books, art, music

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Grady Harp is a Los Angeles based book reviewer, and Amazon’s #7 all-time reviewer

In Celebrity Vinyl Tom Hamling shares a collection of album covers from old long playing 33 1/3 records (remember those?) that are not only nostalgic: this collection of information in the form of record jackets opens secrets of the stars that will surprise many readers.

Handsomely designed by Eliane Lazzaris from photographs of the album covers by photographer Jonah Light and edited by Buzz Poole, this book is a scrapbook of memories brought to life by Hamling’s spare but cogent comments beneath each page’s featured album jacket. Sound simple? The unique aspect of this collection is the fact that the recordings were made years ago by people not remembered for singing!

There are albums of songs by Jerry Lewis, Dick Van Dyke, Lorne Greene, Anthony Quinn, Goldie Hawn, Telly Savalas, Burt Reynolds, Bruce Willis and Eddie Murphy as well as collections of songs as sung by The Brady Bunch, Ethel Merman, Joe Piscopo, John Davidson, a very young John Travolta, David Soul, Marilyn Monroe and many others. The images on these covers are art pieces in themselves, but placing them in context with the out of character stance of stand alone singing makes for a very entertaining read. Tom Hamling makes for sure we find the humor and the nostalgia that viewing these albums creates.

This is a terrific, unique collection of surprises presented in a sophisticated, very entertaining manner. Well worth the attention of a broad audience.

Grady Harp is an Amazon Top 10 Reviewer

IMPOSTERS
James Knoblauch , photographer and writer,  Shawna Kenney , commentary

IMPOSTERS is a collection of photographs with commentary taken from life on Hollywood Boulevard, in Hollywood. For years all manner of people have, for various reasons not the least of which is the money in tips they enjoy, dressed as famous stars or characters from the movies, parading up and down Hollywood Boulevard, preening for the tourists, and acting out fantasies of their own.

Photographer James Knoblauch has captured 36 of these ‘imposters’, people of all types who daily don the garb of famous figures and walk the Boulevard in a particular type of performance art!  Not only is the experience of viewing this book entertainingly funny, but it is also touching.  It is very Hollywood in every sense of the connotation. Continue reading »

As anyone who’s read this blog over the years knows, I’m a fanatic for the frontier west. I love reading books on western history (there are several reviewed on this blog) as well as writing about the artists who captured the frontier before the major influx of Europeans to America.

Among my favorite artists are George Catlin, Karl Bodmer, Albert Bierstadt, and Frederic Remington. While Bodmer and Catlin captured the frontier of the early 19th century, later artists like Bierstadt and Remington painted (and sculpted) the iconic west of cowboys, Indians, and the grand western landscape.

Once in awhile, I’m lucky enough to run across museums that focus on western art and American Indian art. One is the museum in Roswell, New Mexico (surprised?); the other is the Stark Museum of Art in Orange, Texas. The Stark Museum of Art is part of the Stark Foundation, an organization developed to improve the quality of life in Southeast Texas by encouraging, promoting and assisting education, the arts, and health and human services. Continue reading »

Maybe I’m confusing myself with Jackie Collins . . . but doesn’t it seem like a cool idea to splurge on an upscale Fendi as a book bag? I can’t be the first one with this idea, can I? Or is Jackie Collins already walking around New York City, toting her latest manuscript in a Fendi Hobo Bag? I’d be crushed if this wasn’t my original idea.

So I did a little research. I couldn’t discover if Jackie carries a Fendi as her book bag, but I did find a Fendi reference in her book, Lovers & Players. “Dangerous sex, family secrets, irrestible power, mega-money, and two murders equal one reckless week in New York.” In the book, Jackie has her character packing up her brushes and makeup equipment into her large Fendi carry-all. Okay, so not a book bag . . . but close enough. Knowing Jackie’s books, I’m betting that carry-all was a Fendi Spy Bag. Whadda ya think?

Grady Harp is one of Amazon’s Top 10 reviewers–and a wonderful friend to BloggingAuthors.

Designing Design is quite possibly the most beautiful book on design ever published. Not only is the content illuminating and intelligent, allowing the world to gain an appreciation for one of the truly unique voices in the design field – that voice being the Japanese master Kenya Hara – but also in keeping with the subject, the book itself is a paramount of elegance, simplicity and superb creative force.

