Common as Air
Lewis Hyde
Hyde addresses the history of copyright, and demonstrates that the founding fathers were not at all fans of it.
The company of others
On the release of A Book Apart’s second title, CSS3 for Web Designers from the inimitable Dan Cederholm.
CSS3 for Web Designers
Dan Cederholm
The second book from A Book Apart, and required reading for anyone who wants to make the web a more beautiful place.
Art Space Tokyo
Ashley Rawlings & Craig Mod
Lovingly illustrated and printed, this is your guide to all the hidden art galleries in Tokyo, complete with notes on where to eat and what neighborhoods to get lost in on your way.
Cobwebs
On The Gift
Art, defined
On The Gift
The Gift
Lewis Hyde
The original subtitle of this book defined it as “Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property,” which hints at the real message better than the revision: that real art, no matter the price, is always a gift from the artist to the audience.
Empty
On Bird by Bird
Writers and editors
On The Elements of Editing
The Elements of Editing
Arthur Plotnik
“The editor, not the author, best understands the readership,” Plotnik says. “Authors know their subject. Editors specialize in knowing the audience.”
Make a mess
On Bird by Bird
Publication
On Bird by Bird
Bird by Bird
Anne Lamott
Personal musings on the life of the writer. Lamott is primarily a novelist, but I find her writing advice to be just as relevant to nonfiction.
On audience
More on the new publishing, and how A Book Apart is older than it seems.
Television
On Cognitive Surplus
Cognitive Surplus
Clay Shirky
In this follow-up to Here Comes Everybody, Shirky argues that we’re evolving from passive consumers of Seinfeld to creative makers of everything from lolcats to open source software to real-time news reporting.
Made by Hand
Mark Fraunfelder
A chronicle of one man’s attempt to become a DIYer. Frauenfelder learns that making things yourself means mostly making mistakes, but those mistakes can be a source of joy.
Unschooled
On Made by Hand
The Big Short
Michael Lewis
Infuriatingly good. There isn’t another writer alive who could take the obscurities of subprime mortgages and credit default swaps and deliver a page-turner like this one.
The Design of Design
Frederick P. Brooks, Jr.
An engineer’s perspective on the design process. His conclusions are familiar, but the means by which he gets there are fascinating.