New to the catalogue

Can an architect really design a space that would encourage you to kiss? Leo Hollis certainly believes so in his, ‘Cities are Good for You : the Genius of the Metropolis’.

As the world urban population grows, Hollis believes that city life may actually help us to solve some of our greatest problems. His hope is that the increasing movement to cities could make us greener, better able to share our increasingly limited resources and may even make us happier.

Hollis does admit that there are many problems to be resolved in city life. Slums are on the increase and the gap between rich and poor is also growing. In many areas, there has also been dramatic decline in community life.

This is ultimately, however, a positive book about urban life. Hollis’s anecdotes from his travels to cities around the world are hopeful and inspiring. He believes that by reinvigorating communities and by thinking more about how people relate to one another when designing spaces, urban life can be much improved. If we can build a city in such a way to influence how we feel and behave, it certainly gives us hope for the future and you never know – it may just make people want to kiss.

Please see our catalogue if you’d like to find further details of Cities are Good for You.

In recent years, female artists such as Amy Winehouse, Lady Gaga and Adele have had huge commercial and critical success as well as massive media attention. As more and more female solo artists hit the mainstream the question arises: where are the girl bands? Why aren’t they getting the attention they deserve?

Does their gender solely define their music? Do they get gigs and attention just because they are female? Does the medai focus on what they look like undermine what they are doing musically?

Women Make Noise: girl bands from Motown to the modern is a collection of 10 essays about all-girl bands from the 1920s up to 2012. Its editor, Julia Downes, invites musicians, promoters, journalists, high profile artists and music fans to discuss their favourite girl bands: not the type who sing along to backing tracks – the real musicians, who can actually play their instruments.

From the country belles of the 20s-40s, Motown groups of the 60s, to prog rock goddesses and punks of the 70s-80s; from riot grrrl activists of the 90s to radical protesters Pussy Riot. These aren’t the manufactured acts of some pop svengali, these groups write their own songs, play their own instruments and make music together on their own terms.

Ten essays aren’t enough to dissect all of the all-girl bands in history but it is a good start on what is a lengthy topic. Including interviews with classic punk groups like The Raincoats and The Slits, as well as household names like Bjork and Beth Ditto, this book demonstrates that all-girl bands have made radical contributions to feminism, culture and politics as well as producing some unique, influential and innovative music.

Further details of Women make noise: girl bands from Motown to the modern can be found on our catalogue.

As today, 20 March 2013, marks the first ever ‘International Day of Happiness’ it seems appropriate to turn our attention to Matthieu Ricard’s work, ‘Bhutan : the Land of Serenity’.

Bhutan has long recognised the importance of human happiness, prioritising ‘Gross National Happiness’ over ‘Gross National Product’ since 1971. This stunning book gives a real insight into this unique nation.

Matthieu Ricard, a monk and photographer, lived in Bhutan for eight years and has regularly travelled to this nation over the last 30 years. Living and studying in Bhutan as a monk, he has witnessed its religious ceremonies and traditions, great works of art and architecture, spectacular landscapes and wildlife, the advent of democracy and the life and work of the Bhutanese people.

Few photographers have been given permission to live in Bhutan. It was less than 40 years ago that Bhutan opened its borders. With over 180 colour photographs, accompanied by detailed text on life in Bhutan, this book is an important record of a special and increasing influential nation.

You can find further details of Bhutan : the land of serenity on our catalogue.

Much has been written about the First World War writers and poets but what of the writers of the Second World War? Lara Fiegel’s ‘The Love-Charm of Bombs’ gives a new and original view of the Second World War as she looks at the impact of the Home Front on the lives and works of five famous writers of the time.

• Elizabeth Bowen
• Graham Greene
• Rose Macaulay
• Hilde Spiel
• Henry Yorke (writing as Henry Spiel)

These writers were at the heart of the London Blitz. They were on the front-line, coping with bombing, fighting fires, driving ambulances and working for the Ministry of Information. They were also looking after loved ones, finding love and experiencing loss.

At this time of intense emotion, as every aspect of life was altered by war, Graham Greene and his contemporaries provide us with their own unique view of the War in their deeply moving and haunting stories.

