Art & Photo Gifts from Chronicle Books

With the holidays just a few shopping days away, we've gathered together a little inspiration for the art aficionados, design fans, and photography lovers on your list.

Plus, as a special thank you for subscribing to our Art & Design e-newsletter, receive 20% off of your orders for the rest of 2008! Just enter promo code PHOTO at checkout.

Happy Holidays from all of us at Chronicle Books!

Design Books

Highlighted in O The Oprah Magazine as a book "destined to become a classic," Ron Woodson and Jaime Rummerfield's new design tome, High Style, is a triumph of daring, vibrant taste. Its practical aspects are helpful, of course, but Mayer Rus of the Los Angeles Times Magazine is "into it for the glamour and sex appeal, of which it has plenty."

Manufractured: The Conspicuous Transformation of Everyday Objects is "a new kind of 'green' book," says the San Francisco Chronicle's Zahid Sardar, describing "the rapid resurgence of craft, particularly during the past decade when wasteful, abundant manufactured objects began to be redeployed as raw materials for new crafts."

Golden Gate Bridge: The History and Design of an Icon provides "everything you ever wanted to know about the Golden Gate Bridge but never thought to ask," San Francisco Chronicle.

In the tradition of his best-selling Manhattan Unfurled and Manhattan Within, artist Matteo Pericoli employs his signature illustration style to render the world's great buildings in a single fantastical skyline in the newly released World Unfurled.

Photography Books

Photographer David Maisel's Library of Dust "may well be this year's most haunting book of images," according to the New York Times – The Best Gift Books of 2008. "Mr. Maisel's book is a fevered meditation on memory, loss and the uncanny monuments we sometimes recover about what has gone before."

Manuel Alvarez Bravo: Photopoetry is a stunningly beautiful collection of photographs created by Mexico's most respected photographer. With images of Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Carlos Fuentes, and Octavio Paz as well as landscapes, still lifes and rural and urban scenes, this book is the first major retrospective of Bravo's iconic photographs.

The Chicago Sun Times describes Shall We Dance as a collection of "150 kinetically-charged color photographs that take you from square dance gatherings to tango and ballroom studios, from Las Vegas showgirls and chorus line dancers to hip-hop masters, from Native American ceremonies and Mexican folk dance ensembles, and then back to the meticulous moves of the Alvin Ailey dancers, the members of Pilobolus and the Rockettes."

Ailey Ascending: A Portrait in Motion is "a collection of Andrew Eccles's splendid photos of the dancers in the legendary Alvin Ailey dance troupe [that] will intensify your admiration for the astonishing capabilities of the body—onstage and off..." O The Oprah Magazine, December 2008.

Clint Eastwood's metamorphosis from Beefcake model to revered filmmaker and actor is captured in this third book in Chronicle's Life in Pictures series. Other books in the series feature Paul Newman and Marilyn Monroe.

"Stretching across the page like bands of sheer beauty, Stuart Klipper's panoramic photos of Antarctica seem to have found a form perfectly suited to this awe-inspiring region" in the book The Antarctic: From the Circle to the Pole, O The Oprah Magazine, December 2008.

Inside Iran and Inside North Korea feature photographer Mark Edward Harris' images of two countries that are perhaps more open and interesting than we have been led to believe by the mainstream media.

Jona Frank's Right: Portraits from the Evangelical Ivy League sheds light on the inner-workings of life at Patrick Henry College—the higher education institution of choice among serious-minded, politically far-right young men and women, with good family values and perfect SAT scores, who are intent on entering the political and entertainment industry power elite.

I Was Cuba is the perfect gift book for anyone with an interest in or fascination with this beautiful country. It is a collection of photographs that vividly conveys the history and the culture of a country which is only 90 miles away from us, yet radically different in both its past and its present. It is not a photo book to look at once and put away on the shelf; one is constantly drawn to look at it again, and reconsider what is going on in each picture.

The timeless and awe-inspiring quality of Debra Bloomfield's hypnotic photographs provides a visual map of the powerful interplay between sea and sky. Still: Oceanscapes by Debra Bloomfield is a stunning collection of over 60 images by this internationally respected photographer.

The stunning landscape photography in Lake Tahoe: A Fragile Beauty explores Tahoe's timeless beauty, rich history, and universal appeal. It also conveys the challenges of protecting the area's extraordinary character and our responsibility to understand and care for this unique jewel.

Ichthyo: The Architecture of Fish is a mesmerizingly beautiful collection of amazingly detailed images that reveal the hidden wonders of the creatures of the deep.

In Jo Whaley's photographs, art and science come together in a seamless partnership in Theater of Insects. Butterflies, beetles, dragonflies, and other colorful insects take center stage in this beautiful collection.

Fine Art Books

New York-based painter Harvey Dinnerstein creates hauntingly penetrating portraits. Underground Together: The Life and Art of Harvey Dinnerstein is the first career-spanning monograph of his work.

"Wolfgang Bloch's work is sublime and terribly romantic," says Bolton Colburn, Director, Laguna Art Museum. His new book Wolfgang Bloch: The Colors of Coincidence is a creative collaboration between three people who share a deep-seated passion for art and the ocean—Bloch himself, design legend David Carson, and author Mike Stice, and is a perfect gift for anyone who loves the ocean.