Biographies/Memoirs

This is the first book to be published on one of the greatest American designers of the 20th Century, who was as famous for his work in film as for his corporate identity and graphic work.

Over the past 15 years, photographer Autumn de Wilde and musician Beck Hansen’s friendship and collaboration have yielded a body of work every bit as playful, innovative, and lyrical as his music. This beautifully designed volume—featuring a circular fold-out poster jacket—collects the best of these photographs, including intimate portraits, moments from performances, images documenting the recording of his Mutations album, as well as gorgeous photo sessions informed by surrealism, dada, op art, and other artistic influences.

Eddie Van Halen is one of the most revolutionary and influential players ever to pick up a guitar. His music, his technique, his passion, and amazing invention continue to energize fans and guitarists around the world. This book focuses on the innovative early years of the band Van Halen, when Eddie burst onto the scene and changed the face of electric guitar playing and melodic hard rock.

Photojournalist Dan Eldon left behind much more than the astonishing illustrated journals that would form The Journey is the Destination when he lost his life at age twenty-two while on assignment in Somalia. He also bequeathed a life story that...

You won’t find Echo Beach on any map. But for a band of surfers from Newport Beach the stretch between 52nd and 56th street was an entire universe of ‘80s cool. These Day-Glo surfers singlehandedly demolished the laid-back ‘70s style with a loud blast of Devo and attitude. Out of the water, they wore Aquanet pompadours, Wayfarers, and neon boardshorts. In the water, they ripped up the wave two feet from local photographer Mike Moir’s Canon fish eye.

Where do our things really come from? China is the most common answer, but Thomas Thwaites decided he wanted to know more. In The Toaster Project, Thwaites asks what lies behind the smooth buttons on a mobile phone or the cushioned soles of running sneakers.

Is any superhero cooler than Batman? He’s a crime-fighting vigilante with a tragic past, a lawless attitude, and a seemingly endless supply of high-tech gadgetry. In this fully illustrated memoir, author Michael Uslan recalls his journey from early childhood fandom through to the decades he spent on a caped crusade of his own: to bring Batman to the silver screen as the dark, serious character he was at heart.

In these 20 heartfelt essays, Rachael Herron—celebrated romance novelist by day, 911 dispatcher by night, and founder of the hugely popular blog Yarnagogo.com—shows how when life unravels there’s always a way to knit it back together again, many times into something even better.

The best-selling and critically acclaimed book The Journey Is the Destination, is now in paperback. Featuring a selection of over 200 pages from the journals of photojournalist Dan Eldon, it is the legacy of a young artist killed just as his crea...

Publishing just ahead of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, Lincoln in 3-D offers a breathtaking tour of Abraham Lincoln's life and presidency. In this beautiful book, over 180 stereo photographs come alive and readers wearing the enclosed 3...

An absolute delight for Audrey Hepburn fans, this unique book collects a treasure trove of more than 600 international magazine covers featuring Hepburn, one of the most enduring icons of both film and fashion. Spanning the course of her life and career,...

No one knows nine-time world champion surfer Kelly Slater better than Kelly himself. In this revealing and heartfelt tribute, written with surfing veteran Phil Jarratt, the world's best surfer riffs on a life filled with big wins, big money, and big loves...

After graduating from college and spending a magical year abroad writing our best-selling A Year in Japan, Kate T. Williamson felt ready for anything. But, like many a postgraduate, she needed some time to figure out just what that anything was....

When Albert Hastings was eighty-five years old, photographer KayLynn Deveney moved near his small flat in Wales. KayLynn took notice of the small rituals and routinesgardening, laundry, grocery shoppingthat made up Bert's life. A friendship slowly devel...

Cherished by fans and collectors since its first publication in 1980, I, Me, Mine is now available in paperback. The closest we will come to George Harrison's autobiography, it features George in conversation with The Beatles' spokesperson Derek Ta...

Published to coincide with the twenty-fifth anniversary of his death, Marley Legend celebrates the life and work of Bob Marley in an authorized and fully illustrated biography. In the same interactive format as the best-selling Lennon Legend...

Patti Davis didn't really adopt Aretha, her first cat. Aretha adopted Patti. When her second cat, Skeeter, moved in, Patti came to realize that shea self-avowed dog personwas now officially in thrall to two very demanding little felines. In 12 short cha...

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Presented in a handsome slipcase, Lennon Legend is both an illustrated and an interactive biography of the creative genius - songwriter, artist, social activist - who changed his times. Created with the cooperation of Yoko Ono Lennon, who has opene...

The international best-seller is now in paperback! From their years growing up in Liverpool through their ride to fame to their ultimate breakup, heres the inside story. Interwoven with The Beatles own memories are the recollections of such associates a...

Only 22 when he lost his life on assignment in Somalia, photojournalist Dan Eldon left behind much more than the journals that became the basis for Chronicle's best-seller The Journey Is the Destination. He left a lifetime of adventures that continue t...

The work of Latin American architects has long been overlooked; our new series brings to light the neglected master architects of Central and South America. The first title in the series presents Venezuelan architect Carlos Raul Villanueva, one of t...

Ernie: A Photographer's Memoir was first published by a small Santa Barbara press in 1985. By all accounts, Ernie was a phenomenon, selling an estimated 100,000 copies. Photographer Tony Mendoza had captured the mercurial character of that irascibl...

The work of modern architect Albert Frey (1903-98) is beautifully presented in this volume on his life and work. Frey arrived in the United States in 1930, the first of Le Corbusier's disciples to begin building in America. In 1934 he moved to Palm Spring...

These new titles in the Building Blocks series showcase four more icons of modern architecture, as portrayed by renowned architectural photographer Ezra Stoller. Two buildings by Frank Lloyd Wright, Fallingwater and Taliesin West, Louis Kahn's Salk...

Albert Frey worked in Le Corbusier's atelier in Paris, but he is most closely associated with the 1940s and 1950s desert architecture of Southern California, and with the work of architects such as Richard Neutra and John Lautner. This exquisitely design...

German typographer Paul Renner is best known as the designer of the typeface Futura, which stands as a landmark of modern typographic design. Paul Renner, still the only study in any language of Renner's brilliant career, details his life and wor...

German type and book designer Jan Tschichold (1902-1974) revolutionized modern typography through his bold, asymmetrical designs and use of sanserif typography, both inspired by the work of the Bauhaus. He proclaimed his new design philosophy through a se...

Paul Goldberger Calls Michael Graves "the most truly original voice that American architecture has produced in some time."Graves's monograph, Buildings and Projects, documents more than 100 works, including the Clos Pegase Winery, Whitney Museum...

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Mexican author Martha Zamora captures the essence of one of Mexico's most prolific and talented painters in a single comprehensive volume. Seventy-five of Frida Kahlo's paintings, reproduced here in lavish color, accompany numerous historical photographs...