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| Mad_Monk |
Doing As Thou Wilt take a little practical skill and dexterity – otherwise all that's left, ahem, is a nasty, sticky mess as many of us have discovered over the years. Why learn from your own mistakes when masters and journeymen have already deposited a wealth of experience:
For brevity the summaries are mostly from the publishers' catalogues and thus editions are specified for copyright reasons rather than as a direct recommendation.
Revisit previous sections for Apicius, Dumas, The 15 Master Cooks to the Great Houses of Medieval Europe, al-Andalus, al-Maghreb & Persia and Sir Richard Burton's translations of The Arabian Nights, The Perfumed Garden and The Kama Sutra
Janet Arnold - A Handbook of Costume (1973)
A guide to the primary sources for costume study. Arnold (1932-98) worked in theatrical costuming, was the acknowledged expert on Queen Elizabeth I's wardrobe, advised the Mary Rose conservators, produced meticulous drawings and patterns, made slides (she had over 100,000) and wrote detailed descriptions of the items she studied, all of which stimulated interest in the study of costume as well as being of practical use to theatrical costumiers and designers. (Publisher: Macmillan)
Juliet Ash and Elizabeth Wilson (eds) - Chic Thrills: A Fashion Reader (1992)
This collection of essays goes beyond the history of fashion to reveal the underlying financial and political forces that shape it, showing how fashion relates to the economic realities and motivations of those who create what we buy and wear. The contributors address key issues in fashion theory and practice, including fashion photography and the media representation of fashion, ecological concerns versus the livelihood of impoverished communities, the evolution of haute couture in relation to street fashion and retail, the politics of dress, and the relationship of black designers and non-European cultures to western fashion. Extensive illustrations and black and white photographs offer visual accompaniment for the trends and issues discussed. (Pandora Press)
Clifford W. Ashley - The Ashley Book of Knots (1st ed. 1944)
The most famous book on knots is the Ashley Book of Knots, which contains almost 4000 examples of knots, links, sinnets, hitches, bends and splices, with illustrations by the author of the way that the knots have been used. “To me the simple act of tying a knot is an adventure in unlimited space. A bit of string affords the dimensional latitude that is unique among the entities. For an uncomplicated strand is a palpable object that, for all practical purposes, possesses one dimension only. If we move a single strand out of the plane, interlacing at will, actual objects of beauty result, in what is practically two dimensions; and if we choose to direct our strand out of this plane, another dimension is added which provides an opportunity that is limited only by the scope of our own imagery and the length of a ropemaker's coil. What could be more wonderful than that?” - Clifford W. Ashley. (Publisher: Doubleday & Co.)
Who's a Dandy? Dandyism and George Brummell - George Walden translating and expanding on Jules-Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly (2002/ 1845)
Dandyism has made a remarkable return after 200 years; people like David Beckham and Jarvis Cocker leading the field and everyone else following. The concepts masculine and feminine may have undergone steady erosion yet men who dare to dress with a sense of fashion continue to attract attention as closet-homosexuals. Abhorring this confusion, George Walden has written a book on dandyism which he argues is a deeply-rooted and a uniquely English phenomenon. At the heart of dandyism stands the greatest dandy of all, (Beau) George Brummell. His competitive dressing and cutting attitude are all copied today. Using the celebrated life-portrait of the dying Brummell by Barbey d'Aurevilly (Du Dandysme et de Georges Brummell – The Anatomy of Dandyism) included at the end of the book), Walden shows in this text who are today's supreme dandies and who its fops, in a way that is bound to cause controversy. This acclaimed brief and entertaining book is both a biography and an examination of what it takes to be a dandy, with a fair pinch of salt.
