CNPIEC Bookstore book listing

The China National Publication Import and Export Corporation’s (CNPIEC) bookstore recommends these new arrivals to Beijing Today readers.

Seeing Things: From Shakespeare to Pixar

By Alan Ackerman, 192pp, University of Toronto Press, $50

A technological revolution has changed the way we see things. The storytelling media employed by Pixar Animation Studios, Samuel Beckett and William Shakespeare differ greatly, yet these creators share a collective fascination with the nebulous boundary between material objects and our imaginative selves.

Vonnegut and Hemingway: Writers at War

By Lawrence Broer, 240pp, University of South Carolina Press, $39.95

In this comparative study of Kurt Vonnegut and Ernest Hemingway, Lawrence Broer maps the striking intersections of biography and artistry in the works of both writers and compares the ways in which they blend life and art.

Truman Capote and the Legacy of “In Cold Blood”

By Ralph F. Voss, 264pp, University Alabama Press, $34.95

This book is the anatomy of the origins of an American literary landmark and its legacy. Ralph F. Voss examines Truman Capote and In Cold Blood, not only as the crowning achievement of Capote’s career, but also a story in itself, focusing on Capote’s artfully composed text, his extravagant claims for it as reportage and its larger status in American popular culture.

(By He Jianwei)

CNPIEC Bookstore book listing

The China National Publication Import and Export Corporation’s (CNPIEC) bookstore recommends these new arrivals to Beijing Today readers.

John Byrne: Art and Life

By Robert Hewison, 144pp, Lund Humphries, 375 yuan

This is the first monograph to explore Byrne’s artistic journey in both the visual and literary fields, and celebrates his contribution to contemporary Scottish cultural identity. A prolific painter, illustrator and print-maker, Byrne boasts a range of works held in prestigious public collections such as The National Gallery of Art, Edinburgh. Including a valuable catalog of Byrne’s prints,  Hewison’s highly readable text provides a chronological, critical account of the work and life of the artist.

Falcon Seven

By James Huston, 560pp, St. Martin’s Paperbacks, 70 yuan

A Navy F/A-18 fighter jet gets shot down over Pakistan and its two pilots are tried as war criminals in James Huston’s latest blend of legal and political thrillers. Jack Caskey, a Navy Seal turned defense attorney, is asked to represent the pilots in a court case being heard in The Hague at the International Criminal Court.

Steve Jobs

By Walter Isaacson, 656pp, Simon & Schuster, 180 yuan

Based on more than 40 interviews with Steve Jobs conducted during two years, as well as interviews with more than 100 family members, friends, adversaries, competitors and colleagues, Walter Isaacson has written a riveting story of the roller-coaster life and intense personality of a creative entrepreneur.

(By He Jianwei)

CNPIEC Bookstore book listing

The China National Publication Import and Export Corporation’s (CNPIEC) bookstore recommends these new arrivals to Beijing Today readers.

Bunny Williams’ Scrapbook for Living

By Bunny Williams, 224pp, Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 439 yuan

Bunny Williams is famous for her glamorous design and attention to detail in her clients’ homes. She takes the reader through several homes, room by room, showing creative ways to organize and add personal touches. From dining rooms to lighting and pets, she empowers the reader with her practical and inspiring tips for making a house a home.

Thin, Rich, Pretty

By Beth Harbison, 368pp, Griffin, 105 yuan

Twenty years ago, when they were teenagers, Holly and Nicola were the outsiders at summer camp. Holly was the plump one, a dreamer who longed to be an artist. Nicola was the shy, plain one who wanted nothing more than to be beautiful. Their cabin nemesis was Lexi, rich, spoiled and evil. One night, Holly and Nicola team up to pull one, daring act of vengeance. But they never dream that this one act will have repercussions that will reach into the future, even 20 years later. And they never realize the secret pain that Lexi holds very close, and how their need for revenge costs Lexi much.

Italian Mosaics: 300-1300

By Joachim Poeschke, 432pp, Abbeville Press, 1,050 yuan

This book is the first comprehensive and well-researched overview of the many examples of the art that still survive. This volume focuses on early Christian and medieval mosaics in Italy. Each of 19 chapters offers a descriptive and interpretive essay on all aspects of mosaics covering the artists and their patrons in the context of their cultural and political history.

(By He Jianwei)

CNPIEC Bookstore book listing

The China National Publication Import and Export Corporation’s (CNPIEC) bookstore recommends these new arrivals to Beijing Today readers.

Into the Night

By Janelle Denison, 352pp, St. Martin’s, 70 yuan

Nathan Fox is a former marine and Las Vegas vice cop. Heading up security for the Onyx Casino is tame compared to his past, but it is not his only job. Working for the Reliance Group is his real passion. His current mission is to find a missing woman, but he must deal with a stubborn and stunning journalist who has nosed her way into the investigation.

