Contents
Devoting time to what you love is a condition of happiness. A few gifts for those who love themselves or love someone who loves …
“Vivienne Westwood” Vivienne Westwood and Ian Kelly
Punk queen, international designer and active libertarian Vivienne Westwood talks about her life, and biographer Ian Kelly chronicles her stories. The result is surprising.
We somehow got used to think of Westwood as a Cinderella with a difficult past who challenged the world and conquered it. But suddenly she admits that she was completely happy in childhood, that her parents loved each other and supported her every step, that yes, she went against conventions, and sometimes obeyed public morality, but in the end she always did what she wanted. And, it seems, by the age of 74, little has changed in her. I read all my childhood – and still measures myself with books. All my childhood I was a daredevil – and still is. “I was born a girl and I liked being myself. I wanted to be a hero and didn’t see any reason why a girl couldn’t be a hero” – and half of her collections are exactly like that, with demonstrative, exaggerated, fierce femininity. Yes, not all grandmothers make jam. Some make crazy clothes. But advice is still given: “The best guide for life, Ian? “The Adventures of Pinocchio” This is the philosophy of life. Lifestyle. He’s such a prankster. But he has a heart of gold. And that, of course, saves him.”
Translation from English by Tatyana Zotina. Hummingbird, 480 p., 2015.
Read more:
- What’s wrong with modern fairy tales?
“Basil Howe. Our Perspectives by Gilbert Keith Chesterton
The English classic, a faithful family man, known for his impressive volumes, is here in the novel (and the romantic Basil Howe, no doubt, he himself) is still young, very thin and passionately in love, but not with his future wife. The prototype of the eccentric red-haired Gertrude is Violet Vivian. Happy in marriage, Chesterton will carry her image through all the novels as a symbol of the first unfulfilled love, but he will manage the fate of the characters in a completely different way – the gloomy Basil and the fiery Gertrude. This is his first, miraculously found novel – a piece of heavenly Victorian England, where the kinship of souls, and not at all mutual blindness at first sight, is recognized as true love.
Translation from English by Nikolai Epple. Corpus, 288 p., 2015.
History through the eyes of Crocodile. XX century. People. Events. The words”
A look at the USSR and the events of world history through feuilletons and cartoons of the legendary magazine. Key characters of the era from Lenin to Chumak, the wars of the century and the New Economic Policy, the Olympics and perestroika, Lev Rubinstein, Lyudmila Alekseeva, Alexander Kabakov, Yuz Aleshkovsky, Mikhail Gusman as compilers and Sergei Mostovshchikov as editor-in-chief of a series of 12 volumes, finally published in full. Thematic illustrations in the spirit of “Abroad as an Image of Hell” and “Non-Alcoholic Wedding”, songs and speeches of politicians that can be listened to if you bring your iPhone to the QR code on the page. The volumes are packed in four craft cases with three books each. Absolutely hipster gift for fans of old school aesthetics.
XX Century Crocodile. Volumes 10–12, 2015.
Read more:
- 10 modern romance novels
“Collected Works” by Joseph Brodsky
Gift edition for the 75th anniversary of Brodsky of six books collected by the poet for the publishing house Ardis. You can empathize with the lyrics of the 60s, you can follow the tangles of associations and the play of the mind in the verses of a mature poet. The gold stamping on the black case and the dust jacket on each volume of Brodsky, with all his imperialism and Nobel laureate, almost go. To love and read not for embossing, of course, but because “on the door draft / out of the thick night fog / a figure in a scarf appears / you feel both the Child and the Holy Spirit in yourself without shame; / you look into the sky and you see a star.
Lenizdat, 1200 pp., 2015.
“Art since 1900”
Contradictory, bright, canceling itself and regularly announcing its death, the art of the twentieth century caused delight and protest, but did not leave anyone indifferent. Professors from leading US universities have published a book that allows you to explore the art of the twentieth century consistently and in any direction. Yes, 816 pages is a lot. But if you read 80 pages a day, then by the end of the New Year holidays you will surely find out how Klimt and Freud are connected, what the works of Piet Mondrian say, and how the philosophy of Foucault and Baudrillard affects art.
To Margin, 816 c., 2015
The Secret Forest by Joanna Basford
This book is for those who drew on the margins and covers of textbooks, and he was scolded for it. Who at the meetings dot the sheets with labyrinths – under the surprised looks of the boss. Luckily, adult coloring pages are trending now. Among them are the albums of the Scottish artist Joanna Basford. An occupation that pacifies and awakens creative forces. Try it!
KoLibri, 96 pp., 2015.