George Walden is a polymath who counts Russian, Chinese and French among his many languages. He worked in the Foreign Office and was a Conservative MP for fifteen years, then became a columnist, reviewer and polemicist. Jules-Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly, known as the French Walter Scott, met Beau Brummell after his escape to France. Walden here provides the first complete translation of his celebrated Brummell portrait, previously only available in Bowdlerised editions. Barbey d'Aurevilly also wrote Les Diaboliques. (Publisher: Gibson Square Books)
Vanora Bennett - The Taste of Dreams (2003)
A touchingly honest description of how she first fell in love with faraway Russia and her enduring desire to taste real caviar on the shores of the Caspian sea. But this was no romantic search for “the taste of dreams” as it might have been the days of Turgenev or Tolstoy. Bennett's years in Russia coincided with the implosion of the Soviet Union, when the mood was euphoric but highly volatile, where people partied through the night as gunshots re-echoed in the streets. Bennett is right there at every party; making friends with rogues and gangsters, students and journalists, fishermen and peasant families, as they lived through great hope and terrible tragedy. The book reverberates with their voices, offering a brilliantly constructed mosaic, with perspectives from every stratum of society and every ethnic group. But throughout, we are offered Bennett's own expositions of Russian political history, which give a lucid context to the cultural turmoil she bore witness to. (Publisher: Headline Review)
Alain de Botton - The Art of Travel (2002)
“This is a beautifully crafted book of bon mots, an elegant and unapologetically popularising blend of European intellectualism and British pragmatism... De Botton's is a particular kind of travel: Eurocentric, moneyed, aspirant, storied and studiedly intellectual, a retro-modern version of the Grand Tour. It hardly represents how most of us actually travel now. Rather, and importantly, it hints at the way we travel in our heads and in our armchairs, which is where most of us will be as we turn the pages of de Botton's book.” - Melanie McGrath, Evening Standard (Publisher: Pantheon Books)
Jean Anthelme Brillat–Savarin – The Physiology of Taste (1825)
(“Or, Meditations on Transcendental Gastronomy, theoretical work, history and further development, dedicated to Parisian gastronomes and to a professor, a member of several scholarly and literary societies”) A judge, who often worked on his magnum opus while presiding in court, Brillat-Savarin (1755-1826) coined the phrase, “You are what you eat.” He might also have added 'and how you eat, and where, and what company you choose to eat in, and what you think of whilst you eat.' This book, which meanders from ruminations on the “inconveniences of obesity”, the history of cooking, philosophical treatise on the nature of the cultural place of sustenance, belongs in no genré; an Epicurean collection of recipes; reflections and anecdotes on everything and anything gastronomical; it is perhaps best characterised as an intimate account of a man's passionate relationship with food. Continuously in print ever since its first appearance two months before Brillat–Savarin's death. (Folio Society)
J. Peter Burkholder, Donald Grout, Claude Palisca - A History of Western Music (1st ed. 1960)
The standard reference for music history from ancient times to the present day; a vivid, accessible and richly contextual view of music in western culture. Building on annual monumental revisions of each edition, Peter Burkholder has refined an inspired narrative for a new generation of students, placing people at the centre of the story. The narrative naturally focuses on the musical works, styles, genres and ideas that have proven most influential, enduring and significant - but it also encompasses a wide range of music, from religious to secular, from serious to humorous, from art music to popular music, and from Europe to the Americas. With a six-part structure emphasising the music's reception and continued influence, Burkholder's narrative establishes a social and historical context for each repertoire to reveal its legacy and its significance today. (Publisher: W. W. Norton & Co.)