Art of Jaime Hernandez: The Secrets of Life and Death

By Todd Hignite, 275pp, Abrams Comic Arts, 275 yuan

In 1981, two Mexican-American brothers Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez self-published their first comic book, Love and Rockets, which changed American cartooning with its appealing characters and skilled storytelling. J. Hernandez’s moving stories chronicle the lives of some of the most memorable and fully formed characters. His female protagonists, delineated with humor, candor and breathtaking realism, come to life within California’s Mexican-American culture and punk milieu.

The Prints of John Piper: Quality and Experiment

By John Piper, 232pp, Lund Humphries Pub, 1,700 yuan

First published in 1987 and reissued in 1996 following Piper’s death, the book has been updated for this new edition, incorporating a new essay by David Fraser Jenkins on Piper’s experimental prints of the mid-1960s; a new introduction by Orde Levinson; an up-to-date bibliography and expanded lists of designs, exhibitions, illustrations and public collections; unseen archival photographs; and a completely updated page-design, as well as standard indexes of prints, portfolios, printers and publishers and incorrect titles.

(By He Jianwei)

CNPIEC Bookstore book listing

The China National Publication Import and Export Corporation’s (CNPIEC) bookstore recommends these new arrivals to Beijing Today readers.

Have You Seen Her

By Karen Rose, 512pp, Forever, $4.99

Special Agent Steven Thatcher has a lot on his hands. Not only is there a serial killer on the prowl at local high schools, but Thatcher’s teenage son Brad is suddenly acting up and failing in school. His schoolteacher, Jenna Marshall, is also worried about Brad. As their conversations about the troubled teen increase and grow more intimate, Jenna and Steven soon find they are falling for each other, though they tread cautiously as both carry hidden wounds of their own.

Clean Kill: A Sniper Novel

By Jack Coughlin, 416pp, St. Martin’s Paperbacks, $9.99

Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and the Israeli Foreign Minister are scheduled to sign a historic peace treaty … until their meeting is interrupted by a missile strike that leaves the minister dead and the prince injured. Gunnery Sergeant Kyle Swanson is running covert missions in the mountains of Pakistan when he is immediately called to the UK, where he thwarts another attempt on the Saudi prince’s life.

Marketing Managementin China

By Philip Kotler, Kevin Lane Keller and Lu Taihong, 736pp, Pearson Education, $139.15

This landmark work of marketing gurus Philip Kotler and Kevin Lane Keller comes to China for the first time. The edition, adapted by Professor Lu Taihong of Zhongshan University, takes a journey into a truly Chinese vista of marketing management. This adaptation provides hard-to-find domestic cases that offer insights while covering a wide variety of contexts, spanning international companies operating in China to Chinese companies that are beginning to venture overseas.

(By He Jianwei)

CNPIEC Bookstore book listing

The China National Publication Import and Export Corporation’s (CNPIEC) bookstore recommends these art books to Beijing Today readers.

Engaging the Moving Image
By Noel Carroll, 448pp, Yale University Press, 128 yuan
Carroll, a philosopher of film, gathers in this book 18 of his recent essays on cinema and television, discussing topics such as film attention, the emotional address of the moving image, film and racism, the nature and epistemology of documentary film, the moral status of television, the concept of film style, the foundations of film evaluation, the film theory of Siegfried Kracauer and films by Sergei Eisenstein and Yvonne Rainer. Carroll also assesses the state of contemporary film theory and speculates on its prospects.

Culture and Values: A Survey of the Humanities, Comprehensive Edition
By Lawrence S. Cunningham and John J. Reich, 696pp, Wadsworth Publishing, 880 yuan
This book gives readers a solid introduction to art, music, philosophy and literature traditions of the world. The authors cover traditions in the humanities, including an entire chapter on Islamic art.

The Judgment of Paris: The Revolutionary Decade that Gave the World Impressionism
By Ross King, 464pp, Walker & Company, 190 yuan
While the Civil War raged in America, another revolution took shape across the Atlantic in the studios of Paris. Artists who would make impressionism the most popular art form in history were showing their first paintings amidst scorn and derision from the French artistic establishment. Indeed, no artistic movement has ever been quite so controversial. The drama of its birth, played out on canvas and against the backdrop of the Franco-Prussian War and the Commune, would at times resemble a battlefield on which they reordered history and culture.

(By He Jianwei)

CNPIEC Bookstore book listing

The China National Publication Import and Export Corporation’s (CNPIEC) bookstore recommends these new arrivals to Beijing Today readers.

Southern Light
By Danielle Steel, 416pp, Random House, 55 yuan
Eleven years have passed since Alexa Hamilton left the South behind, fleeing the pain of her ex-husband’s betrayal and the cruelty of his prominent Charleston family. Now she is a top prosecutor and the single mother of a 17-year-old daughter. But everything changes when her daughter begins receiving threatening letters soon after taking a new case.

Charlie St. Cloud
By Ben Sherwood, 320pp, Bantam, 55 yuan
In a snug New England fishing village, Charlie St. Cloud tends the lawns and monuments of an ancient cemetery where his younger brother, Sam, is buried. After surviving the car accident that claimed his brother’s life, Cloud is graced with an extraordinary gift: He can see, talk to and even play catch with Sam’s spirit. Into this magical world comes Tess Carroll, a captivating woman training for a solo sailing trip around the globe. Fate steers her boat into a treacherous storm that propels her into Cloud’s life.

