Now We Sample the Season's Picture Books ...

Posters for the People: Art of the WPA by Ennis Carter reprints illustrations created at a time of genuine crisis by artists on the federal payroll to promote the goals of Roosevelt’s New Deal. The result was heroic imagery, challenging 1930s Americans to participate in the public good (“Are you doing your part?”) in ways we may hear again after Inauguration Day.

The Phaidon Atlas of 21st Century World Architecture is a monumental (18-x-12 3/8 inches) survey of the new century’s most adventurous 1,037 buildings across 89 countries. Big enough to require a carrying case (if not its own room), the Atlas includes maps charting population growth, carbon footprints and national wealth. Spread across oversized pages are photos and floor plans for radical new public and private spaces, from the elegant curves of a Qantas lounge at Sydney Airport to the massive steel latticework of China’s National Stadium. Closer to home, L.A. Modern presents vivid color photographs by Tim Street-Porter of forward-looking homes built in the city since Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House was completed in 1920.

Pure Country: The Leon Kagarise Archives, 1961-1971 by Robert Gordon, Text By Eddie Dean

Frezno by Tony Stamolis

Breakdowns: Portrait Of The Artist As A Young %@&*! by Art Spiegelman

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More About

• Zoe Strauss
• Carlos Gallegos
• Tony Stamolis
• Visual Arts
• World War II

Life during wartime was never depicted with more clarity than in Bill Mauldin’s World War II–era strip Willie & Joe. His invention of the grumbling, world-weary dogfaces eclipsed nearly everything he did as an editorial cartoonist afterward. Willie & Joe: The WWII Years collects every known panel of Mauldin’s famous comics series in a two-volume Army-green slipcased edition. Art Spiegelman has hardly done better escaping his own acclaimed comics creation, the Holocaust graphic novel Maus, but the collected autobiographical strips in Breakdowns: Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@&*! offer some fascinating and hilarious self-analysis, expanded with a new introduction and afterword. Another comics milestone was Daniel Clowes’ Ghost World, just reissued in a “special edition” that collects the original graphic novel, the shooting script from the 2001 film adaptation, early sketches, alternate covers, source materials, merchandising of Enid dolls, and other random bits and pieces to help you celebrate one more singular, inspiring vision between hardcovers.

AMERICA | By Zoe Strauss | AMMO | 192 pages | $30 hardcover

FREZNO | By Tony Stamolis | Process | 136 pages | $30 hardcover

WE ARE EXPERIENCED | Photographs by Danielle Levitt | Miss Rosen Editions/powerHouse | 144 pages | $55 hardcover

ANNIE LEIBOVITZ AT WORK | By Annie Leibovitz | Random House | 240 pages | $40 hardcover

PURE COUNTRY: THE LEON KAGARISE ARCHIVES, 1961-1971 | Foreword by Robert Gordon, text by Eddie Dean | Process | 204 pages | $35 hardcover

I AM MY FAMILY: PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORIES AND FICTIONS | By Rafael Goldchain | Princeton Architectural Press | 168 pages | $40 hardcover

RELICS & RELIQUARIES | By Jeffrey Vallance | Grand Central Press | 176 pages | $40 hardcover

MYTHTYM | Edited by Trinie Dalton | Picturebox | 204 pages | $30 hardcover

DOPE MENACE | By Stephen J. Gertz | Feral House | 254 pages | $25 hardcover

POSTERS FOR THE PEOPLE: ART OF THE WPA | By Ennis Carter | Quirk | 224 pages | $50 hardcover

THE PHAIDON ATLAS OF 21st CENTURY WORLD ARCHITECTURE | Phaidon Press | 800 pages $195 hardcover

L.A. MODERN | Photographs and text by Tim Street-Porter | Rizzoli | 248 pages | $75 hardcover

WILLIE & JOE: THE WWII YEARS | By Bill Mauldin | Fantagraphics | 600 pages | $65 hardcover

BREAKDOWNS: PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG %@&*! | By Art Spiegelman | Pantheon | 36 pages | $28 hardcover

GHOST WORLD: SPECIAL EDITION | By Daniel Clowes | Fantagraphics | 288 pages | $40 hardcover