Reading Suggestions: Factual Part 1

C.L.R. James' The Black Jacobins. Republished 1963

The book examines the Haitian (San Domingo) Revolution of 1791-1803. Throughout the book, James takes an original look at revolution by analyzing revolutionary potential and progress according to economic and class distinctions, rather than racial distinctions


Darrel Ree's How to be an Illustrator. Published 2008

This book explains how to avoid the pitfalls that can ruin a career, with advice on crucial first impressions, how to create a portfolio and approach clients, how to negotiate contracts, and how to handle, deliver and bill the first job. It discusses setting up a studio, maintaining a steady flow of work and managing time and money, and provides information on successful self-promotion, self-publishing and the pros and cons of agents


Douglas Wolk's Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean. Published 2007

A serious, readable, provocative, canon-smashing book of comics criticism by the leading critic in the field.
Suddenly, comics are everywhere: a newly matured art form, filling bookshelves with brilliant, innovative work and shaping the ideas and images of the rest of contemporary culture. In Reading Comics, critic Douglas Wolk shows us why this is and how it came to be.

Wolk illuminates the most dazzling creators of modern comics — from Alan Moore to Alison Bechdel to Dave Sim to Chris Ware — and introduces a critical theory that explains where each fits into the pantheon of art. Reading Comics is accessible to the hardcore fan and the curious newcomer; it is the first book for people who want to know not just what comics are worth reading, but also the ways to think and talk and argue about them.


Lawrence Zeegan's Digital Illustration: A Master Class in Creative Image-making. Published 2005


Lawrence Zeegan's Secrets of Digital Illustration: A Master Class in Commercial Image-Making. Published 2007


London A - Z


Mike Davis' City of Quartz. Published 1990

The book is a Marxist historical, economic, and cultural dissection of Los Angeles, its residents and their lifestyles and their interactions with real estate developers. Davis contrasts the campaigners for 'slow growth' with the needs of minorities living on the margins and the never ending growth of Los Angeles with environmental considerations. Given its origin as a Ph.D. dissertation, the book is well-annotated.

Davis' unique approach to authoring City of Quartz can be considered a chief factor in the book's widespread appeal, and the very large influence it has had on urban studies since its authorship.


Miles Davis and Quincy Troupe's Miles, the Autobiography. Published 1990

This book holds nothing back. For the first time Miles talks about his five-year silence. He speaks frankly and openly about his drug problem and how he overcame it. He condemns the racism he has encountered in the music business and in American society generally. And he discusses the women in his life. But above all, Miles talks about music and musicians, including the legends he has played with over the years: Bird, Dizzy, Monk, Trane, Mingus, and many others.

The man who has given us some of the most exciting music of the past few decades has now given us a compelling and fascinating autobiography, featuring a concise discography and thirty-two pages of photographs.


Patricia J. Williams 1997 Reith Lecture 'Seeing A Colour-Blind Future'. Published 1998

In these five eloquent and passionate pieces (which she gave as the prestigious Reith Lectures for the BBC) Patricia J. Williams asks how we might achieve a world where "color doesn't matter"--where whiteness is not equated with normalcy and blackness with exoticism and danger. Drawing on her own experience, Williams delineates the great divide between "the poles of other people's imagination and the nice calm center of oneself where dignity resides," and discusses how it might be bridged as a first step toward resolving racism. Williams offers us a new starting point--"a sensible and sustained consideration"--from which we might begin to deal honestly with the legacy and current realities of our prejudices.


Paul Gravett's Graphic Novels: Everything you need to know. Published 2005

Once stereotyped as the preserve of improbably dressed superhumans with world-saving tendencies, in recent years graphic novels have become one of today’s most exciting art forms, taking on the world we live in and reflecting it back to us in a thousand different ways. All of human experience is here, from teenage girlfriends alienated in suburbia to a desperate housewife’s search for passion, brought to life with insight, imagination and page-turning narrative. This is the perfect companion to the world of graphic novels, whether you’re a novice uncertain where to start or an enthusiast eager to discover more. In a series of interlinked chapters, Paul Gravett introduces the masterpieces of the medium and helps readers explore its treasures, from the rich, mysterious textures of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman to Marjane Satrapi’s vivid memories of her Iranian childhood in Persepolis.


Roger Sabin's Comics, Comix & Graphic Novels: A History of Comic Art. Published 1996

Comics, Comix & Graphic Novels is the first fully documented study to explore the graphic qualities of the comic book, and the development of the genre into a sophisticated and culturally revealing popular art form. The book traces the history of the comic from early cartoon-like woodcuts through to the graphic strips of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Organized thematically, it explores the various genres of the comic book, including humour, adventure, girls' comics, underground and alternative. The careers of the creators of the best-known characters -- from Superman and Tintin to Tank Girl -- are revealed, as are the stories behind much-loved comics such as The Beano and The Incredible Hulk. The most recent artists are also illustrated and discussed, including Harvey Kurtzman (Mad), Chris Donald (Viz), Art Spiegelman (Maus) and Katsuhiro Otomo (Akira).