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Art & Culture

Culture and art is many things and at Tales you find a wide selection of art and culture books. If you enjoy a trip to the museum or an evening at the theatre this is the place for you. If you are more into architecture or a well written song, fear not you also find books about that. Lastly design and fashion is also part of our art and culture selection, so what are you waiting for? Set your inner creativity free and get inspired by some of the world’s best artists, musicians, designers or architects.
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  • by Andrei Tarkovsky
    £30.99

    Since his death in 1986, Andrei Tarkovsky has become increasingly recognized as one of the great masters of world cinema. The book also contains an extended essay by film critic and historian Ian Christie, who places Tarkovsky's work in the context of Soviet film-making practice.

  • by Woody Guthrie
    £9.49

    An autobiography of Woody Guthrie, founder of modern American folk music. This book presents a cynical, earthy and tragic account of his life in an Oklahoma oil-boom town, of the Depression that followed, and of his subsequent travels in, on, and under trains, in stolen cars and on his feet, round an America going rotten from the top downwards.

  • - A Workbook for Observation and Drawing Plants
    by Margaret Colquhoun & Axel Ewald
    £15.99

    Features of the book include: a companion guide to plant development round the seasons; numerous illustrations to accompany the text; exercises for observing and for drawing plants; how science can be practised as an art; an introduction to the holistic approach of Johannes Wolfgang Goethe; and further resources and contacts for workshops are listed.

  • - Journals
    by Kurt Cobain
    £20.49

    The first publication of Kurt Cobain's diaries, which were found after his death in 1994. Genuinely moving, provocative and candid, and suprisingly funny, pieces of writing which, as a whole, provide a unique account of the rise and fall of a greatpopular artist and icon.

  • - Tales of Glamour and Excess
    by Danny Sugerman
    £10.49

    WONDERLAND AVENUE is the careering autobiography of someone who wilfully, skilfully and enthusiastically abused all the cards that life dealt.

  • - 5 Complete Suites Reproduced in Full Colour
    by "Erte"
    £11.99

  • - A True Story of Growing Up and Survival
    by Janey Godley
    £9.49 - 10.49

    Brought up amid near-Dickensian squalour in the tough East End of Glasgow and sexually abused by her uncle, Janey married into a Glasgow criminal family as a teenager, then found herself having to cope with the murder of her mother, violence, religious sectarianism, abject poverty and a frightening family of in-laws.First-hand, Janey saw the gangland violence and met extraordinary characters within an enclosed and seldom-revealed Glasgow underworld - from the grim and far-from-Swinging 60s, to the discos of the 70s, to the tidal wave of heroin addiction which swept through and engulfed Glasgow's East End during the 1980s.This evocative, intimate and moving portrayal of a woman forced to fight every day for her family's future will strike a chord with anyone who has ever struggled against adversity.

  • by "Banksy"
    £12.99 - 16.49

    _______________Banksy. His work. Photographed. With comments by Banksy. In a book. This is that book. _______________

  • by Rob Roy Kelly
    £15.49

    Beautiful selection of 100 19th-century American wood type fonts, many reproduced at actual size. Each font features a complete alphabet of capitals; many include lowercase letters, numerals, and punctuation marks.

  • by Lis Bartholm
    £8.49

    155 traditional folk art decorations: fruit and floral centerpieces, borders, wreaths, children in peasant garb, much more. For needlework, crafts, artistic uses. Royalty-free.

  • by Roger Lipsey
    £19.99

    Compelling, well-illustrated study focuses on the works of Kandinsky, Mondrian, Klee, Picasso, Duchamp, Matisse, and others. Citations from letters, diaries, and interviews provide insights into the artists' views. 121 black-and-white illustrations.

  • by Barbara Holdridge
    £9.49

  • - Photographic Memories
    by Catherine Rothwell
    £12.99

  • by ABRSM
    £29.49

    An impressive range of jazz styles, from New Orleans to contemporary. All tunes suitable for less experienced players, with pitch range, chords and technical level carefully considered. Tunes in their most commonly played keys, with reliable melodies and chord changes. Comes in B flat, E flat, C Treble-clef and C Bass-clef editions.

  • by The Who
    £13.99

    Allows readers to take over from John Entwistle and play with British rock modsters. This work features the Who's classic songs, transcribed from the original recordings for guitar, in standard notation and tablature with melody line and chord symbols.

  • - Recollections of Five Pioneers of the New Art Impulse
    by Peter Stebbing
    £29.49

  • - No One is Innocent
    by Alan Parker
    £9.49

    The last word on Sid Vicious - the world's most iconic punk figure

  • by Bruce Swedien
    £17.99

    MAKE MINE MUSIC

  • by Michael Merrill
    £51.49

    An ideal introduction to Kahn's thinking. Over two hundred drawings, most published for the first time in a generous, high-quality volume. A narrative in drawings sheds light on a profound culture of designing.

  • - Living Green in Style
    by Àlex Sánchez Vidiella & Cristina Paredes Benitez
    £21.99

  •  
    £80.49

    Europe and the World Beyond focuses geographically on peoples of South America and the Mediterranean as well as Africa, but conceptually it emphasizes the ways that visual constructions of blacks mediated between Europe and a faraway African continent that was impinging ever more closely on daily life in cities and ports engaged in the slave trade.

