Enfilade

From Chronicle Books:

Nicole Tersigni, Parenting Advice to Ignore in Art and Life (New York: Chronicle Books, 2023), 96 pages, ISBN: ‎978-1797222172, $15.

From the author of the hit Men to Avoid in Art and Life and Friends to Keep in Art and Life comes a collection of all-too-familiar unsolicited advice parents receive on the daily.

From in-laws and other parents to complete strangers and even your own kids—when it comes to parenting, everyone’s a critic. Against the classic backdrop of fine art, bestselling author Nicole Tersigni’s Parenting Advice to Ignore in Art and Life pokes fun at the many ‘experts’ who think they know more than you about your own children. Utterly (and unfortunately) relatable and hilarious as ever, Tersigni’s spot-on captions provide a much-needed laugh for anyone who has had the pleasure of parenting and the pain of having a stranger tell you to put a hat on your baby.

Nicole Tersigni is a comedic writer experienced in improv comedy and women’s advocacy. She lives in Metro Detroit with her husband, daughter, and two dogs.

Several chapters address 18th-century topics, including extra-illustration, as seen through the work of Alexander and Charlotte Sutherland. From Hachette Book Group:

Adam Smyth, The Book-Makers: A History of the Book in Eighteen Lives (New York: Basic Books, 2024), 400 pages, ISBN: ‎978-1541605640, £25 / $32.

A scholar and bookmaker “breathes both books-as-objects and their creators back into life” (Financial Times) in this five-hundred-year history of printed books, told through the people who created them

Books tell all kinds of stories—romances, tragedies, comedies—but if we learn to read the signs correctly, they can tell us the story of their own making too. The Book-Makers offers a new way into the story of Western culture’s most important object, the book, through dynamic portraits of eighteen individuals who helped to define it. Books have transformed humankind by enabling authors to create, document, and entertain. Yet we know little about the individuals who brought these fascinating objects into existence and of those who first experimented in the art of printing, design, and binding. Who were the renegade book-makers who changed the course of history? From Wynkyn de Worde’s printing of fifteenth-century bestsellers to Nancy Cunard’s avant-garde pamphlets produced on her small press in Normandy, this is a celebration of the book with the people put back in.

Adam Smyth is professor of English literature and the history of the book at Balliol College, University of Oxford. He is a regular contributor to the London Review of Books and the TLS. He also runs the 39 Steps Press, a small printing press, which he keeps in a barn in Oxfordshire, England.

First published in hardcover in 2021, it was released in paperback last fall. From Hachette Book Group:

Andrew Pettegree and Arthur der Weduwen, The Library: A Fragile History (New York: Basic Books, 2021), 528 pages, ISBN: ‎978-1541600775 (hardcover), $35 / ISBN: ‎978-1541603721 (paperback), $22.

The ‘engaging’ and ‘ambitious’ (Washington Post) history of libraries and the people who built them, from the ancient world to the digital age

The history of the library is rich, varied, and stuffed full of incident. In The Library, historians Andrew Pettegree and Arthur der Weduwen introduce us to the antiquarians and philanthropists who shaped the world’s great collections, trace the rise and fall of literary tastes, and reveal the high crimes and misdemeanors committed in pursuit of rare manuscripts. In doing so, they reveal that while collections themselves are fragile, often falling into ruin within a few decades, the idea of the library has been remarkably resilient as each generation makes—and remakes—the institution anew.

Andrew Pettegree is professor of modern history at the University of St. Andrews and a leading expert on the history of book and media transformations.
Arthur der Weduwen is a British Academy postdoctoral fellow at the University of St. Andrews.

From Brepols:

Katherine Jean McHale, Ingenious Italians: Immigrant Artists in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Turnhout: Brepols, 2024), 344 pages, ISBN: 978-1915487179, €175.

Explores the lives of the nearly two hundred Italian artists who made the arduous journey to Britain, adapting to a foreign culture while using their renowned skills and entrepreneurial abilities, inspiring and instructing indigenous artists as they enriched the culture of their new country

This book fills a significant gap in the literature on eighteenth-century art in Britain. Although immigrant Italian artists played a crucial role in the development of Britain’s expanding art world over the course of that century, they have been largely overlooked in books on both British and Italian art. When mentioned in works on eighteenth-century British art, Italian artists are regarded as bit players who were tangential to the art world. Ingenious Italians seeks to correct this view, demonstrating the critical role played by immigrants who brought their skills and talents to a new country. In Britain, they established networks of Italian and British colleagues, cultivated new patrons, and created innovative works for a growing market. In doing so, they influenced the development of art in British society. This little-explored facet of art history in Britain presents readers with a new perspective from which to consider the art of the era, highlighting the important work contributed by Italian artists in Britain. The book also contains an appendix of biographical information on the Italian artists working in Britain throughout the eighteenth century.

Katherine Jean McHale received her PhD from the University of St Andrews in 2018, after a thirty-year career as a lawyer. Her thesis, the basis for this book, continued her masters’ research at Hunter College, New York City, exploring the intersection between eighteenth-century Italian and British art. Her articles have been published in Master Drawings, Dieciocho, The British Art Journal, and The Georgian Group Journal.