[ History ]

A Martian Stranded on Earth

In A Martian Stranded on Earth, the first broad-based book on Bogdanov in English, Nikolai Krementsov examines Bogdanov’s roles as revolutionary, novelist, and scientist, presenting his protagonist as a coherent thinker who pursued his ideas in a wide range of venues. (2011)

[ Design ] [ Science Fiction ]

Another Science Fiction

Advertising the Space Race 1957–1962. In between the dry articles of trade journals, a new visual vernacular sprang up. Aerospace industry ads pitched the idea that we lived in a moment where anything was possible — gravity was history, and soon so would be the confines of our solar system. By Megan Prelinger. (2010)

[ Photography ]

Anthropocene

The newest book by Edward Burtynsky to document human destruction of the earth on a geological scale. In photos as beautiful as they are disconcerting, Burtynsky explores issues such as extinction, technofossils, and terraforming. (2018)

[ Magic ]

Apocalyptic Witchcraft

An apocalyptic age demands an apocalyptic witchcraft, and this is a book which is offered up to revolutionise the body of the craft, a way out of the dark impasse. By Peter Grey. (2013)

[ Architecture ] [ Futures ]

Architecture 2000

This stimulating book on the evolution of architecture in the last quarter of the twentieth century penetratingly applies methods of forecasting and prediction developed in scientific disciplines. By Charles Jencks. (1971)

[ Design ]

Art Marks

A compendium of logos from galleries, photographers, artists, museums, educational institutions, theatres, musicians, architects and designers from all over the world. (2016)

[ Art ] [ Science ]

Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet: Ghosts and Monsters of the Anthropocene

As human-induced environmental change threatens multispecies livability, Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet puts forward a bold proposal: entangled histories, situated narratives, and thick descriptions offer urgent “arts of living.” Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, Heather Anne Swanson, Elaine Gan, and Nils Bubandt, Editors. (2017)

[ Technology ] [ Futures ]

Beyond Spaceship Earth: Environmental Ethics and the Solar System

Essays examining the technical, social, political, philosophical, and human aspects of large-scale space programs, setting forth issues that need to be addressed if we are to avoid dire consequences. Edited by Eugene C. Hargrove. (1986)

[ Science Fiction ] [ Film ]

Blade Runner: The Inside Story

The first extensively illustrated book about the most influential sci-fi film ever made. By Don Shay, Cinefex. (2000)

[ Design ]

Born Modern: The Life and Design of Alvin Lustig

Spanning the breadth of Lustig's tragically brief but prolific career, Born Modern is a must-have for any student or practitioner of design, as well as anyone interested in the history of American visual culture. By Steven Heller, Elaine Lustig Cohen. (2010)

[ Design ]

Büro Destruct Vol. I

The first compilation of work from the groundbreaking Swiss design group Büro Destruct. (1999)

[ Design ]

California: Designing Freedom

Examining California's enormous impact on contemporary design, from the counterculture of the 1960s to the tech culture of Silicon Valley. By Justin McGuirk and Brendan McGetrick. (2017)

[ Science Fiction ]

Chasing Shadows

A science fiction and tech-vision anthology about the coming era of transparency in the Information Age. Edited by David Brin. (2017)

[ Design ]

Cold War Modern

While political tension defined one front of the Cold War, a creative conflict was waged on another. By David Crowley and Jane Pavitt. (2008)

[ Design ]

Designed in the USSR: 1950-1989

A fascinating glimpse into design behind the Iron Curtain, revealed through the products and graphics of everyday Soviet life. By the Moscow Design Museum. (2018)

[ Technology ]

Digital Tarkovsky

Digital Tarkovsky is an extended poetic exploration of how our experiences of visual entertainment and time itself are changing in the era of the smartphone and near-constant connection. By Metahaven. (2018)

[ Design ] [ Weird ]

Flying Saucers Are Real!

