12.31.04
The Editors | Essays

2004 Book Recommendations

The Editors of Design Observer present their book recommendations for the 2004 calendar year.



Arnold Band
Had Gadya: El Lissitzky's Edition of 1919
Getty Trust Publications, 2004



Joel Bakan
The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power
Free Press, 2004



Morris Berman
The Twilight of American Culture
Norton, 2001



Nicholas Blechman
Empire: Nozone IX
Princeton Architectural Press, 2004



Barbara Bloemink
Design Is Not Equal to Art: Functional Objects from Donald Judd to Rachel Whiteread
Merrell, 2004



Robert Bringhurst
The Solid Form Of Language
Gaspereau Press, 2004



James Elkins
What Happened to Art Criticism?
Prickly Paradigm Press, 2003



Emigre No. 66
Nudging Graphic Design
Princeton Architectural Press, 2004



Emigre No. 67
Graphic Design vs. Style
Princeton Architectural Press, 2004



Emigre No. 68
American Mutt Barks in the Yard
Princeton Architectural Press, 2005



Naomi Games
Abram Games Graphic Designer: Maximum Meaning, Minimum Means
Princeton Architectural Press, 2003



John Gray
Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals
Granta Books, 2004



Katharine Harmon
You Are Here: Personal Geographies and Other Maps of the Imagination
Princeton Architectural Press, 2003



Steven Heller & Mirko Ilíc
Handwritten: Expressive Lettering in the Digital Age
Thames & Hudson , 2004



Francois Jullien
In Praise of Blandness: Proceeding from Chinese Thought and Aesthetics
MIT Press / Zone Books, 2004



Mark Lombardi
Global Networks
Independent Curators, 2003


George Monbiot
Manifesto for a New World Order
New Press, 2004



Simon Morley
Writing on the Wall: Word and Image in Modern Art
University of California Press, 2003



Susan Neville
Fabrication: Essays on Making Things and Making Meaning
MacAdam/Cage Publishing, 2001



Franc Nunoo-Quarcoo
Paul Rand: Modernist Design
University of Maryland, 2003



David Owen
Copies in Seconds: The Birth of the Xerox Machine
Simon & Schuster, 2004



Alissa Quart
Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers
Basic Books, 2004



Roger Remington
American Modernism: Graphic Design 1920-1960
Yale University Press, 2003



Margit Rowell
Cotton Puffs, Q-Tips, Smoke and Mirrors: The Drawings of Edward Ruscha
Whitney Museum, 2004



Susan Sontag
Regarding the Pain of Others
Picador, 2004



Art Spieglman
In the Shadow of No Towers
Pantheon, 2004



Elka Spoerri
The Art of Adolf Wölfli
Princeton University Press, 2003



John Stilgoe
Shallow Water Dictionary
Princeton Architectural Press, 2004



Steve Tomasula + Stephen Farrell
Vas: An Opera In Flatland
University of Chicago Press. 2004



Lynne Truss
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
Gotham Books, 2004



Lawrence Weschler
Vermeer in Bosnia: Cultural Comedies and Political Tragedies
Pantheon, 2004







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