Using letters, diaries, official defence records and fiction, Fiegel charts the story of Wartime London, Post-War Vienna and Berlin through the eyes of these authors and in doing so, provides us with a very different view of the Second World War and Post-War Europe.

You can find further details of The Love-Charm of Bombs : Restless Lives in the Second World War on our catalogue.

(photo credit: TASCHEN: © 2013 TASCHEN GmbH, Hohenzollernring 53, D-50672 Köln, www.taschen.com)

“Bond, James Bond”

With those three words, spoken by Sean Connery in 1962, the world was introduced to one of the longest-running and perhaps best-loved cinematic characters of all time.

50 years on, the 23rd James Bond film, Skyfall, was released and those three words were uttered once more, this time by Daniel Craig.

When the cameras first started rolling in Jamica on Dr No all those years ago, no one could have predicted what Ian Fleming, Harry Saltzman and Cubby Broccoli had started.

Ian Fleming began writing the first Bond novel, Casino Royale, at his Jamican holiday home, Goldeneye, in 1952. It was something he had thought about for some time. During World War 2, Fleming had been personal assistant to Admiral John Godfrey, director at the Naval Intelligence Division of the Admiralty. He was an organiser and ideas man on a multitude of fronts; in short he had been a spy.

Prevented by the Official Secrets Act from talking about it openly, Fleming, like spies before him and since, for example W. Somerset Maughan and John le Carré, turned to fiction. Through writing, Fleming could immerse himself in that world once more.

The Bond novels were successful, touching a chord in a generation of Britons who had lived through the war and wanted a more exotic lifestyle than the austerity measures at home.

Fleming let producer Harry Saltzman option the Bond film and television rights. Through a mutual friend Saltzman met Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli, an experienced film producer, and they agreed to go into business together making Bond movies as EON Productions.

EON Productions made the first Bond movie, Dr No, in 1962.

To mark the 50th anniversary, publishing house Taschen and dedicated editor, Paul Duncan, created this book as an appropriate tribute to this incredible milestone.

The James Bond archives is exactly that. Paul Duncan spent two years researching over one million images and 100 filing cabinets of documentation.

The result is the most complete account of the making of the series, covering every James Bond film ever made, beginning with Dr. No (1962) and ending with Skyfall (2012), including the spoof Casino Royale (1967) and Never Say Never Again (1983).

This fascinating and, at 600 pages, huge book looks not just at each Bond film but at the world behind the films and everything it took to make them happen -the writers, producers, directors, actors, production staff, designers, costumers, special effects technicians and composers.

Containing rare and previously unseen photographs and documents found in the EON and MGM archives, this book is a fitting tribute to the legend of James Bond.

You can find further details of The James Bond archives on our catalogue.

(Photo credit: Granta Books)

Over the course of a year and a half, Miriam Darlington travelled around Britain in search of wild otters: from her home in Devon to Scotland, Cumbria, Wales, Northumberland, Cornwall, Somerset and to her childhood home near the River Ouse.

Otter Country follows Darlington’s search through different landscapes, seasons, weather and light, as she tracks one of Britain’s most elusive animals.

During her journey she meets otter experts, representatives of the Environment Agency, conservationists, ecologists, walkers, zoo keepers, fishermen, scientists, hunters and poets.

Above all, she learns how to track and be around otters.

This is an engaging and mesmerising book which should establish Darlington as a prominent voice within the new generation of British nature writers.

Further details of Otter country: in search of the wild otter can be found on our catalogue.

(Photo credit: Polity Press)

Spike Lee has directed, written, produced, and acted in dozens of films that present a proudly opinionated and rich portrait of American society.

Lee is the only African-American filmmaker to establish and sustain a major presence in American film over a period of decades.

He has paid acute attention to the experiences of racial and ethnic minorities. But white men and women also play important roles in his movies, and his interest in class, race, and urban life has led him to produce films as diverse as the audiences who view them.

His output comprises almost fifty theatrical features, short films, and TV movies and episodes as director, almost as many as producer, and more than a dozen each as screenwriter and actor.

