Dream-filled landscapes, portraits, and abstracts in beautiful detail Amber Albrecht's work is rooted in magic, folklore, and postfeminist neo-romanticism. The newest entry in the Petit Livre imprint of accessible art books, Idyll comprises a series of paintings, silk-screened prints, and drawings. Much of Albrecht's work is inspired by the dreaminess of childhood, whether expressing her cloudy recollections of the storybooks she read as a child (stories populated by strange creatures, impossible happenings, and oneiric landscapes) or the forested West Coast landscapes that surrounded her. On the pages of Idyll, a series of interconnected myths emerges fully formed, each myth articulating a sense of wistfulness for a past that never was. By turns surreal, fantastical, and absurdist, Albrecht constructs these pieces with the vivid yet subtle values that are a product of her silk-screening work. Idyll employs female iconography in myriad ways--many of these works feature female figures, the lushness of the natural environment, and femaleassociated textures (ornamental detail, as well as lace and other fabrics). Albrecht's Idyll communicates questions about loneliness, passivity, and loss through investigations of femininity and nostalgia for an imagined past.

An album which distilled a genre from the musical, cultural, and social ether, Portishead's "Dummy" was such a complete artistic achievement that its ubiquitous successes threatened to exhaust its own potential. The author offers an impressionistic investigation of "Dummy" that imitates the cumulative structure of the album itself. This is a thoroughly researched exploration of one of the most original, unexpected, and durable British albums of the 1990s. RJ Wheaton offers an impressionistic investigation of "Dummy" that imitates the cumulative structure of the album itself, piecing together portraits and interviews, impressions of time and place, cultural criticism, and a thorough exploration of the music itself. The approach focuses as much on the reception and response that "Dummy" engendered as it does on the original production of the album. How is it that so many people have, collectively, made a quintessential headphone album into a nightclub album? How have they made the product of a niche local scene into an international success? This is the story of how an innovative, experimental album became the iconic sound for the better part of a decade - and an aesthetic template for the experience of music in the digital age. "33 1/3" is a series of short books about a wide variety of albums, by artists ranging from James Brown to the Beastie Boys. Launched in September 2003, the series now contains over 60 titles and is acclaimed and loved by fans, musicians and scholars alike. 'It was only a matter of time before a clever publisher realized that there is an audience for whom "Exile on Main Street" or "Electric Ladyland" are as significant and worthy of study as "The Catcher in the Rye" or "Middlemarch"...The series, which now comprises 29 titles with more in the works, is freewheeling and eclectic, ranging from minute rock-geek analysis to idiosyncratic personal celebration' - "The New York Times Book Review", 2006. 'A brilliant series...each one a word of real love' - "NME" (UK).

THE GRAPHIC CANON (Seven Stories Press) is a gorgeous, one-of-a-kind trilogy that brings classic literatures of the world together with legendary graphic artists and illustrators. There are more than 130 illustrators represented and 190 literary works over three volumes'many newly commissioned, some hard to find'reinterpreted here for readers and collectors of all ages. Volume 1 takes us on a visual tour from the earliest literature through the end of the 1700s. Along the way, we're treated to eye-popping renditions of the human race's greatest epics: Gilgamesh, The Iliad, The Odyssey (in watercolors by Gareth Hinds), The Aeneid, Beowulf, and The Arabian Nights, plus later epics The Divine Comedy and The Canterbury Tales (both by legendary illustrator and graphic designer Seymour Chwast), Paradise Lost, and Le Morte D'Arthur. Two of ancient Greece's greatest plays are adapted'the tragedy Medea by Euripides and Tania Schrag's uninhibited rendering of the very bawdy comedy Lysistrata by Aristophanes (the text of which is still censored in many textbooks). Also included is Robert Crumb's rarely-seen adaptation of James Boswell's London Journal, filled with philosophical debate and lowbrow debauchery. Religious literature is well-covered and well-illustrated, with the Books of Daniel and Esther from the Old Testament, Rick Geary's awe-inspiring new rendition of the Book of Revelation from the New Testament, the Tao te Ching, Rumi's Sufi poetry, Hinduism's Mahabharata, and the Mayan holy book Popol Vuh, illustrated by Roberta Gregory. The Eastern canon gets its due, with The Tale of Genji (the world's first novel, done in full-page illustrations reminiscent of Aubrey Beardsley), three poems from China's golden age of literature lovingly drawn by pioneering underground comics artist Sharon Rudahl, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, a Japanese Noh play, and other works from Asia. Two of Shakespeare's greatest plays (King Lear and A Midsummer Night's Dream) and two of his sonnets are here, as are Plato's Symposium, Gulliver's Travels, Candide, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Renaissance poetry of love and desire, and Don Quixote visualized by the legendary Will Eisner. Some unexpected twists in this volume include a Native American folktale, an Incan play, Sappho's poetic fragments, bawdy essays by Benjamin Franklin, the love letters of Abelard and Heloise, and the decadent French classic Dangerous Liaisons, as illustrated by Molly Crabapple. Edited by Russ Kick, The Graphic Canon is an extraordinary collection that will continue with Volume 2: "Kubla Khan" to the Bronte Sisters to The Picture of Dorian Gray in Summer 2012, and Volume 3: From Heart of Darkness to Hemingway to Infinite Jest in Fall 2012. A boxed set of all three volumes will also be published in Fall 2012.

When his plans for a super summer of fun at camp are challenged by his inability to swim and his new friendship with a paralyzing hydra, Squish the amoeba struggles to overcome his fears while investigating questions about Pod and black holes. By the award-winning creators of the Babymouse series. Simultaneous.

Elsewhere an out-of-towner meets a crab at a taco stand who seems to know more than any crab has a right to know. The 'sound mirrors of Denge' reflect more than noise for one day-tripper. And on Johnston Island a man struggles to hold onto his fading memories as his house slowly fills with pollen. I'm Never Coming Back is a collection of surreal, comic and mournful interweaving tales travelling across three continents. In each destination we zoom in on unusual lives and remarkable situations, each tale unknowingly impacting on the next. In Rye train station a woman impulsively buys the same ticket as the man in front of her. The accidental journey leads her to Berlin. A novel way to run away from home. At Heathrow Airport, a building perpetually busy with people coming and going, a traveller is visited by a memory that refuses to leave. A tray of Singapore rice noodles cooked up in Christchurch takes on a life of its own. Winchelsea. A lone letterbox in Britain's only desert is central to a friendship between a travelling chef and a deep-sea diver. An old man realises that time is running out in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. Test Match Special seems to be the only foothold in reality. The Art of Pho is now available as a live motion comic:

Showcasing more than 200 gorgeous vintage handkerchiefs, which are a source of inspiration for today's most prominent designers at Hermes, Chanel and other couture houses, this gorgeous volume provides a complete history of the handkerchief along with valuable information on conservation, storage and use. 20,000 first printing.