Michael Carter - Fashion Classics from Carlyle to Barthes (Oxford 2003)
The serious analysis of clothing and fashion has a long history and has been the subject of intense cultural debate since the nineteenth century. This provides an interpretative overview of the groundbreaking and often idiosyncratic writings of eight theorists whose work has profoundly influenced the basis of our contemporary understanding of clothes and the fashion system. Carter fully revives early "fashion theorists" — some canonical and others less well known — and examines them in light of more recent work. From Carlyle's fantastical character Professor Teufelsdrockh, through the first Freudian analysis of clothes by J.C. Flugel, the pioneering work of Spencer, Veblen, Simmel, Kroeber, Laver and finally Barthes' monumental work on the modern fashion system, this book explores and explains the foundations of fashion theory. Not only does it provide a historical outline of Western conceptions of clothes and fashion, but it also highlights how ideas intermix and build on one another. Carter's lively narrative clearly shows that views on fashion have always been impassioned—perhaps most notably Carlyle's notorious attack on Dandyism and Veblen's suggestion that clothes should be made out of old newspaper. (Publisher: Berg Publishers)
Mel Cash BA, LCSP (Assoc) - Sport & Remedial Massage Therapy (1996)
A massage therapist since 1985, Cash has become one of the leading authorities on the subject through his books. He is principal tutor of the London School of Sports Massage and has lectured in anatomy and physiology at the University of Westminster. A definitive reference book, it covers all practical and theoretical aspects of the subject, ranging from the basics through to the treatment of soft tissue injuries and gives guidance on how to work in a support role with medical practitioners treating more serious injury. It offers innovative new ideas like 'working posture and the psychology of injury of treatment. The therapy offers effective relief for muscular problems with practical advice on how to achieve permanent solutions for better performance in sport. (Publisher: Ebury Press)
Quentin Crisp, with Donald Carroll - Doing It With Style: A Guide to Thoughtful and Stylish Living (1981)
Everyone agrees that certain people are blessed with that enviable quality called style. But what is style? And why do some people have it while others don't. Quentin Crisp and Donald Carroll, examine these questions and conclude that “style is not only definable but, more to the point, acquirable.” In fact, they say, acquiring it is much less difficult than most people imagine, because to be a person with style is simply “to be yourself, but on purpose”. (Publisher: Eyre Methuen)
Quentin Crisp – How to Go to the Movies (1988)
A veteran film-goer of seventy years who has kept a vigilant eye on changing Hollywood styles and the public tastes that follow, Mr Crisp discusses, in reviews and essays, both films and actors with his typical panache and dexterity, leading his readers with polite madness to a clear, straightforward moral, proving himself to be an unexpected champion of good sense. (Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin)
Debrett's Guide for the Modern Gentleman (2008)
Today the notion of gentlemanly behaviour is not nearly as clear-cut as it once was. The time is right to re-examine and redefine this most mercurial of definitions of masculinity, so Debrett's has assembled the essential handbook for the modern gentleman. An eclectic range of topics includes: the rules of tailoring; successful seduction; the new chivalry; classic cocktails and martinis; how to fly in style; cuisine to impress; tipping and taxis in far-flung places; and how to dress for the board room, the beach or the golf course. The compendium of masculinity is complemented by rare pearls of wisdom from resident mistress of etiquette, Miss Debrett. The book will both entertain and edify. Peruse to ensure that you are well-qualified to cut a gentlemanly and thoroughly modern dash. (Publisher: Debrett's Ltd)
George Downing - The Massage Book (1972)
Published in the original Holistic Health series, this has been continuously in print since the free-loving, swinging seventies and introduced Swedish massage to both hippie culture and safari-suited bourgeois hedonists alike. Today, as alternative treatments are being discovered by mainstream health plans, massage is still going strong. Magnificently illustrated by Anne Kent Rush, in the last twenty-five years, countless books on massage have been published, but none rivals this original. Still current and venerated, The Massage Book was listed by National Health magazine as the first of twenty-five best books that have changed our thinking about our health and our world. (Publisher: Penguin Books)
Joanne B. Eicher, Kim K. P. Johnson, Susan J. Torntore - Fashion Foundations: Early Writings on Fashion and Dress (2003)
Although it can be difficult to think of fashion in anything other than a contemporary context, as a concept it is hardly new. Costume historians trace the birth of fashion back to the thirteenth century and writings on fashion date back as early as the sixteenth century when Michel de Montaigne pondered its origins, thereby setting in motion a chain of inquiry that has continued to intrigue writers for centuries. This key text reprints classic fashion writings, all of which have had a profound if perhaps untrumpeted impact on our understanding and approach to modern day dress - from the psychology of clothes through to collective fashion trends. Why do we wear clothes? What do they say about our self-awareness and body image? How can we 'fashion' new identities through what we wear? Seminal fashion statements by Montaigne, William Hazlitt, Herbert Spencer, Thorstein B. Veblen, Adam Smith, Herbert Blumer, and Georg Simmel answer these questions and many more. This book fills a major gap in the history of the discipline and will serve as an essential teaching text for years to come. (Publisher: Berg Publishers)
