Here are 100 books that What People Wore When fans have personally recommended if you like
What People Wore When.
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I believe stories to be our species’ instinctual tool for discovering our best selves. Sometimes those stories are about real people in the past, sometimes they’re completely imagined people in the future — sometimes we even swap out the humans for animals or aliens, or sassy anthropomorphized objects. Whatever the case, for a story to work its wonders, its details must be believable, or we reject its premise. These books help make a story believable, and, if you get the alchemy just right, those details can even help tell the story themselves.
If you’re gonna draw any creatures, humans included, it’s important to understand all the factors that influence their size and their shape. The temperature of their environment, the altitude, the precipitation— even the gravity of the planet itself. The book gives gives an in-depth understanding as to why animals look they way they do, and why some weird structures are not only practical, but crucial for a species to survive.
Why are all the big land animals on Earth mammals? Why are reptiles so small today when they were so huge in the Age of Dinosaurs? Why are rivers, lakes and swamps dominated by large cold-blooded reptiles and not by mammals? Why are there so many birds on Earth and why are they all so small? In this beautifully written and utterly compelling book Lavers scours the fields of biology, physiology, ecology and palaeontology to find answers to these global-scale questions. In the process he reveals a fundamentally new view of life on Earth, one that offers no room for…
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
I believe stories to be our species’ instinctual tool for discovering our best selves. Sometimes those stories are about real people in the past, sometimes they’re completely imagined people in the future — sometimes we even swap out the humans for animals or aliens, or sassy anthropomorphized objects. Whatever the case, for a story to work its wonders, its details must be believable, or we reject its premise. These books help make a story believable, and, if you get the alchemy just right, those details can even help tell the story themselves.
Clothing isn’t the only residue a culture and its people leave behind. Humans are natural pattern makers, and those patterns often give important insight into what those people value, as well as what fills their natural environment. Materials, dyes, tools… all these things have an influence on how a culture decorates their world and themselves. Patterns are a very subtle way to underscore a moment in a story.
This beautiful, highly influential book, long a classic in its field, remains today one of the most comprehensive and best-organized presentations of historic ornamental design. The original 100 color plates, meticulously reproduced here from the rare original folio edition, present a dazzling spectrum of copyright-free design motifs from both ancient and modern cultures. The Grammar of Ornament features designs from around the world: the West to the Far East and many cultures in between.
Graphic and fine artists will find nearly three thousand designs rendered in fine detail from a variety of sources:
I believe stories to be our species’ instinctual tool for discovering our best selves. Sometimes those stories are about real people in the past, sometimes they’re completely imagined people in the future — sometimes we even swap out the humans for animals or aliens, or sassy anthropomorphized objects. Whatever the case, for a story to work its wonders, its details must be believable, or we reject its premise. These books help make a story believable, and, if you get the alchemy just right, those details can even help tell the story themselves.
You get a lot of insight into a culture from the maps they create. Not only how they view themselves, but how they view others around them. There have been times in history when cultures weren’t even concerned with their maps being geographically accurate— they were a tool for teaching religion, or indulging a yearning for the fantastic. This book gives an excellent overview as to the many ways humans have used, and designed, maps throughout the centuries.
Mapping the World is a one-of-a-kind collection of cartographic treasures that spans thousands of years and many cultures, from an ancient Babylonian map of the world etched on clay to the latest high-tech maps of the earth, seas, and the skies above. With more than one hundred maps and other illustrations and an introduction and running commentary by Ralph E. Ehrenberg, this book tells a fascinating story of geographic discovery, scientific invention, and the art and technique of mapmaking.
Mapping the World is organized chronologically with a brief introduction that places the maps in their historical context. Special "portfolios" within…
The Everlasting Life of Charlie Wall
by
Paul Wilborn,
It’s 1985, and Ronald Armstrong, known in the magic mushroom trade as “Trip,” takes a “sober” job as a driver for a retired Tampa mobster. His boss, Charlie Wall, has survived four attempts on his life, the last one in 1955. When Charlie falls into depression, Trip rebuilds his boss’…
I believe stories to be our species’ instinctual tool for discovering our best selves. Sometimes those stories are about real people in the past, sometimes they’re completely imagined people in the future — sometimes we even swap out the humans for animals or aliens, or sassy anthropomorphized objects. Whatever the case, for a story to work its wonders, its details must be believable, or we reject its premise. These books help make a story believable, and, if you get the alchemy just right, those details can even help tell the story themselves.
Nothing angers me more than when a book tries to explain something in words when it can be communicated much more effectively through illustration. That’s the beauty of Eric Sloane. The man visually recorded everything from weather phenomena to architecture to tools of bygone eras. I’m recommending the book A Museum of Early American Tools because its the one I’ve found the most useful, but I recommend checking out any of his books. At the very least, it can help you appreciate how those design decisions we take for granted— the roof of a barn, or the shape of a hammer handle— were honed by a balance of tradition, practicality, and circumstance.