A catalogue of the Jack Womack UFO library and a history of one of the 20th century's most pervasive subcultures. By Jack Womack. Foreward by William Gibson. (2016)

[ Architecture ]

Geostories: Another Architecture for the Environment

How do we make sense of the Earth at a moment in which it is presented in crisis? Geostories is a manifesto for the environmental imagination that renders sensible the issues of climate change and through geographic fiction invites readers to relate to the complexity of Earth systems in their vast scales of time and space. By Rania Ghosn and El Hadi Jazairy. (2018)

[ Science Fiction ]

Gnomon

Set in a near-future, high-tech surveillance state, Gnomon is equal parts dark comedy, gripping detective story, and mind-bending philosophical puzzle. By Nick Harkaway. (2017)

[ Design ]

Graphic Design Manual

This revised edition of Armin Hofmann’s 1965 design manual presents the designer’s timeless ideas about structure, line, and form, and includes new sections that adapt his thoughts to contemporary technological uses. (2004)

[ Design ]

Graphic Stamps

Sourced from the collections of stamp design experts Iain Follett and Blair Thomson, the book celebrates the brilliance of postage stamp design from around the world. (2016)

[ Design ]

Handbook of Designs and Devices

1,836 basic geometric designs and variations for quick, convenient, practical reference. By Clarence P. Hornung. (1946)

[ Design ]

Herb Lubalin: American Graphic Designer 1918—1981

The 448-page monograph features hundreds of examples of Lubalin’s work (many never before published), and previously unseen photographs of him at work and play. (2018)

[ Philosophy ]

Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World

Global warming is perhaps the most dramatic example of what Timothy Morton calls “hyperobjects”—entities of such vast temporal and spatial dimensions that they defeat traditional ideas about what a thing is in the first place. (2013)

[ Design ] [ Illustration ]

Illustrating for Science

Creative techniques and problem-solving approaches for scientific illustrators. By George V. Kelvin. (1992)

[ Design ]

Impact 1.0 & 2.0

Books collecting covers of design magazines, journals and periodicals of all kinds, from the 1920s to present day. (2016)

[ Philosophy ] [ Horror ]

In the Dust of This Planet

The world is increasingly unthinkable, a world of planetary disasters, emerging pandemics, and the looming threat of extinction. In this book Eugene Thacker suggests that we look to the genre of horror as offering a way of thinking about the unthinkable world. (2011)

[ Science Fiction ]

Infinite Detail

A timely and uncanny portrait of a world in the wake of fake news, diminished privacy, and a total shutdown of the Internet. By Tim Maughan. (2019)

[ Technology ]

Interavia Space Directory 1989-90

Previously Jane’s Spaceflight Directory. A comprehensive collection of space logs, and info for space programs, space centers, military in space, space industry contractors, and more. Edited by Andrew Wilson. (1989)

[ Design ]

Karol Śliwka

During the fifth exhibition in the 'Polish Design Designer' series, Gdynia City Museum presented the work of Karol Śliwka (b. 1932 – 2018), an outstanding graphic designer and the creator of over 400 logos that have been a part of Polish everyday life for the past sixty years. This book was published to coincide with the exhibition and is a celebration of Śliwka's work. (2018)

[ History ] [ Comics ]

KIRBY100

TwoMorrows and the Jack Kirby Collector magazine celebrate Jack Kirby’s 100th birthday in style with the release of KIRBY100. Featuring images and essays from an all-star line-up of 100 comics pros, examining Kirby’s influence and 50-year career in comics. (2017)

[ Design ]

Letraset: The DIY Typography Revolution

The first comprehensive history of Letraset, the rubdown lettering system that revolutionised typographic expression. (2018)

[ Science ]

Light of the Stars: Alien Worlds and the Fate of the Earth

Light of the Stars tells the story of humanity’s coming of age as we awaken to the possibilities of life on other worlds and their sudden relevance to our fate on Earth. By Adam Frank. (2018)

[ Design ]

Logo Modernism

Examine the distillation of modernism in graphic design with this vast collection of approximately 6,000 logos from 1940–1980. By Jens Müller and R. Roger Remington. (2015)

[ Design ] [ Comics ]

