Western civilization from Da Vinci to Kim Kardashian. In a technologically-saturated era where nearly everything can be effortlessly and digitally reproduced, we're all hungry to carve out our own unique personalities, our own bespoke personae...

Declan Walsh is one of the New York Times's most distinguished international correspondents. His electrifying portrait of Pakistan over a tumultuous decade captures the sweep of this strange, wondrous, and benighted country through the dramatic lives of nine fascinating individuals. On assignment as the country careened between crises, Walsh traveled from the raucous port of Karachi to the salons of Lahore, and from Baluchistan to the mountains of Waziristan. He met a diverse cast of extraordinary Pakistanis....

“A royal treat….Welcome back, Vicky Bliss!...For readers new to Vicky’s sassy and distinctively smart stories, The Laughter of Dead Kings will mark the start of a beautiful friendship.” —Tampa Tribune New York Times bestselling Grand Master Elizabeth Peters—author of the thrilling...

The thinking woman’s ultimate escapist adventure in Paris, told with wit, style, and a touch of intrigue, by the popular and dynamic author of The Sweeney Sisters. Joan Blakely had an unconventional childhood: the daughter of a globe-trotting supermodel and a world-famous artist. Her artist...

A GMA BUZZ PICK * AN INDIE NEXT PICK* AN AMAZON BEST OF THE MONTH PICK, LITERATURE AND FICTION*A PEOPLE MAGAZINE PICK The New York Times bestselling author of The Last Train to London revisits the dark early days of the German occupation in France in this haunting novel—a love story and a...

In this brilliant sequel to The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.—an enthralling, history-bending adventure traversing time and space, fact and fiction, magic and science co-written with #1 New York Times bestselling author Neal Stephenson—a daring young time traveler must return to Jacobean England...

""Sarai Walker has done it again. With The Cherry Robbers she upends the Gothic ghost story with a fiery feminist zeal."" —Maria Semple The highly anticipated second novel from Sarai Walker, following her “slyly subversive” (EW) cult-hit Dietland—a feminist gothic about the lone...

The cast of a smash TV show arrives at a quilter’s retreat for week of camaraderie and creativity that takes some surprising twists in this heartwarming new installment of Jennifer Chiaverini’s much-beloved Elm Creek Quilts series. Acclaimed TV actress Julia Merchaud almost can’t believe...

From young artists trying to elbow their way in to those working hard at dropping out, White's essential audiobook offers a once-in-a-generation glimpse of the inner workings of the American art world at a moment of unparalleled ambition, uncertainty, and creative exuberance.

How do we expect public art to function in a contemporary society? By public art, we mean art that to some extent at least ambushes us. We encounter it as we go about our everyday lives, not in some special art-dedicated space. In other words, certainly not in a museum. However, Aida Mahmudova notes, in her introduction to this public art project for Baku organized by Yarat! Contemporary Art Space, conditions for public art are now very different from the way in which art of this kind operated previously.

*NATIONAL BESTSELLER* A PARADE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF THE YEAR A NEW YORK POST BEST BOOK OF THE WEEK In her first novel inspired by a true story, Jane Green re-imagines the life of troubled icon Talitha Getty in this transporting story from a forgotten chapter of the Swinging '60s From...

In this fast, fun and dead-sexy male/male new-adult caper from multi-award-winning author Josh Lanyon, twentysomething Jefferson Blythe gets lost, gets found, falls in love and comes out…all in the span of one wild summer After his first relationship goes disastrously awry, Jeff Blythe uses...

New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Lowell creates another masterpiece of excitement and chills, passion and surprise. When Lacey Quinn inherits the striking landscapes done by her late, much-loved grandfather, she believes they are as good as anything hanging in museums. But the...