This absorbing and profusely illustrated book describes in detail scores of early American tools and the wooden and metal artifacts made with them. Informally and expressively written, the text covers bulding tools and methods; farm and kitchen implements; and the tools of curriers, wheelwrights, coopers, blacksmiths, coachmakers, loggers, tanners, and many other craftsmen of the pre-industrial age. Scores of pen-and-ink sketches by the author accurately depict "special tools for every job," among them a hollowing gouge, hay fork, cornering chisel, apple butter paddle, boring auger, mortising chisel, a holding dog, hauling sledge, winnowing tray, reaping hooks, splitting wedge, felling axe,…
Clothing is one of the most important aspects of our humanity, of the things which make us who we are. We use fashion to identify allies and enemies. To express our interests, politics, and belief systems. To make a statement about who we are to the outside world. To show our identity or ethnicity. Or to indicate our affiliation with certain groups. Fashion is everywhere, but compared to other disciplines, is very rarely talked about. Though I'm a lingerie expert, fashion in its totality interests me. I’m excited every time I learn something new, not just because I enjoy pretty garments, but because I also learn something about the nature of who we are.
From poisonous gowns to flammable petticoats, Fashion Victims shares the dark side of fashion history. What was the human cost to those beautiful gowns, both in terms of the wearers and the makers? This book is a little grimmer than my previous recommendations but no less interesting. A fascinating read.
From insidious murder weapons to blaze-igniting crinolines, clothing has been the cause of death, disease and madness throughout history, by accident and design. Clothing is designed to protect, shield and comfort us, yet lurking amongst seemingly innocuous garments we find hats laced with mercury, frocks laden with arsenic and literally 'drop-dead gorgeous' gowns.
Fabulously gory and gruesome, Fashion Victims takes the reader on a fascinating journey through the lethal history of women's, men's and children's dress, in myth and reality. Drawing upon surviving fashion objects and numerous visual and textual sources, encompassing louse-ridden military uniforms, accounts of the fiery deaths…
My dad was an adventure traveler, so I floated down the Amazon, rode chicken busses in rural Guatemala, and stepped on the Russian Steppes before I ever saw Big Ben. All that adventure as a kid engendered an insatiable curiosity about the amazing diversity of people and cultures in this world. Sadly, when I was growing up, most children’s books didn’t reflect this diversity. Not only should all children be able to see themselves on the pages of the books they read, it’s equally important that kids see children who aren’t just like they are. Consequently, adding cultural and ethnic diversity into kids' lit has become a passion for me.
Suki is a treasure. She’s courageous and irrepressible and a perfect role model for every young girl of any nationality. Suki decides to wear a kimono to school on her first day of first grade. The kimono, a gift from her grandmother, is full of warm memories. As you can imagine, some of the other kids initially laugh at her—including her own sisters. But in the end, she wins her classmates over with an impromptu dance that captures the joy of a summer festival with her grandmother. I love how this spirited story teaches kids of any culture to embrace who they are. Stephane Jorisch’s playful watercolor and ink illustrations capture the spirit of the book perfectly.
Suki's favorite possession is her blue cotton kimono. A gift from her obachan, it holds special memories of her grandmother's visit last summer. And Suki is going to wear it on her first day back to school --- no matter what anyone says.When it's Suki's turn to share with her classmates what she did during the summer, she tells them about the street festival she attended with her obachan and the circle dance that they took part in. In fact, she gets so carried away reminiscing that she's soon humming the music and dancing away, much to the delight of…
Delve into this internationally best-selling series, now complete! A fast paced laugh-out-loud mix of Urban Fantasy and Mystery.
I can tell when you’re lying. Every. Single. Time. I’m Jinx, a PI hired to find a missing university student, I hope to find her propped up at a bar–yet my gut…
As a child (and budding feminist), I inhaled historical fiction about queens and other formidable women. This led to my scholarly interest in female power and authority. Aristocratic women had meaningful political influence in Old Regime France through family networks and proximity to power. However, with the French Revolution of 1789, women’s exclusion from political power (and the vote) was made explicit. This led me to examine the tools women had to accumulate political and social capital, including beauty and the control of fashion. We need to take the intersection of beauty, fashion, and politics seriously to understand the operation of power in both history and the modern world. The books I chose privilege my own interest in eighteenth-century France, but have a broader significance. And they are all really fun to read!
A major divergence in the nature of elite men's and women’s clothing styles took place in the eighteenth century that symbolized a new understanding of both femininity and French national identity. The fancy dress men wore at court transformed into the sober black suit of the male professional, while women’s clothing became increasingly ornate, fussy, and “feminine” in the modern understanding of the term. Jones links fashion and gender systems to social, cultural, and economic practices—including the rise of consumer culture—and demonstrates why the study of fashion and sexuality are far from frivolous.
