The story of Ivan Aivazovksy is peerless in the history of art. A poor boy from an obscure Black Sea port, he ended his life as the best-known Russian painter ever. His exhibitions all over the world drew enormous crowds and earned him admiration from the likes of Horace Vernet and William Turner. Today, Aivazovsky's work passes constantly through salesrooms and is eagerly sought after by collectors. Published on the hundredth anniversary of his death, this is the first book on the artist in English. Over 200 of his works are reproduced in color, most for the first time. The lively text offers insights into the working methods of a man who raised European maritime painting to new heights.
A history of the Salton Sea, which has become a prophetic story of mounting environmental crises that impinge on the water supply of southern California's sixteen million people.
From the acclaimed Booker Prize-winning author comes a dazzling novel of family, love and love's disappointments Anna's aged mother is dying. Condemned by her children's pity to living, subjected to increasingly desperate medical interventions, she turns her focus to her hospital window, through which she escapes into visions of horror and delight. When Anna's finger vanishes and a few months later her knee disappears, Anna too feels the pull of the window. She begins to see that all around her, others are similarly vanishing, yet no one else notices. All Anna can do is keep her mother alive. But the window keeps opening wider, taking Anna and the reader ever deeper into an eerily beautiful story of grief and possibility, of loss and love and orange-bellied parrots. Hailed on publication in Australia as Richard Flanagan's greatest novel yet, The Living Sea of Waking Dreams is a rising ember storm illuminating what remains when the inferno beckons: one part elegy, one part dream, one part hope.
Cities at Sea is a story set a couple of thousand years from now. Land-based civilization collapsed long ago as a result of climate change, flooding and impoverishment of soils, wars, and other causes. Knowing that about three quarters of the globe is covered by the sea, all the major coastal cities of the globe saved themselves by moving onto the oceans, developing gigantic, highly sophisticated, entirely self-sufficient rafts on which they now navigate at will. Life is easy in the raft cities for those who conform but is strictly disciplined under constant surveillance. Sal is a restless young woman who longs for something exciting. She imagines a more intimate connection with the sea and its creatures. She seeks help from a renowned genetic scientist. This leads to extraordinary adventures and changes in her and the city where she now lives. The story ends as a new era begins.
In Cities in the Sea, Maura Stanton taps into the mysterious force of the fairy tale, with its fantastic images and magical narrative patterns. Her stories blur the boundaries between fairy tale and verité, and comment on the art of storytelling. A range of characters -- from a business man to a pianist, from a county coroner to a hardware store clerk, from a Greek immigrant to a Danish artist -- come to discover that the past is a ruined kingdom, lost forever, but still a place to visit in wish, dream, and memory. Throughout her stories, Stanton attempts to wrest a deeper pattern, full of humor and wonder, out of the disturbing events of contemporary life. Maura Stanton's previous books include the novel Molly Companion and the story collections The Country I Come From and Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darling. Stanton is a recipient of the Yale Series of Younger Poets award and a two-time winner of the PEN Syndicated Fiction Award. She teaches in the M.F.A. program at Indiana University.
Dreams + Disillusions explores the plethora of ideas and ideologies that have shaped and reshaped cities in profound ways. However, unlike a conventional title on the history of urbanism and architecture, its research fluctuates between the world of concrete reality and the multiple universes that exist in lucid prose, poetic visions, and the outrageous imaginations of history’s greatest and most (in)famous minds. In their thoughts are the foundations for political trends and new civilisations, alternative mappings and unlikely phenomena. The six chapters reveal dreams that were fundamental to the origin of great cities, underpinning the stories of the many lives within; and how, through circumstance or manipulation, fortunate coincidence or planned perfection, desires are sometimes left defeated and disillusioned. Myth and belief. Tradition and logic. Revolution and marginalisation. Ignorance and hubris. Sins and excess. Seasons and climate. Continuously interacting, shifting to enlighten and to enrage, these themes combine critical thinking with deep-rooted influences and new agencies that are a true sign of the times. The 18 illustrated speculations provide an abundance of curious imaginings, diverse provocations and satirical criticism. While there are distinctions between dreams and disillusions, could virtues be made of sins, or sensitivity be borne from hubris? Could progress advocate tradition, or should we re-attempt revolutions formerly experienced as disillusionments? Whether by bold gestures or by subtle attrition, cities are continually re-written crucibles for the human condition. In this book, we develop a better understanding of the discourse of cities tailored to the determining factors of climate, resources, and humanity’s idiosyncrasies to address a world in crisis.
The Sea and the Hills “...Hussain Najadi’s philosophy, which he called ‘the golden triangle’, was to harness Western technology, management, know-how, and machinery with Asian natural resources and labour and Arab capital. Arab-Malaysia became the first to pump petro-dollars into East Asia, channelling all its non-Malaysian currency funding through its branch in Bahrain. Most of the bank’s foreign business was done in member countries of the fledgling Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), with Nr. Najadi declaring himself ‘a great believer in regionalism’. If anyone expected Hussain Najadi to be apologetic about Arab-Malaysian’s early success and defensive about the swirling gossip, some of it personal, they did not understand him and his style. Exuding the supreme confidence that irritated his critics, he announced his intention to become the leader of wholesale and corporate banking in Malaysia within five years, a target he reached in two years. He then lifted his sights to be the biggest in Southeast Asia within five years, a goal he achieved this time with four years to spare...” -- Barry Wain, Singapore (former Managing Editor of Wall Street Journal (Asia)/author/lecturer) “This book is an affirmation of belief in life’s purpose, of a spirit of adventure, and of unbridled optimism. The dramatic arc of my story rises in success, surely, but cannot be said to crash in tragedy; the setbacks I have faced have fed my further growth as wave feeds energy to wave. The holistic moral of any man’s life story – and I have no doubt each man has his own lesson to learn – is best appreciated when seen from a distance, with the benefit of time and perspective. Only then is the landscape laid out in its full beauty: the hills and valleys, the glittering sea on the horizon...” -- Hussain Najadi
