A ravishing celebration of a watery world.
Taking the plunge.
Gupta, an architect and educator who lives in England, showcases 50 standout pools around the world in this elegant book of photographs that are accompanied by short, insightful descriptions. Readers are treated to images of the Piscina Municipal de Montjuic, which has a commanding view of Barcelona and its pleasing earthtones, all pairing well with the calming azure water. (The pool—and more than a few bronzed bodies—are featured in singer Kylie Minogue’s “Slow” video.) Another exquisite spot, the rooftop Thermae Bath Spa in Bath, England, taps into the city’s history as a spa town. Gupta notes a nice perk: “Residents of Bath get a discount, as they are the rightful owners of the waters, as decreed by Elizabeth I.” Also in England is Repton Park, a gated community whose old chapel has been filled with water—one can float facing heavenward in the nave, admiring the vaulted ceiling overhead. Should you be in Paris, you can swim in the Art Deco Piscine Pontoise, which has the benefit of being open until midnight. (Juliette Binoche’s character avails herself of the facility’s late-night hours in Krzysztof Kieślowski’s 1993 film Three Colours: Blue.) The book features work by female architects, including Julia Morgan’s lovely Berkeley City Club pool, lined with Corinthian columns, and Zaha Hadid’s graceful Aquatics Centre in London, designed for the 2012 Olympics. A notable modern design is architect Moshe Safdie’s infinity pool at the Marina Bay Sands Hotel in Singapore (as seen in Crazy Rich Asians). The pool sits 57 stories above the city; only hotel guests are allowed, the author points out, but that hasn’t stopped outsiders from sneaking in. Many pools are pretty, but Gupta acknowledges that some have ugly pasts marked by segregationist policies. Others are emblems of privilege, private oases that show off their exclusivity. Everybody in the pool? Not quite.
A ravishing celebration of a watery world.Pub Date: May 13, 2025
ISBN: 9781797231297
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.
A coffee-table book celebrates Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion.
Illustrated with hundreds of full-color photographs, Obama’s chatty latest book begins with some school portraits from the author’s childhood in Chicago and fond memories of back-to-school shopping at Sears, then jumps into the intricacies of clothing oneself as the spouse of a presidential candidate and as the first lady. “People looked forward to the outfits, and once I got their attention, they listened to what I had to say. This is the soft power of fashion,” she says. Obama is grateful and frank about all the help she got along the way, and the volume includes a long section written by her primary wardrobe stylist, Koop—28 years old when she first took the job—and shorter sections by makeup artists and several hair stylists, who worked with wigs and hair extensions as Obama transitioned back to her natural hair, and grew out her bangs, at the end of her husband’s second term. Many of the designers of the author’s gowns, notably Jason Wu, who designed several of her more striking outfits, also contribute appreciative memories. Besides candid and more formal photographs, the volume features many sketches of her gowns by their designers, closeups on details of those gowns, and magazine covers from Better Homes & Gardens to Vogue. The author writes that as a Black woman, “I was under a particularly white-hot glare, constantly appraised for whether my outfits were ‘acceptable’ and ‘appropriate,’ the color of my skin somehow inviting even more judgment than the color of my dresses.” Overall, though, this is generally a canny, upbeat volume, with little in the way of surprising revelations.
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593800706
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
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