Parisian Fashion: La Gazette Du Bon Ton 1912-1925
Alain Weill 
Bibliothèque De L'image 2000
Hardback, colour d/w, 270 x 202 mm, 189 pages 
£9.99

First published in 1911, La Gazette Du Bon Ton contained graceful coloured figures, with stencils taken from pencil sketches, and daring page layouts using the colours made popular by the Fauves. Inspired by the 'Journal des dames et des modes', Lucien Vogel and Georges Lapape produced a fashion gazette that was itself a work of art. 

Of the hundreds of published illustrations, the ones chosen here certainly represent the best of their period's style. La Gazette Du Bon Ton was a genuine innovation, a new approach to fashion and, from an artistic point of view, an ambitious project that succeeded in bringing together the best graphic artists of the time in its seventy issues, published over seven years until 1925. Beautiful full-colour, full-page illustrations of 82 fashion plates, accompanied by an extensive biography of each artist in the appendix.

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Nineteen Eighty-Four
George Orwell, Illustrated by Alex Williamson
Secker & Warburg 1999
Hardback, colour d/w, 255 x 197 mm, 250 pages
£10.00 [RRP £20.00]

The most influential novel of the 20th century. It is difficult to think of a book which has had a more ferocious impact on modern culture and language. Its images have taken root at all levels, and here these images are interpreted by the artist Alex Williamson in collaboration with the graphic designer Robbie Mahoney.

1984 has been described as a chilling, absorbing, satirical, momentous, prophetic and terrifying novel. It is all these things and more. This beautifully illustrated edition was published in celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of Orwell's masterpiece.

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Irving Penn Regards The Work Of Issey Miyake
Irving Penn & Issey Miyake
Bulfinch Press 1998
Hardback, colour d/w, 325 x 280 mm, 152 pages 
£25.00

For more than ten years there has been an extraordinary collaboration between Irving Penn, one of the great photographers of the 20th century, and the designer Issey Miyake, one of the few figures to have taken clothes design into the realm of art. "Penn's photographs allow me to see my own designs", claims Miyake. These photographs define Miyake's work on the printed page.

Miyake's astonishing forms and textures have offered Penn subjects that echo both a primitive tribal beauty and the most futuristic fashion. The sources of inspiration for both men are global, stretching from Africa to Miyake's Japan. This book is a culmination of a certain period in their creative lives. 

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The Decline And Fall Of The British Aristocracy
David Cannadine
Papermac, Macmillan Publishers 1996
Paperback, 217 x 136 mm, 814 pages
£7.00 [RRP £14.00]

"A brilliant, multifaceted chronicle of economic and social change that is unlikely to be superseded for many years to come." Robert Blake, New York Times

The first serious and sustained attempt to study the remarkable history of the British aristocracy as it has unfolded during the last hundred years. David Cannadine recounts the process by which the notables and nobles lost their wealth, power and prestige. The result is a compelling account of one of the most significant changes to have occurred in modern British history: it is also a riveting human drama, sometimes absurd, sometimes tragic, invariably fascinating.

"Endless anecdotes, facts, names, quotations and statistics are piled up, swept along by a fluent and often witty prose celebrating the demise of an elite world." Roy Foster, Independent On Sunday

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The Grapes Of Ralph: Wine According To Ralph Steadman
Ralph Steadman
Edbury Press 1992
Hardback, colour d/w, 300 x 228 mm, 224 pages 
£16.00 [RRP £25.00]

Ralph Steadman's passion for wine had characteristically novel beginnings. Renowned as an illustrator, he was commissioned to illustrate an award-winning wine list, and was lucky enough to travel with experienced wine buyers around Europe. It was during these trips that he found himself captivated, not only by the landscapes, but more importantly by the quirky characters he met and by the wine itself.

The Grapes Of Ralph is the result of his journeys of discovery. Here, Steadman has created an amusing, informative and vibrant work. Structuring the book around each country he visited, he offers fresh insight into the methods of production and qualities of the wines, and, just as important, into the characters who produce them. His observations are rarely reverent, invariably witty, and always perceptive. 

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The Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde
Robert Louis Stevenson 
Könemann 1995
Hardback, colour d/w, 175 x 125mm, 324 pages 
£3.99

First published in 1886, Jekyll and Hyde is Stevenson's great tale of hubris and evil. Dr Jekyll produces a drug that unleashes the brutal, decadent side of his nature, becoming the murderous Mr Hyde. When the drug can no longer keep the safe self of Jekyll from transforming into the monster Hyde, the only way to end the nightmare of metamorphosis is suicide - a moral tale that describes the shadowy side of human nature that lurks beneath the veneer of civilised society.

Together with Stevenson's classic novella, this selection also includes three other stories of evil and corruption - The Body-Snatcher, Markheim and Olalla - and concludes with The Ebb-Tide, a seedy account of down-and-outs in the South Seas.

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Unauthorized Freud: Doubters Confront A Legend
Frederick Crews (ed) 
Penguin 1999
Paperback, 205 x 135 mm, 301 pages 
£3.99

Frederick Crews, the most trenchant and authoritative of Freud critics, presents a collection of writings by eighteen experts that the New York Times calls "the Doubters' Greatest Hits." Citing serious deceptions that led to the "discovery" of psychoanalysis, inconsistencies between Freud's case histories and what has been learned about his patients, and arbitrary interpretations of the meaning of dreams, symptoms, and slips, "Unauthorized Freud" reveals Freud to be a dogmatist of single-minded ambition who consistently failed to mark the crucial difference between his patients' fantasies and his own. Crews makes a formidable case that the edifice of Freudian theory is crumbling, and that its collapse will be no cause for regret.

Whisky: The Water Of Life - Uisge Beatha
Helen Arthur
Firefly Books, 2000
Hardback, colour d/w, 288 x 225 mm, 224 pages 
£8.99

This enjoyable work takes the reader through the world of whisky, exploring its many faces and revealing its true spirit. From the first page to the last, this is a celebration of whisky at its finest, from distillery floor to the final, lingering taste. Whether your interest lies with single malts or blends, whether you have enjoyed whisky for years or have only recently discovered its joys, this book will guide you through a fascinating and often controversial history. Full of warm fireplaces and cold nights, the glow of amber in a glass, the delicate aroma filling the space nearby, then the smooth smokey liquid, savoured to the last... 

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