The Disney Song Encyclopedia

By Thomas S. Hischak and Mark A. Robinson

Since the release of its first "talkie," Steamboat Willie, Disney Studios has used music as an important element in its productions, to emphasize or to advance story lines. This impressive volume describes more than 900 songs written for Disney movies, videos, musicals, television shows, recordings, and theme parks. Authors Hischak and Robinson define Disney songs as works written specifically for Disney productions. Their "Brief History of Disney Music" is followed by paragraph-length A-Z entries that discuss each song's mood and style, indicate which character(s) perform the song, give the date of the production, and describe what is happening while the song is performed. Many of the songs listed are relatively unknown, having been written for short-lived TV series or home videos with limited target audiences, but for hard-core Disney fans, each page turn might bring another "ear worm" recalling images of singing critters and happy endings. Nearly one-quarter of the volume consists of appendixes offering alternate song titles, lists of songs arranged by songwriters and by source, a guide to recordings and videos/DVDs, Academy Award-winning Disney songs and scores, and a glossary of song terms. Although there are other Disney reference books, such as Disney A-Z (3d ed., 2006), and many Disney music songbooks, no other volume offers a comprehensive list or description of Disney songs.

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Collage Techniques: A Guide for Artists and Illustrators

Conceived and written by renowned artist, author, and teacher Gerald Brommer, Collage Techniques first presents the medium within the context of a wide variety of materials, including washi (oriental and rice papers) and watermedia; stained, prepared, and found papers; photographs; and fabrics and fibers. Each category of material is examined through a step-by-step demonstration and works by artists who approach collage in original and refreshing ways. The latest trends in technologically enhanced collage, including such high-tech applications as multiple photocopying and digital scanning, are also discussed. The author then explores how the elements and principles of design are used in collage, and how they in turn are employed in all the major genre, including still life, landscape, the human figure, abstraction, and nonobjective imagery.
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A Great Unrecorded History: A New Life of E. M. Forster

By Wendy Moffat

A buoyant, expressive biography of British novelist E.M. Forster (1879–1970), whose homosexuality had a profound effect on his literary output and career.In her first book, Moffat (English/Dickinson Coll.) leaves no doubt about her focus. The prologue takes its title from a quote: "Start with the Fact That He Was Homosexual." As does the first chapter: "A Queer Moment." Though the author examines the sex life of Forster, it isn't her intent to arouse prurient interest or to grind political axes. Exhaustively researched and engagingly written, this sexual-literary biography builds a convincing case that until one comes to terms with Forster's homosexuality, which he long had difficulty coming to terms with himself, it is impossible to come to terms with his work. Moffat's novelistic command of detail reinforces the sense of intimacy, though those more accustomed to academic convention might not be comfortable with her referring throughout to her subject as "Morgan" (as his friends did), and with her use of first names and even nicknames for other principal characters. Yet such familiarity suits a narrative that illuminates the soul of a writer who suffered from such "paralyzing shyness" that he feared through his mid-30s that he might never consummate a sexual relationship, who long considered the act of homosexual love "unspeakable" and therefore unpublishable, yet "to the end of his life…recognized the sexual force as a wellspring of his creative work." The biography begins with and then builds to the posthumous publication of Maurice (1971), the homosexually themed work that had occupied his creativity for decades when the public thought he had retired from novel writing, and which underwent substantial revisions after Forster gained experience in not only sex but homosexual love.An empathic, highly informative celebration of the legacy of a profoundly decent but decidedly imperfect man who considered himself "the outsidest of outsiders."

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AIA Guide to New York City

Hailed as "extraordinarily learned" (New York Times), "blithe in spirit and unerring in vision," (New York Magazine), and the "definitive record of New York's architectural heritage" (Municipal Art Society), Norval White and Elliot Willensky's book is an essential reference for everyone with an interest in architecture and those who simply want to know more about New York City.
First published in 1968, the AIA Guide to New York City has long been the definitive guide to the city's architecture. Moving through all five boroughs, neighborhood by neighborhood, it offers the most complete overview of New York's significant places, past and present. The Fifth Edition continues to include places of historical importance--including extensive coverage of the World Trade Center site--while also taking full account of the construction boom of the past 10 years, a boom that has given rise to an unprecedented number of new buildings by such architects as Frank Gehry, Norman Foster, and Renzo Piano. All of the buildings included in the Fourth Edition have been revisited and re-photographed and much of the commentary has been re-written, and coverage of the outer boroughs--particularly Brooklyn--has been expanded.
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Twitterature: The World's Greatest Books in Twenty Tweets or Less

By Alexander Aciman and Emmett Rensin

The age of Twitter has arrived, and precocious young writers Aicman and Rensin have taken it upon themselves to redo the world's most beloved literary classics for the Status Update generation. Taking the point of view of the protagonist (sometime several), the duo translate everything from The Old Man and the Sea to The Aeneid to the graphic novel Watchmen in under 2800 characters (20 "tweets" of up to 140 characters each). Splitting the focus between succinct mimicry and anachronistic wackiness (from The Great Gatsby: "Two bad drives met. :O," "Gatsby is so emo. Who cries about his girlfriend while eating breakfast… IN THE POOL?"), Aicman and Rensin can reach moments of inspired hilarity; from Oedipus: "this woman is ALL OVER ME! Total MILF." Juvenile comic asides and texting abbreviations abound ("WTF is Mercutio talking about?"), as do titter-worthy internet cultural references (from Frankenstein: "Just did a bit-torrent-style grave robbery"), though the target audience probably won't have much interest in running commentary on Goethe, no matter how clever (or brief) it is. Readers who persevere will find structured wit and classic charm that belie the authors' 19 years, making this a promising curiosity for the wired literary enthusiast.

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The Dinner Party: From Creation to Preservation

Judy Chicago's internationally acclaimed installation The Dinner Party is a monumental work of art conceived as a symbolic history of women in Western civilization. Strategically countering the traditional erasure of women's achievements, this epic work honors 1038 iconic, mythical, archetypal, and historical women. This, the most definitive book to be published on Chicago's masterwork, reveals the visual and intellectual scope of the installation more fully than ever before, supported by new photography, documentary images, and the artist's expanded research into the history of the women represented.
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