Ein weiteres Buch des berliner Verlages Jacoby & Stuart.
Jacoby & Stuart wurde im März 2008 in Berlin von dem Verlegerehepaar Nicola Stuart und Edmund Jacoby gegründet und bringt ästhetisch und inhaltlich anspruchsvolle Kinderbücher, reich illustrierte und gut geschriebene Sachbücher und Bildbände heraus.

Eine Kirche, Bäume, ein paar Häuser; dann Straßen, Fabriken, Schienen, Hochhäuser – von Seite zu Seite dieses Pop-up-Buchs der neuen Generation wächst ein Dorf zu einer modernen Großstadt. Kinder lernen mit diesem Buch, wie eine Stadt entsteht und funktioniert.
Die Väter des Bauhauses hätten gestaunt, wie paper engineering Architektur und Städtebau sinnfällig machen kann Aber auch Function follows form, denn Kinder wie Erwachsene werden ihre eigenen städtebaulichen Ideen von diesem Phasenmodell ausgehen lassen: Neue Architekten und Ingenieure braucht das Land!

Pop-up City

Mit einem Text von Joy Sorman?Aus dem Französischen ?von Sarah Pasquay?16 Seiten, geb.,14 x 28 cm,
jacobystuart.de/

An other Outstanding book from the berlin based Publisher Jacoby & Stuart.

Jacoby & Stuart was founded  in 2008 by Nicola Stuart and Edmund Jacoby.  They publish beautiful and ambitious kids books and  rich illustrated books.

A church, trees, some houses,; then a street, a factory , rails, skyscraper - from page to page of this pop up book grows a village to a modern city. Kids learn how a city takes shape and works.
The fathers of Bauhaus would have been immersed who paper engineering can manifest architecture and city planning. But also function follows form, as kids and parents will  develop their own ideas on urban planning development starting from this phase model. New architects needs the world.

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Wunderbares Buch des berliner Verlages Jacoby & Stuart.
Jacoby & Stuart wurde im März 2008 in Berlin von dem Verlegerehepaar Nicola Stuart und Edmund Jacoby gegründet und bringt ästhetisch und inhaltlich anspruchsvolle Kinderbücher, reich illustrierte und gut geschriebene Sachbücher und Bildbände heraus.

Wir haben letzthin  "Leute" gekriegt ein wunderschönes Buch. Superschöne, Illustrationen des französischen Illustrator Blexbolex. 208 Seiten verschiedene  Leute. Cowboys, Denker, Eskimos, Streithähne. Bei genauem hinschauen Merkt man das die Leute nicht willkürlich nebeneinander stehen sondern es ergeben sich kleine "Geschichten" über die Seiten hinweg. Ein Buch an dem man sich kaum satt sehen kann. Für Kinder und Erwachsene.
Das Buch wurde mehrfach ausgezeichnet unter anderem mit dem "Best Bookdesign from all over the world"

Outstanding book from the berlin based Publisher Jacoby & Stuart.
Jacoby & Stuart was founded  in 2008 by Nicola Stuart and Edmund Jacoby.  They publish beautiful and ambitious kids books and  rich illustrated books.

We got "Leute" as a present recently. A very special book. 208 beautiful Illustrations from the french illustrator Blexbolex.
From eskimos, to cowboys, to thinkers and friends. If you have a closer look one realizes the the illustrations correspond with each other. A book for kids and grownups.
The book is out in French and german and has the "Best Book design from all over the world" award.

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Sommer und Sonne am Meer? Vergiss es! Mach Dich auf zu neuen Horizonten, die direkt vor der Schweizer Haustür liegen. Entdecke Klippen, Sand- und Steinstrände, sonnenwarme Felsen und saftiggrüne Wiesen – und natürlich jede Menge Orte zum Eintauchen ins kühlende Nass. «pied a la lune» ist der einzigartige Begleiter für einen Sommer der anderen Art.

