Used Books Blog

Libraries by Candida Höfer is essentially porn for literary, photography and architecture buffs.

Here’s an excerpt from publisher Thames & Hudson.

This sumptuous volume contains Höfer’s famously ascetic images of the British Library in London, the Escorial in Spain, the Whitney Museum and the Pierpoint Library in New York, the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris, the Villa Medici in Rome and the Hamburg University Library, among others.

Thanks to the nonist (with assists from Google Reader and FriendFeed) I became aware of this collection and got to preview many of these gorgeous photos there and at artnet. Description would only get me so far, so instead I’ll let you decide with a sampling of her work.

Handelingenkamer Tweede Kamer Der Staten-Generaal Den Haag

The Trinity College Library in Dublin, Ireland

Real Gabinete Portugues De Leitura Rio De Janeiro

The photos showcase a passion for history and for literature. They are cathedrals built for knowledge. And I can’t think of a better subject to celebrate.

I can picture myself in these libraries, or picture others silently flipping through well thumbed tomes. Höfer helps you do this by photographing these places sans people. You become the interloper, the one whose shoes are echoing down the hall or chair scraping across the floor.

Conversely, there is a part of me that ruminates on a potential Armageddon when looking at these empty libraries. The world condensed and preserved for someone to stumble into from a blinding (nuclear) winter snow. And of understanding the very small place you have in the universe.

That’s why these photographs work, because they aren’t just buildings. They evoke thought and emotion. I hope they dazzle you and spark your imagination as they have mine.

This is one of the stranger PostSecret submissions I’ve come across. If you aren’t familiar with the site, I encourage you to check it out. It’s thought-provoking and often heart-breaking. The secrets are sort of like mini-character sketches or micro-stories. I have to imagine it’s a treasure trove of ideas for a novelist!

This particular secret is odd and generates a lot of questions. What does this person do when they finish a bad book? Is eating the last page of a good book a symbolic way to somehow gain knowledge or power? Why the last page? Couldn’t you pick out your favorite passage?

One thing is for sure, don’t lend this person any of your books.

How To Draw Uglydoll by David Horvath and Sun-Min Kim is a very funny book with great inspiration for young artists. Uglydolls are visually appealing for kids (and the kids inside all of us) and the text is appropriate for both kids and adults. Like a less commercial Simpson’s or updated Bugs Bunny, the comedy works on two levels.

This isn’t the usual type of book I review but I’m passionate about kids and art. I bought my daughter two Uglydolls when she was a baby and I look forward to giving this book to her in a few years.

What I really enjoy about How to Draw Uglydoll is that it’s not really a how-to-draw book. Sure, there are step-by-step instructions to drawing your favorite Uglydoll, but it’s made clear that you can (and should) draw any dang way you please!

…IMAGINATION! Don’t just follow the rules in this book! (You may not even find any.) If you feel like drawing the characters in a certain way, go for it! If the book tells you to make three eyes and you want to make 100 eyes, PERFECT! That’s what UGLY is all about!

I get pretty irate when I hear parents or teachers “correct” a child’s artwork. Talk about a quick way to squash a kid’s personal expression and self-confidence! That’s why How To Draw Uglydoll is as much about teaching the parent as it is the child.

What does UGLY mean? Ugly means unique! Ugly means special! Anyone can be beautiful, but it takes originality and a lot of bravery to be yourself.

Maybe it sounds preachy and sappy to you but I think this is an important life lesson - for kids and adults.

I get the sense that Horvath and Kim were somewhat hesitant to put out a how-to-draw book. The title is actually not How To Draw an Uglydoll or How To Draw Uglydolls. Instead it’s How to Draw Uglydoll: Ugly Drawings In a Few Easy Steps. It’s a artistic philosophy. So for every step-by-step instruction there is text that tells you to ignore the guide because there’s no such thing as a bad drawing.

It’s not subtle. In cartoon terms, they’re dropping an anvil on your head again and again and again.

If you haven’t stumbled on Uglydolls yet I encourage you to pick up a copy of How To Draw Uglydoll, check out Ugly Town and, for those of you on the cutting edge, follow Uglydolls on Twitter.

Joel Sternfeld’s Stranger Passing, a collection of sixty photographic portraits, is an art book worth buying. This is high praise for me, since I generally find art books useless. Bought with the best of intentions, they usually wind up unopened and coated with a layer of dust. Besides, they’re over-sized and don’t fit on any of my bookshelves.

To pull off the art book thing you need to have an Architectural Digest type living room with an attractive smoked glass coffee table. It’s not that I might not like a Van Gogh art book, but why get one when I can have a print on a wall where it can truly be appreciated. Heck, I can buy a calendar and marvel at a different masterpiece each month.

Stranger Passing is not the typical art book because you can’t find anything like it in your local mall. I discovered Sternfeld’s work by accident during an Ansel Adams exhibit at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). I quickly realized that I’d seen too many Adams prints in dorm rooms, hung by co-eds striving for culture, and that while striking, each of his photographs contained the same stark-nature-of-beauty theme. I’m not saying you can’t appreciate every tree in the forest but … I’d had my fill.

Clogged with people and unsatisfied I wandered into a room with huge nearly life size portraits, which upon closer inspection turned out to be photographs! I was immediately drawn to the detailed, quirky, gorgeous images that showcased people and landscapes from all walks of life. One would convey the harsh realities of the homeless while another would poke fun at American excess.

While Adams evoked a mood, Sternfeld provoked thought. Who were the people in these photographs? What were they thinking? What had brought them to that specific time and place? Each of Sternfeld’s photographs tells a rich story.

The cover photo of Stranger Passing is titled ‘Young Man Gathering Shopping Carts’ and portrays a teenager, standing in a parking lot cluttered with pink shopping carts, against the backdrop of an all too familiar generic strip mall. You can feel his repetitive discontent and nearly hear him grumble in a Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure accent as he collects the carts … again.

Some of my favorites in the collection include a young shirtless man standing in front of a colorful demolition derby car, newlyweds posing in a backyard with a flipped over kiddie pool and a colorful sari wrapped middle-eastern woman pumping gas.

You don’t need a guide to help you understand these photos. No pompous, overly academic explanations about brush strokes or f-stops are required. Vivid, accessible and fascinating, Stranger Passing is a sprawling collection that documents the changing American landscape through the experiences of Sternfeld’s subjects.