* statistically, based on millions of data-points provided by fellow humans
In 1508, despite strong advice to the contrary, the powerful Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the newly restored Sistine Chapel. With little experience as a painter ... (Goodreads)
The, New York Times, bestselling, award winning story of the construction of the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence and the Renaissance genius who reinvented architecture to build it. On ... (Barnes & Noble)
Discover the tantalizing true stories behind your favorite colors. For example: Cleopatra used saffron—a source of the color yellow—for seduction. Extracted from an Afghan mine, the blue ... (Goodreads)
"This is a book about making art. Ordinary art. Ordinary art means something like: all art not made by Mozart. After all, art is rarely made by Mozart-like people; essentially-statistically ... (Goodreads)
The Story of Art, one of the most famous and popular books on art ever written, has been a world bestseller for over four decades. Attracted by the simplicity and clarity of his writing, readers of ... (Goodreads)
"Great art has dreadful manners," Simon Schama observes wryly at the start of his epic and explosive exploration of the power, and whole point, of art. "The hushed reverence of the gallery can fool ... (Goodreads)
Creativity is not a gift from the gods, says Twyla Tharp, bestowed by some divine and mystical spark. It is the product of preparation and effort, and it's within reach of everyone who wants to ... (Goodreads)
A pioneering work in the movement to free art from its traditional bonds to material reality, this book is one of the most important documents in the history of modern art. Written by the famous ... (Goodreads)
The Declaration of Independence was the promise of a representative government; the Constitution was the fulfillment of that promise. On July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress issued a ... (Goodreads)
When Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain was first published in 1979, it hit the New York Times bestseller list within two weeks and stayed there for more than a year. In 1989, when Dr. Betty ... (Goodreads)
#1, New York Times, Bestseller In Furiously Happy , a humor memoir tinged with just enough tragedy and pathos to make it worthwhile, Jenny Lawson examines her own experience with severe depression ... (Barnes & Noble)
The Artist’s Way is the seminal book on the subject of creativity. An international bestseller, millions of readers have found it to be an invaluable guide to living the artist’s life. Still as vital ... (Goodreads)
This book is meant to be a companion to "Heretics," and to put the positive side in addition to the negative. Many critics complained of the book because it merely criticised current philosophies ... (Goodreads)
The book tells the story of the making of the, Oxford English Dictionary, (OED) and one of its most prolific early contributors, William Chester Minor , a retired United States Army surgeon . Minor ... (Wikipedia)
DRAWING FROM MEMORY is Allen Say's own story of his path to becoming the renowned artist he is today. Shunned by his father, who didn't understand his son's artistic leanings, Allen was embraced by ... (Barnes & Noble)
Fast food has hastened the malling of our landscape, widened the chasm between rich and poor, fueled an epidemic of obesity, and propelled American cultural imperialism abroad. That's a lengthy list ... (Goodreads)
Originally published in 1854, Walden; or, Life in the Woods, is a vivid account of the time that Henry D. Thoreau lived alone in a secluded cabin at Walden Pond. It is one of the most influential and ... (Goodreads)
Set within the world of rare-book collecting: the true story of an infamous book thief, his victims, and the man determined to catch him. Rare-book theft is even more widespread than fine-art theft. ... (Goodreads)
A beautifully illustrated hundred-year history of modern art, from cubism to pop and avant-garde. More than 250 color photos. ... (Goodreads)
Maya Angelou has fascinated, moved, and inspired countless readers with the first three volumes of her autobiography, one of the most remarkable personal narratives of our age. Now, in her fourth ... (Goodreads)
* INSTANT, NEW YORK TIMES, BESTSELLER * “Stunning...heartrending...this year’s, When Breath Becomes Air,.” —Nora Krug,, The Washington Post, “Beautiful and haunting.” —Matt McCarthy, MD,, USA TODAY, ... (Barnes & Noble)
“Lamott’s …most insightful book yet,, Stitches, offers plenty of her characteristic witty wisdom…this slim, readable volume [is] a lens on life, widening and narrowing, encouraging each reader to ... (Goodreads)
Packed with facts, attributions, and entertaining anecdotes about his contemporaries, Giorgio Vasari's collection of biographical accounts also presents a highly influential theory of the development ... (Goodreads)
An Italian village on a hilltop near the Adriatic coast, a decaying palazzo facing the sea, and in the basement, cobwebbed and dusty, lit by a single bulb, an archive unknown to scholars. Here, a ... (Goodreads)
In the summer of 2009, Miranda July was struggling to finish writing the screenplay for her much-anticipated second film. During her increasingly long lunch breaks, she began to obsessively read the ... (Goodreads)
From the National Book Award-winning author of Just Kids and M Train , a profound, beautifully realized memoir in which dreams and reality are vividly woven into a tapestry of one transformative ... (Goodreads)
Written with full cooperation from top management, including cofounders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, this is the inside story behind Google, the most successful and most admired technology company of ... (Goodreads)
With the clarity of a physicist and the compassion of a gifted healer with more than twenty years of professional experience observing 5,000 clients and students, Barbara Ann Brennan presents the ... (Goodreads)
The story of an Alabama serial killer and the true-crime book that Harper Lee worked on obsessively in the years after To Kill a Mockingbird . Reverend Willie Maxwell was a rural preacher accused of ... (Goodreads)
Introduction by Jack Kerouac. There is no question that Robert Frank's The Americans is the most famous and influential photography book ever published. It was 1959 when the book first came out: a ... (Goodreads)