A groundbreaking, informative, and thought-provoking exploration of fur's fashionable and controversial history The first and only book of its kind, Fur: A Sensitive History looks at the impact of fur on society, politics, and, of course, fashion. This material has a long, complex, and rich history, culminating in recent and ongoing anti-fur debates. Jonathan Faiers discusses how fur--long praised for its warmth, softness, and connotation of status--became so controversial, at the center of campaigns against animal cruelty and the movement toward ethical fashion. At the same time, fake fur now faces a backlash of its own, given the environmental impact of its manufacture and its links to fast fashion. Divided into five sections--dedicated to hair, pelt, coat, skin, and fleece--the book surveys not only the politics of fur but also its centrality to western fashion, the tactile pleasure it gives, and its use in literature, art, and film. This thoughtfully reasoned, eloquently written, and spectacularly illustrated examination of fur is both timely and essential, filling a gap in fashion scholarship and appealing to a broad audience.
A stunning star-crossed love story set against the glitz and grit of 1980s New York City When Elise Perez meets Jamey Hyde on a desolate winter afternoon, fate implodes, and neither of their lives will ever be the same. Although they are next-door neighbors in New Haven, they come from different worlds. Elise grew up in a housing project without a father and didn’t graduate from high school; Jamey is a junior at Yale, heir to a private investment bank fortune and beholden to high family expectations. Nevertheless, the attraction is instant, and what starts out as sexual obsession turns into something greater, stranger, and impossible to ignore. The couple moves to Manhattan in search of a new life, and White Fur follows them as they wander through Newport mansions and East Village dives, WASP-establishment yacht clubs and the grimy streets below Canal Street, fighting the forces determined to keep them apart. White Fur combines the electricity of Less Than Zero with the timeless intensity of Romeo and Juliet in this searing, gorgeously written novel that perfectly captures the ferocity of young love.
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, booming demand for natural resources transformed China and its frontiers. Historians of China have described this process in stark terms: pristine borderlands became breadbaskets. Yet Manchu and Mongolian archives reveal a different story. Well before homesteaders arrived, wild objects from the far north became part of elite fashion, and unprecedented consumption had exhausted the region's most precious resources. In A World Trimmed with Fur, Jonathan Schlesinger uses these diverse archives to reveal how Qing rule witnessed not the destruction of unspoiled environments, but their invention. Qing frontiers were never pristine in the nineteenth century—pearlers had stripped riverbeds of mussels, mushroom pickers had uprooted the steppe, and fur-bearing animals had disappeared from the forest. In response, the court turned to "purification;" it registered and arrested poachers, reformed territorial rule, and redefined the boundary between the pristine and the corrupted. Schlesinger's resulting analysis provides a framework for rethinking the global invention of nature.
A Seattle Times selection for one of Best Non-Fiction Books of 2010 Winner of the New England Historial Association's 2010 James P. Hanlan Award Winner of the Outdoor Writers Association of America 2011 Excellence in Craft Award, Book Division, First Place "A compelling and well-annotated tale of greed, slaughter and geopolitics." —Los Angeles Times As Henry Hudson sailed up the broad river that would one day bear his name, he grew concerned that his Dutch patrons would be disappointed in his failure to find the fabled route to the Orient. What became immediately apparent, however, from the Indians clad in deer skins and "good furs" was that Hudson had discovered something just as tantalizing. The news of Hudson's 1609 voyage to America ignited a fierce competition to lay claim to this uncharted continent, teeming with untapped natural resources. The result was the creation of an American fur trade, which fostered economic rivalries and fueled wars among the European powers, and later between the United States and Great Britain, as North America became a battleground for colonization and imperial aspirations. In Fur, Fortune, and Empire, best-selling author Eric Jay Dolin chronicles the rise and fall of the fur trade of old, when the rallying cry was "get the furs while they last." Beavers, sea otters, and buffalos were slaughtered, used for their precious pelts that were tailored into extravagant hats, coats, and sleigh blankets. To read Fur, Fortune, and Empire then is to understand how North America was explored, exploited, and settled, while its native Indians were alternately enriched and exploited by the trade. As Dolin demonstrates, fur, both an economic elixir and an agent of destruction, became inextricably linked to many key events in American history, including the French and Indian War, the American Revolution, and the War of 1812, as well as to the relentless pull of Manifest Destiny and the opening of the West. This work provides an international cast beyond the scope of any Hollywood epic, including Thomas Morton, the rabble-rouser who infuriated the Pilgrims by trading guns with the Indians; British explorer Captain James Cook, whose discovery in the Pacific Northwest helped launch America's China trade; Thomas Jefferson who dreamed of expanding the fur trade beyond the Mississippi; America's first multimillionaire John Jacob Astor, who built a fortune on a foundation of fur; and intrepid mountain men such as Kit Carson and Jedediah Smith, who sliced their way through an awe inspiring and unforgiving landscape, leaving behind a mythic legacy still resonates today. Concluding with the virtual extinction of the buffalo in the late 1800s, Fur, Fortune, and Empire is an epic history that brings to vivid life three hundred years of the American experience, conclusively demonstrating that the fur trade played a seminal role in creating the nation we are today.
In this delightful follow-up to I Love My Fangs!, a little Bigfoot learns that while it’s important to love yourself, sharing that love is what truly matters. Little Bigfoot loves his fur. Everyone else loves it, too. It is fluffy! It is soft! It is all anyone wants to talk about—until they’d rather talk about something else. But how is Bigfoot supposed to show his friends how much he cares about them if he can’t share the thing he loves?
THE STORY: Thomas, a beleaguered playwright/director, is desperate to find an actress to play Vanda, the female lead in his adaptation of the classic sadomasochistic tale Venus in Fur . Into his empty audition room walks a vulgar and equally
Follow in the footsteps of Hugh Glass — the inspiration for the award-winning 2015 film The Revenant — and other frontiersmen of the early 19th century, as they seek their fortunes in the beaver-rich trapping grounds across North America. Thirty illustrations.
Max is a rambunctious eight-year-old, living with his mother and his sister, terrorizing the neighborhood on his bicycle. But Max's world is changing around him: His father is absent and his mother is increasingly distracted. Max's teenage sister is outgrowing him, leaving him alone in favor of her friends. Sad and angry, Max dons his wolf suit and makes terrible, ruinous mischief. Setting off into the night, Max finds a boat and sails away to an island. Here he meets strange and giant creatures. Creatures that rage and break things. Creatures that trample and scream. These monsters do everything Max feels inside! And so, Max appoints himself their king. Here, on a magnificent adventure with the creatures, Max can be the wildest thing of all. In this visionary new novel, Eggers brings an imaginary world vividly to life, filling it with monsters, chaos, and one very real little boy. By turns beautiful and joyful, sorrowful and strange, The Wild Things is an astonishing literary triumph.
Come along on a rhyming tour through the amazing animal kingdom—from mammals to millipedes and everything in between—with this engaging picture book about how all creatures are connected! There are so many wild and wonderful animals in our world. Some have fur, some have feathers, some have fins, but all are connected. This fact-filled rhyming exploration of the diversity of the animal kingdom celebrates mammals, birds, insects, fish, reptiles, amphibians, and more! It’s a perfect match for budding naturalists and animal enthusiasts everywhere.
