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The Form of the Book

Jan Tschichold

A collection of essays written between 1949 and 1974, the year of Tschichold’s death. Many describe archaic elements of book design, but as a whole the text is as relevant to design today as it was a half century ago. more

You Are Not a Gadget

Jaron Lanier

Lanier’s manifesto brings attention to the many ways in which human behavior is being mechanized by technology. One point stands out: that the internet as it is today is not biologically determined, but a result of decisions people made in the recent past. We needn’t accept it as it is; it is within our power to make it better. more

Days of Reading

Marcel Proust

Proust’s meditations on reading, and the gifts that writers leave their readers. Best read slowly. more

Food Rules

Michael Pollan

This little book from everyone’s favorite omnivore deftly defines a series of simple rules to eat by, expanding on his mantra from In Defense of Food: Eat food, not too much, mostly plants. more

The Value of Nothing

Raj Patel

Raj Patel carefully demonstrates how traditional economics fails to properly account for many costs (whether environmental or social) and argues that the tragedy of the commons is one borne of privatization and corporatism, not an innate fact of the commoners themselves. more

My Bread

Jim Lahey, Rick Flaste

Lahey’s simple method for bread making (which trades kneading for time) is worth the hype. Once you get a feel for how the dough should come together, it’s foolproof and absolutely delicious. more

Linchpin

Seth Godin

Godin’s newest work argues that what the economy needs are artists—“people with a genius for finding a new answer, a new connection, or a new way of getting things done.” These people are linchpins—indispensable people that hold organizations together. A spirited yet pragmatic call to arms for workers everywhere. more

Mediated

Thomas de Zengotita

de Zengotita investigates the ways in which our experience of the world is mediated both through traditional media (television, newspapers) but also the ways in which we self-mediate—whether through photographs or status updates, we’ve come to think of our lives as a narrative, with ourselves always at the center. Written before Twitter came along, but relevant nonetheless. more

Standard Operating Procedure

Errol Morris, Philip Gourevitch

The book companion to Errol Morris’ movie of the same name. Where Morris tells the story with video and photography, Gourevitch communicates with words alone. The effect is less emotional or tactile than the film, but it’s indictment of the war is more strident. more

Library

Matthew Battles

Battles’ lively history runs from the ancients to the internet, with tales of libraries built and burned along the way. In this, one thing becomes clear: that any library, once conceived, will someday be destroyed. more

Summertime

J.M. Coetzee

Of Coetzee’s last few works of fiction (this, Diary of a Bad Year, Elizabeth Costello), I can draw only a few, tentative conclusions: that he feels compelled to explore the structure of the novel itself (for reasons I cannot yet articulate), and that he is wise enough to get out ahead of the biographers who will no doubt pounce on his grave while still warm. more

Reading Pictures

Alberto Manguel

Manguel—author of A History of Reading—turns his eye to how we “read” art. A welcome correlative to Berger’s Ways of Seeing. more

The Craftsman

Richard Sennett

Sennett defines craftmanship as the desire to do a job well for its own sake. In so doing, he frees it of the bounds of carpentry or metalwork and extends the work of craft to that of the programmer, the doctor, and the parent. And he restores materialism—long maligned as being complicit in capitalism’s ills—as that which looks to “cloth, circuit boards, or baked fish as objects worthy of regard in themselves” (page 7). more

Ways of Seeing

John Berger

Based on the BBC documentary, Berger begins with a retelling of Walter Benjamin’s Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction and concludes with a brilliant analysis of modern day advertising and its roots in Renaissance-era oil painting. The text is set in Univers bold, an unusual choice that has the effect of slowing down the reading experience; the result is akin to listening to a voiceover. Two of the book’s seven chapters eschew words in favor of images, and while the quality of the printing leaves a lot to be desired, the essays prevail nonetheless. more

The Subversive Copy Editor

Carol Fisher Saller

Carol Fisher Saller’s irreverent guide to copy editing has helpful advice for working with writers, as well as guidance for writers about working with their editor. Her expert (and often hilarious) responses to The Chicago Manual of Style Online’s Q&A are an excellent reminder that editing is as much art as science. more

The Art of Simple Food

Alice Waters

A beautifully designed book that has served me well in the kitchen. Especially helpful when you belong to a CSA and need to decide what to do with the week’s pound of turnips. Waters also includes helpful notes about stocking your pantry and what equipment to buy (or not buy, as the case may be). more

Deep Economy

Bill McKibben

Bill McKibben indicts the current economic system for it’s single-minded pursuit of “more” without regard for whether or not it is (or can be) “better.” The contemporary companion to Schumacher’s Small is Beautiful. more

Graphic Design

Adrian Shaughnessy

Shaugnessy’s irreverent guide—the ABC’s of design—addresses the underside of the designer’s life, with entries on banks (page 30), presentation skills (page 230), and sacking clients (page 268). Each post is short and discreet, making for a book that need not be read in the order it was made. Much to my surprise, the monospaced text font is entirely comfortable to read. more

The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis

Lydia Davis

Davis’ shorts are very short—sometimes only a paragraph—but they leave impressions larger than the tiny space they consume. The juxtaposition of bold, centered type and handwritten borders on the cover is a near perfect representation of the stories therein. more

Jan Tschichold, Master Typographer

Cees W. de Jong

Thames & Hudson’s tome to Jan Tschichold is as oversized as he was. Includes beautiful photographs of his work, alongside essays about his life and legacy. more

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