Though he died aged 36, Toulouse-Lautrec's influence was immense, immortalizing the nightlife of the Belle Époque and putting the Paris neighborhood of Montmartre on the global map of hedonist-creative hotspots. Walk through his world of singers, dancers, musicians, and prostitutes and discover an artist of great humanity, figurative skill, and...
Michael Hulse Book order
Michael Hulse is a distinguished translator from German, bringing a vast range of literature to readers. His work spans from canonical German authors to Nobel laureates, demonstrating a broad command of literary styles and voices. He is particularly recognized for his renderings of W. G. Sebald's profound narratives, skillfully capturing their unique melancholic tone and intricate prose. Hulse's translations are celebrated for their precision and deep engagement with the source material, ensuring that the spirit and artistry of the original works are vividly conveyed.






- 2019
- 2015
Koons
- 96 pages
- 4 hours of reading
The creations of Jeff Koons (born 1955) are at once immediately accessible and eloquently art historical. From basketball tanks to flower puppies, his instantly recognizable work frolics with banal imagery as much as it integrates cultural references such as Surrealism and Pop Art. Koons’ art revels in visual pleasure, but also in the power to affront. He has made his name as much for stainless-steel rabbits as he has with his sinister sculpture of Michael Jackson, or his sexually explicit photographic series with then-wife Cicciolina. The result is mega-artist status. An indisputable king of contemporary visual culture, Koons is lauded by collectors, institutions, and the public alike. With landmark works and concise texts by Katy Siegel, Hans Werner Holzwarth, and Eckhard Schneider, this book offers the complete Koons at a glance, introducing an art world giant from his early inflatable flowers through to today. About the series Born back in 1985, the Basic Art Series has evolved into the best-selling art book collection ever published. Each book in TASCHEN’s Basic Art series a detailed chronological summary of the life and oeuvre of the artist, covering his or her cultural and historical importance a concise biography approximately 100 illustrations with explanatory captions
- 2013
Half-Life
- 88 pages
- 4 hours of reading
This collection features lucid narratives that explore family dramas, global warming, and poignant dialogues with Death. Set against diverse backdrops including Mexico City, New York, and the Peloponnese, the poems intertwine themes of spirituality, art, and the beauty of nature, offering readers a captivating journey through various landscapes and experiences.
- 2009
The Secret History
- 120 pages
- 5 hours of reading
The book explores themes of loss and belonging, reflecting on the author's relationship with his parents and childhood experiences. It delves into the historical influences of England and Germany on his identity, while ultimately discovering a sense of home through the transformative power of love.
- 2009
The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge is Rilke’s major prose work and was one of the earliest publications to introduce him to American readers. The very wide audience which Rilke’s work commands today will welcome the reissue in paperback of this extremely perceptive translation of the Notebooks by M. D. Herter Norton. A masterly translation of one of the first great modernist novels by one of the German language's greatest poets, in which a young man named Malte Laurids Brigge lives in a cheap room in Paris while his belongings rot in storage. Every person he sees seems to carry their death within them and with little but a library card to distinguish him from the city's untouchables, he thinks of the deaths, and ghosts, of his aristocratic family, of which he is the sole living descendant. Suffused with passages of lyrical brilliance, Rilke's semi-autobiographical novel is a moving and powerful coming-of-age story.
- 2007
Egon Schiele : 1890-1918
- 200 pages
- 7 hours of reading
""Hindering the artist is a crime,"" wrote Egon Schiele in 1912. At the time he was in prison for disseminating immoral drawings. Throughout his work the note of defiance, provocation, and rebellion was sounded. Schiele's favorite subjects were female nudes and self-portraits, and he worked at his art with furious commitment, though it was not until shortly before his early death that he began to win real recognition. Today, with Oskar Kokoschka, he is seen as the most important of the Austrian artists who came after Klimt. This study examines the life and work of Egon Schiele through all the major oil paintings and many of his erotic drawings.
- 2006
Marc Chagall 1887-1985 : painting as poetry
- 96 pages
- 4 hours of reading
An introduction to the life and work of twentieth-century Russian artist Marc Chagall, discussing his cultural and historical importance, and including a chronology and over one hundred color illustrations with explanatory captions
- 2006
Vincent van Gogh s Schicksal ist eine Tragödie der Kunstgeschichte. Heute gilt er als einer der wichtigsten Maler aller Zeiten, Ausstellungen seiner Werke sind stets ausverkauft, die ihm gewidmeten Museen gefeiert, und seine Werke erzielen auf Auktionen Preise im zweistelligen Millionenbereich. Doch zu Lebzeiten, als er die Leinwände bemalte, die später zu Meisterwerken der Moderne werden würde, hatte Van Gogh nicht nur mit dem Desinteresse seiner Zeitgenossen zu kämpfen, sondern auch mit schweren Anfällen psychischer Krankheit: Depressionen und lähmende Angstzustände, die ihn schließlich dazu brachten, sich im Jahr 1890, kurz nach seinem 37. Geburtstag, das Leben zu nehmen. Diese umfassende Studie über Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) verbindet eine detailreiche Monografie seines Lebens und Werks mit dem vollständigen Werkkatalog seiner 871 Gemälde.
- 2004
The Devil's Blind Spot: Tales from the New Century
- 322 pages
- 12 hours of reading
Cleverly crafted, the collection features short stories that blend storytelling with literary documentation. Each piece, only a few pages long, explores diverse themes, from the virtues of the Devil to the complexities of love and power. Kluge's mastery of compression allows him to create vivid worlds in just a paragraph, akin to Kafka and Kawabata. The stories are organized into five chapters, addressing topics such as the cosmos and the conflict between knowledge and feelings, with precise details that provoke thought and reflection.
- 1990
'That's brutal violence on a defenceless person, and quite unnecessary, declares Sophie, and she pulls with an audible tearing sound at the hair of the man lying in an untidy heap on the ground. What's unnecessary is best of all, says Rainer, who wants to go on fighting. We agreed on that.' It is the late 1950s. A man is out walking in a park in Vienna. He will be beaten up by four teenagers, not for his money, he has an average amount ? nor for anything he might have done to them, but because the youths are arrogant and very pleased with themselves. Their arrogance is their way of reacting to the maggot?ridden corpse that is Austria where everyone has a closet to hide their Nazi histories, their sexual perversions and their hatred of the foreigner. Elfriede Jelinek, who writes like an angel of all that is tawdry, shows in Wonderful, Wonderful Times how actions of the present are determined by thoughts of the past