Mirror of the World: A New History of Art
By Julian Bell, 496pp, Thames & Hudson, 428 yuan
Bell tells a vivid and compelling history of human artistic achievements, from prehistoric stone carvings to the latest video installations. He uses a variety of objects to reveal how art is a product of our shared experience and how, like a mirror, it can reflect the human condition.

(By He Jianwei)

CNPIEC Bookstore book listing

The China National Publication Import and Export Corporation’s (CNPIEC) bookstore recommends these new arrivals to Beijing Today readers.

“Girl, Colored” and Other Stories
Edited by Judith Musser, 471pp, McFarland, $75
As the official magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, The Crisis is one of the longest running African American journals in the history of American publishing. This anthology collects all its short stories written by African American women during the magazine’s first century of publication. The collection offers a historical, literary and cultural perspective on the lives of African American women from the Harlem Renaissance to the present.

Above the Fall Line: The Trail from White Pine Cabin
By Amy Blackmarr, 162pp, Mercer University Press, $25
Blackmarr returns to her native Georgia as a “refugee,” fleeing a bleak Kansas winter, the trauma of graduate school and a “loss of identity, confidence, boyfriend and best dog and pride.” Now White Pine Cabin, a hut barely big enough to turn around in, becomes the setting for Blackmarr’s searing self-examination as she tells the stories that have led her so far inward and works out a trail back toward a happier connection with herself, the land, her God and the people in her world.

Conversations With Tom Robbins
Edited by Liam O. Purdon and beef Torrey, 240pp, University Press of Mississippi, $22
Since the publication of Another Roadside Attraction in 1971, Robbins has become known as the principal voice of American countercultural fiction. This book brings together more than 20 interviews with the acclaimed author, from the mid-1970s to the present, discussing his working methods, his fusion of Eastern and Western philosophical traditions, the need for wit and humor in serious fiction, and the ways living in the Pacific Northwest has fueled his work.

CNPIEC Bookstore book listing

The China National Publication Import and Export Corporation’s (CNPIEC) bookstore recommends these new arrivals to Beijing Today readers.

The Story of Art
By E. H. Gombrich, 688pp, Phaidon, 299 yuan
Renowned not only as the most concise introduction to art history but also as a classic of art historical literature, this book reflects the vast knowledge, insights and expertise of one of the 20th century’s greatest art historians and thinkers. Extensively illustrated, it treats the history of art – both chronologically and geographically – as a continuous unfolding story.

Michael Jackson: Number Ones
By Michael Jackson, 127pp, Alfred Publishing Company, 209 yuan
Michael Jackson’s album, Number Ones, features a new single, “One More Chance.” There are 17 more songs on the album and they are among Jackson’s top hits. Alfred Music Publishing presents this greatest hits matching songbook that features stunning full-color photos of Michael and piano, vocal and guitar arrangements of all 18 songs.

The Philistine Controversy
By Dave Beech and John Roberts, 288pp, Verso, 99 yuan
Conventionally, the philistine is assumed to have no appreciation of art and culture. But in this fascinating re-evaluation of its excluded identity, Dave Beech and John Roberts address the philistine not as an empirical phenomenon but as a relational category that operates between art and anti-art, aesthetics and anti-aesthetics, arguing that the philistine cuts to the core of art in a divided culture.

(By He Jianwei)

CNPIEC Bookstore book listing

The China National Publication Import and Export Corporation’s (CNPIEC) bookstore recommends these new arrivals to Beijing Today readers.

You: Being Beautiful
By Michael F. Roizen and Mehmet C. Oz, 432pp, Free Press, 140 yuan
Most people think beauty revolves around lipstick, sweet eyes or skinny jeans ?what we can see in the mirror. But beauty is not some superficial pursuit, and it is not some random act for which you can thank or curse your ancestors. There are scientific standards to beauty. Beauty is purposeful, because it is how humans have historically communicated who we are to potential mates: it is about your health and happiness.

Not Another Bad Date
By Rachel Gibson, 384pp, Avon, 65 yuan
The author focuses on a familiar dilemma: how to end bad luck in love. At 35, successful novelist Adele Harris has had it with losers who make fun of her fat ass. She feels cursed ?and she was, by old rival Devon Hamilton Zemaitis, who stole Harris’ first love, football star Zach Zemaitis. When Devon dies following an accident, she must remove the curse tht is preventing Harris’ happiness so she can go to heaven.

Chill Factor
By Sandra Brown, 416pp, Pocket, 90 yuan
Cleary, North Carolina, is a sleepy mountain town ?the kind of place where criminal activity is usually limited to parking violations. Not so, lately. Four women have disappeared from Cleary over the past two years. And there is always a blue ribbon left near the spot where each was last seen. There are no bodies, no clues and no suspects. And now, another woman has disappeared without a trace.

(By He Jianwei)