Mit Bildern, Kartenausschnitten und Anfahrtswegen zeiget der Führerdir , wo’s lang geht. Ob Stadt, ob Land, ob Flachland oder Berge – hier finden sich die Wege zu den ultimativen Sommervergnügungsorten der Schweiz und im grenznahen Ausland. Über 35 Badespots, die einen das Meer vergessen lassen. Definitiv.

www.piedalalune.ch

In the beginning there is Modesty. Cooler than the pretentious James Bond and with one of the cutest sidekicks in fiction, the drop-dead gorgeous Willie Garvin.
Modesty, unlike all the male heroes of the genre, has nothing to prove. The Bonds and assorted other action heroes all seem to be struggling incessantly to show us how macho they are. Modesty simply... is. An orphan from God knows where, she grew up in a refugee camp and wandered all across the Middle East as a child, picking up super-developed survival skills on the way. By her late teens she was running an international crime syndicate, The Network (no drugs and prostitution) and we meet her in the first book, 'Modesty Blaise', when she and Willie have retired, still only in their early thirties, if that, with too much time on their hands and a constant thirst for adventure. Not to mention all those finely-honed fighting skills to test out. Modesty and Willie charge around the world, drawn in reluctantly to a series of caper/adventures withimprobably nasty villains and ruthless opponents. All plotted to perfection...

Merci Eveline für den Tip- I am hooked-

Just recently I read the following  kitchen books. So if you are in the mood for some food stories read these:

Anthony Bourdain: Geständnisse eines Küchenchefs

Kitchen Confidential  by Anthony Bourdain

"Kitchen Confidential is for diners who believe that their sublime sliver of seared foie gras, topped with an ethereal buckwheat blini and a drizzle of piquant huckleberry sauce, was created by a culinary artist of the highest order, a sensitive, highly refined executive chef. The truth is more brutal. More likely, writes Anthony Bourdain, that elegant three-star concoction is the collaborative effort of a team of "wacked-out moral degenerates, dope fiends, refugees, a thuggish assortment of drunks, sneak thieves, sluts and psychopaths," in all likelihood pierced or tattooed and incapable of uttering a sentence without an expletive or a foreign phrase. Such is the muscular view of the culinary trenches from one who's been groveling in them, with obvious sadomasochistic pleasure, for more than 20 years.

Bourdain, currently the executive chef of the celebrated Les Halles, wrote two culinary mysteries before his first (and infamous) New Yorker essay launched this frank confessional about the lusty and larcenous real lives of cooks and restaurateurs. He is obscenely eloquent, unapologetically opinionated, and a damn fine storyteller--a Jack Kerouac of the kitchen. Those without the stomach for this kind of joyride should note his opening caveat: "There will be horror stories. Heavy drinking, drugs, screwing in the dry-goods area, unappetizing industry-wide practices. Talking about why you probably shouldn't order fish on a Monday, why those who favour well-done get the scrapings from the bottom of the barrel, and why seafood frittata is not a wise brunch selection.... But I'm simply not going to deceive anybody about the life as I've seen it." --Sumi Hahn --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. "

Sunday Times
'More gripping than a Stephen King novel.'

You will read it like you were reading a thriller. All sex and drugs and rock'nroll . Great fun!

After hthis book I immediately had to read this:

Kulinarische Katastrophen weltberühmter Köche. Nicht zur Nachahmung empfohlen. Bloomsbury Auflage: 1 (Oktober 2006)

I bought this book because I already knew the story of Ferran Adria of "el bulli "and the lobsters.
The story is just superb and I loved it. Unfortunately it is the best story in the book and it is always a bit disappointing if you know the best bit already. Never  the less I enjoyed the book. It contains some very funny short stories.

For dessert I suggest this:

Schott's Food and Drink Miscellany. Ben Schott
Schotts Sammelsurium Essen & Trinken
Bloomsbury; Auflage: 1 (September 2006)

"From the mind that brought you Schott's Original Miscellany comes a collection of vital irrelevance and uncommon knowledge surrounding the worlds of food and drink. Schott's Food And Drink Miscellany is a snapper up of unconsidered trifles (in both senses of the word) - from food history to cooking terms; cocktail recipes to dining etiquette; grace before meals to after-dinner toasts. What other book can tell you the accepted procedure when drinking from a Loving Cup; which potatoes are best for mashing; how to fold your napkins into a variety of pleasing shapes; the correct technique for lighting a cigar, or a Christmas pudding; or how to make the legendary 'Monster Egg'? Schott's Food And Drink Miscellany offers all this - and more. It will inform you of the King who served foie gras to his dog; the feast where guests ate in fear of their lives; the socialite who spiked his punch with benzedrine; and the dining club whose members ate their meals in reverse. An 'olla podrida' of all that is pertinent to wining, dining and socialising, Schott's Food And Drink Miscellany offers everything for the food-lover, wine-drinker, gastronome and glutton."