This is a white book, a volume of information and illustration that embraces the purity of white as the matrix upon which everything blossoms and emerges.

In an introductory essay by John Maeda the author states ‘Kenya Hara is a complex man. He views the world through his many lenses of seeing, tasting, smelling, erasing, evaporating, and all the forms of construction and deconstruction.’ And after those appropriate words this pristine book opens into the genius Continue reading »

Grady Harp is an Amazon Top 10 Reviewer

Garth Risk Harvey, with some major help from his many photographer friends and designers Christopher D. Salyers and Eliane Lazzaris, has created a unique book in A Field Guide to the North American Family.

This completely fascinating ‘novel’ is a compendium of brief one-page thoughts titled alphabetically and matched with a photograph that illuminates the words written.

And as if this weren’t clever enough, the entire book is a marvel of design, taking the form of a notebook one would take on a journey, a collection of musings, paraphernalia, variations in paper types and typefaces, and printed in such a way that the reader feels almost guilty about opening the cover of someone’s private diary, so intimate is the structure and the content.

This is an art book - but it is so very much more. Continue reading »

Grady Harp is Amazon #7 Top Reviewer

Norm Yip continues to substantiate his growing reputation as a fine art photographer with the publication of 2.Am: The Asian Male. The suggestions of superior craftsmanship and sensitivity as a portrait artist were evident in his first publication THE ASIAN MALE: 1.AM and with that book now in wide circulation his reputation has grown as has the respect from not only an appreciative audience, but also from art critics and peers alike.

The images within this book are both black and white and color, and for the aficionados Yip carefully explains the technical aspects of his craft. What is unique about this collection is that it celebrates Asian men and in doing so further substantiates Yip as the leader in this niche of photography.

Historically the Asian models, both female and male, have been modest in facing the camera unclothed: skin without the benefit of costume or secretive modes of stance has been somewhat of a taboo. Continue reading »

Grady Harp is an Amazon Top 10 Reviewer

The Artist’s Body (Themes & Movements) is one of the finer compilations of an art form that drew attention from the press, museum curators, the public, the critics and fellow artists, probably more intensely focused than any other ‘art movement’ of the 20th Century.

In this well documented and copiously illustrated volume the multiple authors contribute historical data, psychological responses and etiologies, and the works are all edited with skill and sensitivity by Tracey Warr and Amelia Jones. First published in 2000 in an expensive hardbound edition, the current release is now in affordable paperback form and belongs in the libraries of all who are interested in the trends and spectrum of contemporary art. Continue reading »

Grady Harp is an Amazon Top 10 Reviewer

The shelves in the art section of bookstores, public and private libraries contain many publications about the important 20th Century figurative artist Francis Bacon: one would think there was little left to be said about the bizarre genius who influenced so many artists and thinkers.

But this new volume, Francis Bacon in the 1950s in by long admired proponent of Francis Bacon’s work and historical significance, Michael Peppiatt, sheds even more light on how Bacon arrived at the point of creating such disturbing and magnificently painted works.

Born in 1909 Francis Bacon did not become a serious artist until the mid 1930s, electing to travel to Berlin and Paris and other magnetic hubs plying his trade as a hustler and effete and along the way making significant statements in the decorative arts and design. Continue reading »

Eccola Press is pleased to announce that its book, Piazza: Italy’s Heart & Soul” by writer-photographer team, Marybeth Flower and Joe Bauwens, was selected as the winner of the Best Coffee Table Book category at the 11th Annual Independent Publisher Book Awards 2007 IPPY Award Winners.

The Independent Publishers Book Awards, also known as the IPPY Awards, were presented at BookExpo America 2007 in New York City.

This year’s titles were submitted by publishers from all 50 U.S. states, 8 Canadian provinces and 17 overseas countries.

“We are extremely honored that Piazza: Italy’s Heart & Soul’ was honored with this award,” said Bauwens & Flower. “From the inception of the book we felt it was important to show how the Italians live in their town squares. As far as we know this book is unique in that it focuses on the Italian people and not on their architecture and landscapes.” Continue reading »