Category Archives: Books

Dec 30 2013
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Books, Pop Culture

Finding Life’s ‘Lighter Side’

Celebrating the career-spanning satire of ‘MAD’ artist Dave Berg

BERG JACKET_Layout 1Berg was, indeed, one of the most prolific, most popular illustrators in the history of MAD Magazine—his contributions ran in almost every issue from 1957 until his death in 2002. This comprehensive coffee-table collection brings together not only his wide-ranging “The Lighter Side Of…” strips, which lampooned a spectrum of mid-20 century American life in all it marvelous messiness, but also dozens of his lesser-known earlier cartoons, and his later satirical jabs at big business, computers, religion, the controversy over guns and other modern-day topics.

—Neil Pond, American Profile Magazine

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Dec 30 2013
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Books, Pop Culture

Big Apple Core

Photos reveal hidden ‘underground’ side of New York nightlife

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Bright Nights

By Tod Seelie

Softcover, 192 pages ($34.95, Prestel)

The New York depicted by photographer Tod Seelie in his first book isn’t one you’ll find in any Chamber of Commerce brochures. It’s an underground nighttime swirl of a gritty subculture made up of characters on the fringes, people who don’t come to life until everyone else has gone to sleep. His starkly beautiful, sometimes shocking images of punk musicians, performance artists, bizarro breakouts of who knows what, decrepit buildings and streets that most “daytime” people would never walk have a hypnotic allure that reveal explosively colorful sides to the core of the Big Apple that most visitors (and indeed, many residents) never see.

—Neil Pond, American Profile Magazine

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Dec 27 2013
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Books, History

Pigskin Palaces

A photo-packed roundup of NFL & college football stadiums

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Football Stadiums

By Lew Freedman

Hardcover, 320 pages ($35, Firefly Books)

Hallowed ground to serious sports fans, stadiums are shrines of near-mythical proportion where legends and legacies are forged. Giving this handsome roundup of 130 major football coliseums—including all 32 current NFL stadiums, 77 college stadiums, and 35 other famous or now-demolished bowls or fields, all accompanied by photos, factoids and historical tidbits—to any pigskin buff is guaranteed to score you some serious extra points.

—Neil Pond, American Profile Magazine

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Dec 27 2013
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Books

Mutty Minds

Ever wonder what your grumpy old dog is thinking?

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Dogs With Old Man Faces

By Tom Cohen

Hardcover, 144 pages ($13.95, Running Press)

This whimsical picture book pairs photos of canines “of a certain age” with witty, crotchety captions that speculate what might very well be going through their mutty minds. Well, it might be, if dogs were as people-like as people wanted them to be. Examples: “Gus got Grecian Forumla in his eye.” “Frank is waiting for the prune juice to kick in.” “Chet is still upset they cancelled Matlock.” It’s guaranteed to put a big, speculative smile on every dog lover’s face—and offer a whole new perspective on what we’d like to think could be going on behind the furry muzzles, grey whiskers and big, old experienced eyes of almost any pooch for whom puppyhood is but a memory.

—Neil Pond, American Profile Magazine

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Dec 26 2013
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Books, History, Pop Culture

All’s Fair

The 1964-65 New York World’s Fair mirrored the turbulence of the era

TomorrowLand

Tomorrow-Land

By Joseph Tirella

Hardcover, 356 pages ($26.95, Globe Pequot Press)

Released to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair, this top-notch narrative examines the roaring flashpoint of pop music, politics, Civil Rights, Vietnam, bohemian culture and other elements that made the event’s theme of “Peace Through Understanding” a tough one to follow through. With a sprawling cast, including The Beatles, Martin Luther King Jr., Andy Warhol, Lenny Bruce and the pope, Tirella’s examination of the World’s Fair becomes a prism through which a much bigger picture of a turbulent America emerges, in all its messy, splattered Sixties colors.