Stephen Fry - The Ode Less Travelled (2006)
Fry's distinctive and marvellously readable brand of English scours all traces of tedium from the potentially dull matter of teaching metre and rhyme, while sacrificing no clemency or detail. He teaches poetry from the ground up, starting from the very beginning with the most basic of concepts, then working his way up to such esoteric forms and feet that are unlikely to be encountered more than a few times in the whole canon of English Literature - but knowing they exist imparts a satisfying completeness. This is a book with which an active part must be taken to reap the full benefit. Fry sets writing exercises, which if ignored, will miss out on pleasant personal creative surprises and may leave a shaky grasp of the concepts. Nevertheless, Fry explains his concepts thoroughly, to the extent they can be explained without question, using apt examples spanning the whole gamut of English Verse, from Chaucer (translation provided) all the way to still-living poets. (Publisher: Hutchinson)
John Fuller - Guéridon & Lamp Cookery (1975)
Since the Edwardian period flambé dishes have played an increasing role in restaurants catering for prosperous sections of society. Whether one queries the anecdote of the young commis waiter setting on fire by accident the prototype Crêpes Suzette whilst busying himself about pleasing the future Edward VII, those first little fires have spread through the world like a forest blaze. This guide has been prepared to assist professionals but in the belief that considerations of guéridon and flambé services are by no means confined solely to the largest and most luxurious establishments. (Publisher: Nelson Thornes Ltd)
Gray's Anatomy: The Anatomical Basis of Clinical Practice - Susan Standring PhD DSc
A universal landmark in medicine ever since Drs. Henry Gray and H.V. Carter published the first edition in 1858, Gray's Anatomy now celebrates its 150th anniversary! From state-of-the-art coverage of important new areas such as functional neuroimaging, embryogenesis and biomechanics... through a comprehensively revamped, lavish full-colour art program... as well as convenient access to the complete contents online, with downloadable illustrations, the new 40th Edition sets a new world standard for accuracy, clarity, and clinical relevance. It is the place to turn when you want to be sure about the anatomical considerations that pertain to safe and effective practice. (Publisher: Churchill Livingstone)
Peter Hunt - Eating & Drinking: An Anthology for Epicures (1961)
A bedside companion for the epicure. Texts from literature and history throughout the ages, accompanied by illustrations from Thurber, Searle, Toulouse-Lautrec, Cruikshank and Beardsley among others. (Publisher: Ebury Press)
Hugh Johnson - Pocket Wine Book (annual)
It is the key reference for enthusiasts, investors and collectors and this year's edition boasts up-to-date news on more than 6,000 wines, growers and regions, plus invaluable vintage information from experts around the world. A new colour supplement focuses on the array of wines from Spain, while a new section offers the reader alternative wines to try based on those they already drink. Hugh Johnson's winning formula of insight, critical appraisal of the world of wine, plus vintage news has never been bettered. (Publisher: Mitchell Beazley)
Kobbe's Complete Opera Book - Earl of Harewood & Antony Peattie (latest ed. 1997)
A guide in volume to virtually every opera the reader is likely to encounter. Kobbe's Complete Opera Book has been the opera lover's bible from its first appearance to now. In this, its seventy-fifth year, it has been subjected to the most thorough revision in its history. The New Kobbe's Opera Book has been redesigned and extended, numerous existing entries have been completely rewritten, and the book now incorporates some 200 new operas. The total number of works covered is now nearly 500, including important new works like John Adams' Nixon In China, Harrison Birtwistle's Gawain and Thomas Ades's Powder Her Face, and a number of half-forgotten works that are now undergoing revival. 46 new composers are featured. Lord Harewood's strongly individual commentaries, together with his unparalleled knowledge of and enthusiasm for opera, are complemented by substantial contributions from his co-editor Antony Peattie. (Publisher: Ebury Press)
Alison Lurie - The Language of Clothes (1983)
Even before we speak to someone in a meeting, at a party, or on the street, our clothes often express important information (or misinformation) about our occupation, origin, personality, opinions and tastes. And we pay close attention to how others dress as well; though we may not be able to put what we observe into words, we unconsciously register the information, so that when we meet and converse we have already spoken to one another in a universal tongue. Alison Lurie, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, is our savvy guide and interpreter on this tour through the history of fashion. She provides fascinating insights into how changing sex roles, political upheavals and class structure have influenced costume. Whether she is describing the enormous amount of clothing worn by early Victorian women or illuminating the significance of the long robes worn by aging men throughout history to connote eminence, her analysis is playful, clever and always on target. (Publisher: Random House)