The connection between fashion, femininity, frivolity and Frenchness has become a cliche. Yet, relegating fashion to the realm of frivolity and femininity is a distinctly modern belief that developed along with the urban culture of the Enlightenment. In eighteenth-century France, a commercial culture filled with shop girls, fashion magazines and window displays began to supplant a court-based fashion culture based on rank and distinction, stimulating debates over the proper relationship between women and commercial culture, public and private spheres, and morality and taste. Mary Wollstonecraft was one of those particularly critical of this 'vulgar' obsession with 'tawdry finery', declaring it…
I have sewn since I was a child, taught by my mother to keep me out of mischief. From having the best-dressed dolls in the neighbourhood I graduated to making my own, sometimes outlandish, forms of fashion and then became a banner maker and community textile artist. Sewing is in my DNA and I love the tactile, rhythmic soothe of it. But I have long been curious about how, in the many books are published about needlework, very few ever mention why people sew. This is what fascinates me, the stories of sewing, because it is through its purpose that we discover the spirit that lies within it.
This is a brilliantly researched book which allowed me to accompany Sofi Thanhauser as she travelled across continents to unearth the origin and the fate of fabric production. It made me realise the terrible damage done to our environment and to communities through colonialisation, exploitation, industrialisation, and our throw-away economy. Tracking how craft is being replaced with slave labour, how traditions are being eroded, and local economies destroyed in the pursuit of cheaper and greater textile production, Worn is not a comfortable read, but it is, for me, a reminder of the human cost involved in most of what I wear.
A sweeping and captivatingly told history of clothing and the stuff it is made of—an unparalleled deep-dive into how everyday garments have transformed our lives, our societies, and our planet.
“We learn that, if we were a bit more curious about our clothes, they would offer us rich, interesting and often surprising insights into human history...a deep and sustained inquiry into the origins of what we wear, and what we have worn for the past 500 years." —The Washington Post
In this panoramic social history, Sofi Thanhauser brilliantly tells five stories—Linen, Cotton, Silk, Synthetics, Wool—about the clothes we wear and…
I've always had a creative curiosity that involves making, designing, and finding creative solutions to problems, this led me to using digital tools and lecturing in interactive media. As technology, society, and design have developed so to has my knowledge and experience in these fields enabling me to understand and develop the unique skills that are required to create successful solutions in the digital design process. I do this through creating and designing interventions in the physical space to ask questions and raise awareness of our use of technology and the impact on our awareness of time and space and the world around us.
Stuff is a great book for understanding material culture; how we value objects and the role that they play in our lives.
From a sari to a mobile phone or website, what is our relationship to these objects and what role do they play in our relationship with the world around us? Stuff looks at each of these questions from an anthropological view.
A key chapter in Stuff looks at technology from this viewpoint and unpacks what we mean by technology and the role that technology plays in influencing and forming society. It not only looks at how we form technology but also how it forms us.
Things make us just as much as we make things. And yet, unlike the study of languages or places, there is no discipline devoted to the study of material things. This book shows why it is time to acknowledge and confront this neglect and how much we can learn from focusing our attention on stuff.
The book opens with a critique of the concept of superficiality as applied to clothing. It presents the theories that are required to understand the way we are created by material as well as social relations. It takes us inside the very private worlds of…
The authoritative but accessible history of the birth of modern American intelligence in World War II that treats not just one but all of the various disciplines: spies, codebreakers, saboteurs.
Told in a relatable style that focuses on actual people, it was a New Yorker "Best of 2022" selection and…
I have always loved children. I love tiny babies just discovering the world around them. I love elementary-age kids who are taking pride in developing new skills and learning how to deal with challenges. I love teens who are questioning and rethinking the things they thought they knew. I also love the science and practice of psychology (my profession for over thirty years) and, I love books. To date, I have written nine books. My audience ranges from preschool to high school and topics include strategies to understand and cope with problems as well as psychology as a topic of study.
This gentle picture book introduces us to Jacob who wants to dress up like his friend, Emily, and not in the costumes the other boys prefer. Despite being teased when he arrives at school wearing a dress fashioned from a towel, Jacob decides he wants a “real” dress. With support from his parents, he makes one of his own. Further teasing is met by Jacob’s expression of pride in his creation and refusal to compromise who he is. This colorful book promotes acceptance of gender nonconformance and can serve as an opener to discussions of the topic with young children.
One of 10 Best Indie Picture Books of 2014, ForeWord Reviews Runner-Up, 2014 New England Book Festival: Children's Books 2014 Distinguished List of the Association of Children's Librarians of Northern California CCBC Choices 2015
An affirming story about gender nonconformity.
Jacob loves playing dress-up, when he can be anything he wants to be. Some kids at school say he can't wear "girl" clothes, but Jacob wants to wear a dress to school. Can he convince his parents to let him wear what he wants? This heartwarming story speaks to the unique challenges faced by children who don't identify with traditional…