  •  
    £30.99

    Brutal beauty dominates in Frederic Chaubin's images of extreme Soviet architecture from the final years of the USSR. In these photographs, we explore the disappearing world of totalitarian structures, originally designed to dominate and exert omniscient power over civilians through both spectacular forms and austere aesthetics.

  •  
    £38.49

    This definitive publication on Alexander McQueen (1969 - 2010) invites you into the creative mind and world of one of Britain's most brilliant, daring and provocative designers, and the many themes and references that shaped his visionary fashion collections.

  • by H. Walter Lack
    £20.49

    Meet "the Raphael of flowers," Pierre-Joseph Redoute. Adapted from our best-selling XL edition, this book gathers some of the finest engravings from his masterful volumes Roses, Lilies, and Selection of the Most Beautiful Blooms and Branches with the Finest Fruits. The dazzling images transport us back to the magnificent greenhouses and gardens...

  • by Jeffery Kite-Powell
    £42.99

    Revised and expanded, A Performer's Guide to Seventeenth Century Music is a comprehensive reference guide for students and professional musicians. The book contains useful material on vocal and choral music and style; instrumentation; performance practice; ornamentation, tuning, temperament; meter and tempo; basso continuo; dance; theatrical production; and much more. The volume includes new chapters on the violin, the violoncello and violone, and the trombone-as well as updated and expanded reference materials, internet resources, and other newly available material. This highly accessible handbook will prove a welcome reference for any musician or singer interested in historically informed performance.

  • - 1982 - 2009
    by Sabrina Zannier
    £19.99

  • by Amid Amidi
    £29.49

    Pixar is 25 years old in 2011. This book features the complete colour scripts and a selection of the art from the twelve films to date: Toy Story", "A Bug's Life", "Toy Story 2", "Monsters Inc.", "Finding Nemo", "The Incredibles", "Cars", "Ratatouille", "WALL E", "Up", "Toy Story 3" and "Cars 2".

  • by Mick Goodrick
    £24.49

  • by David Leddick
    £16.49

    Explore the compositions, postures, and role-playing of the male nude genre from anonymous 19th century erotica through to contemporary work from David Hockney and Duane Michaels. Highlights include the Sicilian homoerotic scenes of Baron Wilhelm von Gloeden and illustrations from Physique Pictorial, the leading organ of the mid-50s gay scene.

  • - Working with Digital Textures
    by Sarah Gardner
    £27.49 - 155.99

    Vintage-looking, dream-like textures can open up a whole new world in your photography. However, there is much, much more to working with textures than simply merging them with an image via Photoshop. This guide helps you learn what there is to know about how to maximize the potential of these exciting tools.

Culture
What defines culture you might ask? The answer is culture is what defines you. It is what makes us humans human and differentiate us from all other species on the planet. Art and culture is what we share with others, whether it is so called high culture or pop culture. High culture is typically associated with the ‘finer’, classical art forms such as opera, classical music, visual art, ballet and plays. Works that often have a certain age and artistic acknowledgement begin it, but fine culture is also sometimes seen as “high-brow” and not something everyone can understand and that’s sad, because culture and cultural books are for everyone no matter the kind. On the other end of the spectrum we have pop culture that typically is associated with more modern, popular and mainstream forms of culture. It can be pop music, cartoons or big blockbuster movies. We have cultural books from each side of the spectrum, but the best thing is that a change between the two concepts is coming and people are more open about mixing high culture and pop culture, because they are not that different at all. The most important thing about culture is that it connects us and is part of who we are. It can create communities and friendships, but also let us reflect upon ourselves. You can get wiser on that topic in some of our selection’s culture books. 

Art
In our selection you find some of the finest art books featuring some of the greatest artists in history and now. Art is a very important part of our culture. In art you have the possibility of getting engrossed in a wonderful painting, a provocative sculpture, a brilliant play or a beautiful ballet. 
In art you can get lost in the most wonderful stories and themes and identify yourself with someone who doesn’t necessarily look and act like you. By experiencing that you improve your ability of empathy. At the same time you can learn about yourself through art and art books especially when it comes to feelings that can be difficult to describe. In art the themes and problematics are universal and that’s why we feel recognized when experiencing a play, listening to a symphony, studying a great painting or reading a good art book. The art books are best enjoyed in a relaxed setting giving the art room to speak. 
Another beautiful thing about art is that it needs interpretation. When a person meets a well painted painting, a classical sculpture, or a provocative installation it makes us reflect about what it means, and what the art will tell us about society, life or yourself. Everyone can get something different out of a good artwork, because it speaks directly to you and functions as a dialog, where you will have to finish the sentence with your interpretation taking our own life and experiences into the artwork.
We also have a lot of artist books. One of the most talented and popular artists right now are the world famous Dane Vilhelm Hammershøi. Hammershøi has a very significant way of painting giving voice to the melankolic side of the world and of us humans. The painter is famous for his artworks of especially white doors in his apartment in Copenhagen. In the paintings Hammershøi plays with light and shadow in a brilliant way giving room to both sides, which also could be seen as a reflection of life that contains both. The motive also makes the art watcher wonder what is on the other side of the doors or corridors making them compose a continuation of the painting. You can read about Hammershøi in an European context in the artist book Hammershoi and Europe

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