My love for Dub and Dub reggae  music started one sunday morning when I listened for the first time to the Aggrovators and King Tubby's Dub Jackpot LP.
Since then my dub record collection has grown quite a bit.

A brilliant book on jamaican music from the early ska to dub and reggae is Bass Culture.

Bass Culture: When Reggae Was King by Lloyd Bradley
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd

“Jamaican music at last has the book it deserves” PRINCE BUSTER, from his foreword

“The first comprehensive history of every aspect of reggae (and) it could be the last that talked to those who were there at stage one...Bradley leaves no stone unturned in a coruscating rollercoaster ride through murder, major label gripes, ganja paranoia and racism, ending with Luciano hoping for a return to good songs and good singers. And if UB 40 get a mention, I missed it. Isn`t that recommendation enough for you ? “ MOJO

“Switches between informed analysis and intoxicating aural history...With epic contributions from major players such as PrinceBuster, Horace Andy, Bunny Lee and Dennis Bovell” GQ

“Fascinating...written with passion, style and gusto. This is a book many musicians would benefit from reading” JAH WOBBLE, Independent on Sunday

“A compelling social and musical history running from Fifties soundsystem roots to contemporary dancehall...filled to the brim with anecdotes to keep the most hardened music-head happy” FACE

“A classic...Hilarious in places, peppered with social and historical comment in others, this is a fascinating account detailing how reggae evolved in Jamaica and became a global phenomenon” NEW NATION

Funny enough Lloyd Bradly Lloyd Bradley is also classically trained chef, which links this reccomendation to the last one ;-)

So if you are into Jamaican music read this book!

Another book I would like to recommend in this context is :

Collin Macinnes, City of Spades
Penguin Books Ltd

A portrait of black immigrants in the London of the 1950ies.

"...His reputation, although somewhat faded now, rests on his three "London novels" of the 50s, all of which betray a great deal of sympathy for the underdog. Absolute Beginners (1959) suggests the turmoil of a decade that witnessed the rise of the teenager as a cultural force. Mr Love and Justice (1960) examines the glamorisation of crime and criminals and the hypocrisy of the police, especially when dealing with pimps and prostitutes. But it is the first of these novels, City of Spades (1957) that is in many ways the most remarkable, both in its subject-matter and form.

Montgomery Pew, a cautious and shy Englishman, is employed as a welfare officer among London's new black immigrants. He is told to expect trouble from these somewhat excitable and not always trustworthy West Indians and West Africans, but he does not heed his superior's words of warning. He is attracted to the invigorating, vibrant, and above all new world that these newcomers inhabit, and he subsequently loses his job. What he gains is entry into a world altogether different from Jimmy Porter's or Jim Dixon's or Billy Liar's. It is a hidden, bohemian London of nightclubs, shebeens, West African late-night restaurants, squats, brothels, cafés, bent coppers, gay pick-up joints, Indian restaurants on the Thames, all operating with dizzying intensity behind the façade of post-Edwardian respectability that 50s Britain tried desperately to affect.

City of Spades has an ingenious structure, being narrated in short, episodic bursts, first from Montgomery's "white" point of view, and then from that of Johnny Fortune, a genial West African scoundrel who befriends him..."

Read the whole Guardian article "Kingdom of the blind"

City of spades is out of print and has to be bought second hand.

I grew up with punk rock. My first concert ever was The Clash here in the Berner Festhalle my mother took me there. I was way impressed by way Joe Strummer was rocking the stage. Coming home from school my mother used to listen to "the Stranglers" and "PIL".
But when I became a teenager I was more into Nina Hagen and " Neue Deutsche Welle"

It was dub who made me listen to punk rock again. Reading Bass Culture made me realize the close link between dub music and punk rock. But why did all the teds like to go to reggae parties? What made uk working class kids listen to dub?

Don Letts, son of black immigrants has been there right from the beginning. Reading his book Culture Clash gives you insight into the time when punk rock happened.

Letts worked as a DJ in the Roxy, a London nightclub during the original outbreak of punk in England. As few bands of that era had yet recorded, there were limited punk rock records to be played. Instead, Letts included many dub and reggae records in his sets, and is credited with introducing those sounds to the London punk scene, which was to influence The Clash and other bands. As a tribute, he is pictured on the cover of the album Super Black Market Clash.