Colin McDowell - The Literary Companion To Fashion (1995)
Drawn from letters, journals and memoirs, as well as novels, poetry and plays, covering over 400 years of writing, including British, Irish, American and European literature. (Publisher: Sinclair-Stevenson)
Prosper Montagné, Georges Auguste Escoffier, Philéas Gilbert - Larousse Gastronomique (1st ed. 1938)
The Larousse Gastronomique has moved from being an amazing French-oriented encyclopedia of gastronomy for a French audience to being a work that attempts to be more international and has gradually obscured some of its French influences. Organised alphabetically, it guides through ingredients and cooking styles to wine-producing regions and then gives accessible accounts of using appliances. The English versions have slowly developed in slightly different directions from the French ones, and it is indisputably the most renowned reference for French cooking among chefs, food lovers and writers. (Publisher: Hamlyn)
Gilles Neret - Erotica Universalis Vols I & II (1994)
Wonderfully indecent pictures from famous scribblers and anonymous talents alike. From the dawn of time, all artists of every age whether the Egyptian, Greek and Roman artists of Antiquity, or more recent famous names as Rembrandt, Courbet, Degas or Picasso have succumbed to their fantasies, obsessions and libido, producing erotic works that the censors have taken good care to keep from the public. For Erotica, we surface from the subterranean realms of the museums to enter those of our national and private libraries. We discover that not only most of our famous writers, such as Ovid, Aretino, Voltaire, Verlaine or Maupassant, wrote erotic texts that bordered on indecency, but also great artists like Boucher, Fragonard, Dali or Matisse were inspired to provide suitable illustrations for these naughty books. Gilles Neret is an art historian, journalist, writer and museum correspondent. Taschen's stated mission has been to publish innovative, beautifully designed art books at popular prices. (Publisher: Taschen)
Art Riggs - Deep Tissue Massage: A Visual Guide to Techniques (1st ed. 1980)
An extremely useful training manual continuing the education of both new practitioners and advanced therapists working in myofascial release, structural integration, Rolfing, physical therapy and other forms of bodywork. With over 225 pages, more than 250 photographs and over 50 detailed anatomy illustrations, it clearly illustrates hundreds of effective therapeutic myofascial release techniques. (Publisher: North Atlantic Books)
Douglas Sutherland - The English Gentleman, The English Gentleman's Wife, The English Gentleman's Mistress (Debrett) The English Gentleman Abroad (Burke's Peerage)
Humorous but with lashings of truth seasoning the absurdities, Mr. Sutherland is published by both bastions of all that is Right and Proper, with forewords by doughty matriarchs. A social quadrille in which church morals are for the lesser orders, The Order is maintained as long as one follows The Rules and everyone understands Their Place. (Publisher: Debrett & Burke's Peerage)
Steve Quirk - The Cocktail Bible (2010)
When needing advice of a spiritual nature, this hallowed book contains over 4,000 cocktail and mixer recipes to answer your prayers. Divided into 37 sections of major spirit and liqueur based cocktails; a quick and handy resource for your cocktail parties. There are also sections for non-alcoholic drinks, hot drinks, punches, shooters and aperitifs. All alcoholic recipes have the percentage of alcohol in a standard drink calculated. The introduction entertainingly provides readers with helpful tips on creating cocktails and mixed drinks as well as history, origin and enlightenment on each spirit. (Publisher: New Holland Publishers)
The Sotheby's Guide to Classic Wines and Their Labels - David Molyneux-Berry
A guide to recognizing, buying and drinking fine wines, this book includes a history of viniculture in each wine-making region worldwide listing each wine alphabetically. 3500 of the world's classic wines are listed with a full colour reproduction of each label. The author is head of the Wine department at Sotheby's (Publisher: Dorling Kindersley)
Harold Schonberg - The Lives of the Great Composers
This third edition of a work that has become a standard resource since its publication in 1981 includes brief but significant changes. A new chapter brings the work up to date, covering later serialists such as Stockhausen and Carter, minimalists Philip Glass and John Adams, and Alfred Schnittke and Peter Maxwell Davies. Schonberg discusses the recent phenomenal success of recordings of Gregorian chant and the search for styles of composition that combine originality and complexity with audience appeal. Women composers Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, Amy Beach, Cecile Chaminade, Ethel Smyth and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich are now included. Though each has been given only one paragraph, it is valuable to see them placed in the context of their contemporaries and their predecessors. Schonberg writes for the lay reader. His intention is to humanise the composers and the writing, always highly readable, emphasises biographical information rather than musical analysis. (Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co.)
