Charlies introduction to his blog put it best: A lifetime in marketing actually equips a man for very little... Now pushing 58, I realise with some horror that it is a full half century since I last took cycling remotely seriously. If this trip does not go well, I might leave it as long until my next attempt. In September 2012, seven friends of varying fitness and circumference, accompanied by an elderly camper-wagon and driver, are cycling from France to Santiago de Compostela in north-we...

In today's art world many strange, even shocking, things qualify as art. In this book, Cynthia Freeland explains why innovation and controversy are valued in the arts, weaving together philosophy and art theory with many fascinating examples. She discusses blood, beauty, culture, money, museums, sex, and politics, clarifying contemporary and historical accounts of the nature, function, and interpretation of the arts. Freeland also propels us into the future by surveying cutting-edge web si...

Author Eddie Phillips uses well known biblical characters and stories to illustrate God's commonsense approach to handling problems and issues faced by today's youth. Presented in an entertaining and easy to understand manner, each life lesson is explained in a way that all pre-teens will be readily able to apply to their own lives. The end result is a better reference point from which young people can make better choices and decisions when confronted with difficult situations in the years...

An innovatory exploration of art and visual culture. Through carefully chosen themes and topics rather than through a general survey, the volumes approach the process of looking at works of art in terms of their audiences, functions and cross-cultural contexts. While focused on painting, sculpture and architecture, it also explores a wide range of visual culture in a variety of media and methods. "1850-2010: Modernity to Globalisation" includes essays which engage directly with topical iss...

In his latest book, James Elkins offers a road map through the field of visual studies, describing its major concerns and its principal theoretical sources. Then, with the skill and insight that have marked his successful books on art and visuality, Elkins takes the reader down a side road where visual studies can become a more interesting place. Why look only at the same handful of theorists? Why exclude from one's field of vision non-Western art or the wealth of scientific images?

Design and Aesthetics: A Reader is a comprehensive student reader on design history and aesthetic theory. It includes contributions from many of the writers whose work has been foundational to these two fields, including classic articles by Raymond Williams and Roger Scruton, and newer articles which provide an overview of current concerns and debates.The role of design in the world today has aroused much controversy. The first half of this book deals with the main argument...

In a departure from his first book the author turns to dry humor in an irreverent exploration of Gods relationship with Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham, Sarah and other notable and not so notable characters in the first book of the bible. In the late nineties the author wrote a weekly newspaper article entitled Is This a Bible Story? in the hoping the stories might nudge readers to open a bible on a spiritual quest. I Didnt Know That! Or; What The..? has expanded on the earlier accounts explor...

Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe brings to Melville's work the insight not only of an art critic and theorist, but of a practicing artist as well. Navigating through the complexity of contemporary thought and philosophy, Gilbert-Rolfe unravels the Gordian knot of the diverse discourses that circumscribe Melville's views, revealing the practicality and clarity of Melville's speculative narratives. Stephen Melville is one of the most thoughtful critics to emerge in recent years. He has applied the tools...

What explains our current obsession with selfies? In I Love My Selfie noted cultural critic Ilan Stavans explores the selfie's historical and cultural roots by discussing everything from Greek mythology and Shakespeare to Andy Warhol, James Franco, and Pope Francis. He sees selfies as tools people use to disguise or present themselves as spontaneous and casual. This collaboration includes a portfolio of fifty autoportraits by the artist ADÁL; he and Stavans use them as a way to qu...

This book answers all the questions on dowsing, informing the reader as to why and how dowsing works. Moreover, it has the instructions to test oneself to become a dowser. Dowsing locates all objects that I refer to as targets, then to also measure the depths no matter how deep it is to the targets. Targets are can be mapped or traced from the surface, enabling the dowser to determine what the target is. Dowsing works better than ground-penetrating radar, which is limited to a shallow dept...

Colonized through Art explores how the federal government used art education for American Indian children as an instrument for the “colonization of consciousness,” hoping to instill the values and ideals of Western society while simultaneously maintaining a political, social, economic, and racial hierarchy.Focusing on the Albuquerque Indian School in New Mexico, the Sherman Institute in Riverside, California, and the world’s fairs and local community exhibitions, Marinella...

The author presents a broad phenomenon known under the term of «Hollandism» as present in the European culture. Investigating various areas of 19th century painting, art criticism and literature, the author explains interpretation clichés attached to the culture of the Golden Age (e.g. its bourgeois and Protestant character, its realism and its genre character), which are entrenched in art history. She also presents those aspects of northern Netherlandish painting in the 17th century which...