—Neil Pond, American Profile Magazine

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Dec 10 2013
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Books, History

The Norman We Never Knew

New biography reveals much about famous illustrator

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By Deborah Soloman

Hardcover, 494 pages ($28, Farrar, Straus and Girous)

Norman Rockwell, the illustrator who idealized small-town Americana through his covers for The Saturday Evening Post and other assignments, gets put under the microscope in this detailed, meticulously researched biography. In addition to telling the stories behind many of his iconic pictures, the author, who was granted access to the celebrated painter’s previously unpublished letters and other writings, also paints her own colorful portrait of a complex, complicated and often contradictory man—a frequently misunderstood, conflicted artist whose well-known work offered only one dimension, as it turns out, to a much more fascinating life story.

 —Neil Pond, American Profile Magazine

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Nov 27 2013
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Books, Pop Culture

’80s Ladies…and Gents

Glamour shots of the era’s top stars in all their glory

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Mario Casilli

By Tony Nourmand & Peter Doggett

Hardcover, 192 pages ($49.95, Reel Art Press)

One of the premier glamour photographers of the ’80s, Casilli started out at Playboy and ended up shooting covers for TV Guide, where he made almost all the stars of the times shine in all their big-haired, shoulder-padded, rainbow-colored glory. This collection of his work, which includes full-page portraits of Joan Collins, David Hasselhoff, Morgan Fairchild, Suzanne Somers, Brooke Shields, Vanna White, The Bee Gees, the casts of Dynasty, Dallas, Miami Vice and  Knight Rider, and dozens of other celebrities, captures the rich, extravagant, enviable beauty of the era’s most elegant pop-cultural ambassadors.

—Neil Pond, American Profile Magazine

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Nov 27 2013
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Books, Pop Culture

Crime Spree

A monumental tribute to all three ‘Godfather’ movies

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The Godfather Family Album

By Steve Schapiro & Paul Duncan

Hardcover, 600 pages ($39.99, Taschen)

Here’s an offer you can’t refuse: When it was first released, this lavish compendium of some 400 behind-the-scenes, on-the-set photos from all three Godfather movies came with a collector’s-only price tag of $700. Now much more affordably priced, this monumental tribute to moviedom’s most iconic crime trilogy covers the cinematic Corleone crime saga from beginning to end and makes a perfect addition to any wiseguy’s library. Leave the gun, take the cannoli…and get this book.

—Neil Pond, American Profile Magazine

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Nov 19 2013
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Books, History

Going Up!

Big book of world’s tallest buildings is shaped to suit its subject  

Skyscrapers

Skyscrapers

By Judith Dupré

Hardcover, 176 pages ($26.95, Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers)

A skyscraper of a book itself, this super-tall 9”x18” volume mirrors its subjects: the world’s tallest buildings. With oversize, full-color photos, specs and a history of awe-inspiring vertical masterpieces all around the globe—including such iconic American landmarks as the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building and the Willis (formerly Sear) Tower, plus an array of newer creations in Europe, China, the Middle East and India—it’s an inspiring, eye-popping, soaring architectural tour, one that might just leave you feeling a little bit light-headed.

—Neil Pond, American Profile Magazine

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Nov 13 2013
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Books, History

Wide Open Spaces

Panoramic photos show a spectrum of early 20th century America

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The Big Picture

By Josh Sapan

Hardcover, 144 pages ($29.99, Princeton Architectural Press)

The invention of flexible film (as opposed to solid plates) in the late 1800s sparked a revolution in devices that could take “panoramic” photos. Before long, it seemed, just about everyone—and every kind of group—was hiring a photographer with one of the newfangled cameras, some of which could take a single image encompassing a full 360 degrees. These delightful reproductions from the collection of Sapan (the CEO of the company that operates the American Movie Channel, the Independent Film Channel and the Sundance Channel)—of circus performers, rodeo cowboys and Indians, football and baseball teams, church groups, Ku Klux Klan members, college students, beachgoers, firemen and policeman, tradesmen, bathing beauties, soldiers and more—offer a wildly diverse cross-section of early 20th century America, in all its wonderful, wide-angle splendor.

—Neil Pond, American Profile Magazine

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