Valerie Steele - Fashion and Eroticism: Ideals of Feminine Beauty from the Victorian era through the Jazz age (New York 1985)
The traditional image of the Victorian woman presents her as strait-laced and prudish, her clothing an outward sign of her sexual repression and exploitation. This situation supposedly persisted until the Women's Rights Movement and World War I forced the world to acknowledge that women were liberated individuals with legs. Yet Valerie steele demonstrates that eroticism formed the basis for the Victorian ideal of feminine beauty and fashion--indeed, that the concepts of beauty and fashion are essentially erotic. She shows that, far from being passive "sex objects," Victorian women, like their modern counterparts, themselves chose to emulate an erotic ideal as an aspect of their own self-fulfilment. Even the notorious corset was neither fetishistic nor an unhealthy instrument of torture, she argues, although its complex and ambivalent sexual symbolism aroused controversy. Fashion and Eroticism shows how the New Look of "sexy" modern naturally from within the pre-war world of fashion and not as part of an anti-fashion movement. Steele's conclusions are based on prodigious documentary evidence, including visual and material research, in costume collections in the United States, Great Britain, Europe, and even Japan. Fashiona and Eroticism is not only a radical revision of the Conventional understanding of Victorian fashion; it is a major contribution to the history of women and sexuality. (Publisher: Oxford University Press)
Valerie Steele - Fetish: Fashion, Sex & Power (Oxford 1996)
Kinky boots, corsets, underwear as outerwear, second-skin garments of rubber and leather, uniforms, body piercing. Today everything from a fetishist's dream appears on the fashion runways. Although some people regard fetish fashion as exploitative and misogynistic, others interpret it as a positive Amazonian statement - "couture Catwoman". But the connection between fashion and fetishism goes far beyond a few couture collections. For over 30 years, the iconography of sexual fetishism has been increasingly assimilated into popular culture. Before Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman, there was Mrs. Peel, heroine of the 1960s "The Avengers," who wore a black leather catsuit modelled on a real fetish costume. Street styles like punk and the gay "leatherman" look also testify to the influence of fetishism. This book explains how a paradigm shift in attitudes toward sex and gender has given rise to the phenomenon of fetish fashion. (Publisher: Oxford University Press)
Luca Turin & Tania Sanchez – Perfumes (2008)
Luca Turin is a man with a passionate nose, a chemist's precision and a scientist's enthusiasm for his subject. Introducing us to the abstruse chemistry and esoteric language of scent, he also proves himself to be a scintillating writer. Using plenty of adjectives, Turin shows us how to “see”, “feel” and “hear” smells. Matching words to sensation, smells become colours, emotions or music - some powerful and others fragile, these powdery and those reminiscent of Tracey Emin's unmade bed. Turin opens the doors to the closed world of the fragrance industry. Whether we think we care or not, his book cajoles us into an appreciation of the various scent molecules that swirl invisibly around us, assaulting or seducing our noses. With his wife, Tania Sanchez, Turin has teamed up to review almost 1,500 fragrances in a hefty and beautifully produced book that will perhaps do for the perfume industry what Jancis Robinson's works have done for wine. Honest perfume reviews are conspicuous by their absence. Few editors are willing to risk publishing a negative review and jeopardising the advertising money of a Gucci, Guerlain or Estée Lauder. Instead, we take our chances at the till, influenced primarily by bottle design, packaging, celebrity endorsement and the puff from publicity departments. The heart of this book lies in their reviews, often more enjoyable than even the finest food writing. (Publisher: Profile Books)
Jeni Wright & Eric Treuille - Le Cordon Bleu Complete Cooking Techniques (1996)
If you are someone who is confident in the kitchen and looking to understand some of the classic techniques and tricks of professional chefs then this book is essential. Le Cordon Bleu assumes you understand the fundamentals and proceeds to explain how to execute some more advanced cooking techniques with clear, concise guidelines. (Publisher: Cassell)
Edited Sun 8 May 11, 11:21 PM by Mad_Monk