His music videos have been commissioned by everyone from Michael Jackson and Public Enemy to Tracy Chapman and Chaka Chan, and he has directed commercials for Nike Air Jordans and American Express.

He has won prizes, honours, and nominations at the Cannes, Berlin, and Venice film festivals, among others.

His defining trait is a willingness to raise hard questions about contemporary America without pretending to have easy answers; his pictures are designed to challenge and provoke us, not ease our minds or pacify our emotions.

The opening words of his 1989 masterpiece Do the Right Thing present his core message in two emphatic syllables: “Wake up!”

Spike Lee’s America written by David Steritt is a vibrant and provocative book examining not only the work of a great filmmaker, but also American society and politics.

You can find further details of Spike Lee’s America on our catalogue.

(Photo credit: The most human human written by Brian Christian, published by Penguin)

Telling the difference between humans and computers used to be easy.

But artificial intelligence is now so advanced that it is capable of behaving, and even thinking, in ways that have long considered to be exclusive to humans.

In The most human human, Brian Christian talks to the world’s leading artificial intelligences, battling against them in the renowned Turing Test competition, in order to find out what they’re capable of – and what makes us unique.

The test is named after British mathematician Alan Turing, one of the founders of computer science, who in 1950, just as the computer was being invented, was already considering the philosophical implications of these new machines. Specifically, can machines think?

Turing proposed a practical test: assemble a panel of scientists to have five-minute long text conversations via computer terminals, sending and receiving text messages. The catch is that the judges don’t know whether the messages appearing on their screens are coming from real people, or from computer programs pretending to be real people.

Turing famously predicted that by the year 2000, computer software would be fooling the judges 30% of the time.

The annual Loebner Prize held since the early 1990’s has put Turing’s theory to the test, and although this famous millennial prediction did not come to pass, at the 2008 contest, the leading computer program came shy of that mark by just a single vote.

Brian Christian decided to get involved in the 2009 contest, as one of the human “confederates” who talk with the judges and try to convince them that we are, in fact, human.

The computer program that does the best job each year of persuading the judges that it is human wins what’s called the Most Human Computer award.

But there’s also another award for the human that does the best job of persuading the panel: the Most Human Human award.

This is a funny, inspiring, and intelligent book. Drawing on science, philosophy, literature and the arts, and touching on aspects of life as diverse as language, work, school, chess, speed-dating, art, video games, psychiatry and the law, The Most Human Human shows that far from being a threat to our humanity, computers provide a better means than ever before of understanding exactly what it is.

Further details of The most human human can be found on our catalogue.

Susan Cain champions the Introverts of the world in her bestselling, thought-provoking book ‘Quiet’.

It is argued that those of a quieter disposition are less valued by today’s society. Cain believes that there is a real pressure on people to conform to an ‘Extrovert Ideal’.

Yet, as Cain argues, many of the world’s greatest ideas, creations and inventions, came from those who are reflective in nature. The Theory of Relativity, Chopin’s Nocturnes and even Charlie Brown were the work of introverts.

Cain puts forward that the naturally quiet, sensitive thinkers of the world have much to offer and explains how they can take advantage of their skills. Real-life stories feature, including the author’s own personal experience as an Introvert in a top law firm.

The result is a fascinating insight into the personality traits of both the Introverted and Extroverted. It also carries an empowering message for those who are quiet, that they are perfectly justified to be how they are.

You can find further details of Quiet : the Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking on our catalogue

If you are feeling in need of an uplifting read this January, then Judith O’Reilly’s ‘A Year of Doing Good’ may be just the book for you!

Instead of making the usual health-related New Year’s resolutions, one year, Judith O’Reilly decided that she would do one good deed a day for a year.

Her deeds ranged from buying ice-cream for her childrens’ friends, writing an email to thank the staff in a shop for good service, lending a friend some money and attempting to raise £10,000 for charity through her Jam Jar Army Scheme!

Judith’s writing of her and her family’s experiences throughout her year of doing good is both witty and moving. As the year goes on she begins to analyse what it means to live a good life and how doing good for others impacts on our lives. The result is a truly inspirational book with which to begin a New Year.

You can find further details of A Year of Doing Good on our Catalogue.