Culture Clash: Dread Meets Punk Rockers by Don Letts

Don Letts is Grammy Award-winning film-maker, celebrated DJ, co-founder of Big Audio Dynamite, British black icon. As a first-generation British-born black, Don Letts quickly learned to assimilate aspects of Jamaican culture into inner-city urban London life. Leaving school, he gravitated to Chelsea's King's Road, inhabiting the fashion world alongside Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren. As resident DJ at the fledgling punk club The Roxy, Letts pumped a roots-reggae soundtrack to a predominantly white audience that included members of The Clash and the Sex Pistols, forging a link between the two clashing cultures. A chance meeting provided him with a Super-8 movie camera, the result of which was released as "The Punk Movie" and set Letts on a career resulting in over 300 influential promo videos featuring Sex Pistols, Pil, the Slits, The Clash, Bob Marley, and even the platinum-selling "Musical Youth", and most recently Franz Ferdinand. His feature films include "Dancehall Queen", the Grammy Award-winning "Westway to the World" - his documentary on The Clash - and Clash on Broadway. He recently directed feature documentaries for the BBC on Sun Ra and Gil Scott-Heron. Alongside The Clash's Mick Jones in Big Audio Dynamite, Letts pioneered dance culture and sampling techniques, hanging out with Africa Bambaataa, Grandmaster Flash, and the cream of the New York City hip-hop scene. Admired by Fellini, a friend of Bob Marley and John Lydon, and a documentarian of The Clash, Don Letts has never pigeonholed himself. This book is a firsthand account, told in Letts' own words - it's highly visual, revelatory, irreverent, entertaining, and staunchly individual.

once into the London of the 1970 you can also read these two books, both highly recommendable:

Human Punk by John King
Vintage; New Ed edition

The antihero of Human Punk is Joe Martin: poor white trash from the council estates of Slough. In the novel's first third, set at the "arse-end of the 70s", Joe is a teenage no-hoper into cheap booze and cheaper girls. He's also into the new punk music that has finally percolated down to the Middlesex hinterlands.

Stories we could tell by tony parson
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

This is a book about growing up and being young, about sex and love and rock and roll, about the dreams of youth colliding head-on with the grown-up world. Sometimes you can grow up in just one night...It is 16th August 1977 - the day that Elvis dies - and Terry is back from Berlin, basking in the light of his friendship with legendary rock star Dag Wood. But when Dag arrives in London he sets his sights on a mysterious young photographer called Misty, the girl that Terry loves. Will the love of Terry's life survive this hot summer's night? Ray is the only writer on the inky music weekly "The Paper" who refuses to cut his hair and stop wearing flares. On the eve of being sacked, Ray finds comfort in the arms of an older woman called Mrs Brown. But John Lennon is in town for just one night and Ray believes that if he can interview the reclusive Beatle, he can save his job. Can John Lennon and the love of an older woman really save a young man's soul? Leon is on the run from a gang called the Dagenham Dogs who have taken exception to one of his bitchy reviews. Hiding out in a disco called The Goldmine, Leon meets Ruby - the dancing queen of his dreams. But will true love or the Dagenham Dogs find Leon before the night is over? Tony Parsons goes back to his roots for this deeply personal book - the story he has been waiting to tell.

The latest addition to my cook book collection. A must have! Voted the best cook book 06.
I have almost all of Nigels cook books - he is great. This one is made like a diary  very nicely written and full of simple recipes.

out on FOURTH ESTATE (2006)

Some month ago I bought locatellis new cook book because Nigel Slater was so enthusiastic about it. He called it the best italian cook book ever! So I had to have it. Of course I did not find to much time to cook from it so far, but I did read it and I love it. It's full of lovely stories about his family and  the italian way of life. It is also a very nice book, full of beautiful pictures. If you are into italian kitchen and into nice cook books in general I highly recommend it.

Some of his books have recently been published again as paperbacks by the B.Shackman & Company. Almost a century old the adventures of Fluff, Puff & Arganon are still as surprising and appealing as ever.

Harry Whittier Frees

Once widely known throughout the US for his wonderfully cute photographs of animals, Frees began his career taking pictures for novelty postcards. By 1905 he was adding props and clothes to the shots to give the animals a more human image. His mother made most of the outfits which were designed to hold the animals in what can only be described as 'unnatural poses'. In all his books, though, Frees reassured his readers that these fantastic images were made possible |only by patient unfailing kindness on the part of the photographer at all times.