Logo-A-Gogo

A compendium of designer and illustrator Rian Hughes’ best logo designs for the comic industry, with insights into the creative process behind his work. (2018)

[ Design ]

LogoArchive 1

This zine is the first in the popular series and focuses on animal logos. By Richard Baird. (2018)

[ Design ]

LogoArchive 2

Second issue of the zine that focuses on eye logos. By Richard Baird. (2018)

[ Design ]

LogoArchive 3

Third issue of the zine that focuses on science logos. By Richard Baird. (2018)

[ Design ] [ History ]

Los Alamos Rolodex: Doing Business with the National Lab 1967-1978

150 cards from seven rolodexes of the dispersed collection of former Los Alamos Lab employee Ed Grothus, who operated a salvage company of lab cast-offs, known as The Black Hole. By the Center for Land Use Interpretation. (2015)

[ Architecture ]

Machine Landscapes: Architectures of the Post Anthropocene

Marking the end of human-centred design, the issue turns its attention to the new typologies of the post-human, architecture without people and our endless expanse of Machine Landscapes. Edited by Liam Young. (2019)

[ Memoir ]

Man Without A Country

In a volume that is penetrating, introspective, incisive, and laugh-out-loud funny, one of the great men of letters of this age — or any age — holds forth on life, art, sex, politics, and the state of America’s soul. By Kurt Vonnegut. (2005)

[ Design ]

Manuals 1: Design and Identity Guidelines

The first comprehensive study of corporate identity design manuals, and features 20 examples from the 1960s to early 1980s – the golden era of identity design. (2016)

[ Design ]

Merz to Emigré and Beyond

A historical survey of avant-garde cultural and political magazines and newspapers all the way from the early twentieth century to the present day. By Steven Heller. (2014)

[ Technology ] [ Futures ]

New Dark Age

A New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future, surveys the history of art, technology, and information systems, and reveals the dark clouds that gather over our dreams of the digital sublime. By James Bridle. (2018)

[ Science Fiction ]

Normal: A Novel

If the abyss gaze takes hold there's only one place to recover: Normal Head, in the wilds of Oregon, within the secure perimeter of an experimental forest. By Warren Ellis. (2016)

[ Technology ]

Omnibot Fan Book

A Japanese book on Tomy’s toy robots, from the 2007 i-SOBOT back to the Omnibot and other robots they produced in the 1980s.

[ Technology ] [ Futures ]

On the Future

In this short, exhilarating book, renowned scientist and bestselling author Martin Rees argues that humanity’s prospects depend on our taking a very different approach to planning for tomorrow. (2018)

[ Technology ]

Shuttle: The World's First Spaceship

The shuttle system is the key to unlocking the next era of technology and the forerunner of space transportation systems of tomorrow: The world’s first spaceship, the Enterprise, is here! By Robert M. Powers. (1979)

[ Design ]

Signs + Emblems

A collection of international examples. By Erhardt D. Stiebner and Dieter Urban. (1984)

[ Technology ] [ Futures ]

Space and the American Imagination

Tracing the emergence of space travel in the popular mind, its expression in science fiction, and its influence on national space programs. By Howard E. McCurdy. (1997)

[ Futures ]

Space Colonies: A Galactic Freeman's Journal

A visionary assemblage of historical, present-day and speculative material on space colonies, inspired by the culture of the Whole Earth Catalog. By Fabian Reimann. (2017)

[ Fiction ] [ Place ]

Spirits of Place

Twelve authors take us on a journey; a tour of places where they themselves have encountered, and consulted with, these Spirits of Place. Edited by John Reppion. (2016)

[ History ] [ Magic ]

Star.Ships: A Prehistory of the Spirits

A defining text of the new magical renaissance, Star.Ships addresses the question of who we are now by tracing where we come from, and by drawing out the stories and the spirits that have journeyed and evolved with us. By Gordon White. (2016)

[ Philosophy ] [ Horror ]

Starry Speculative Corpse

Philosophy meets horror against the backdrop of an indifferent, unhuman cosmos. By Eugene Thacker. (2015)

[ Design ]

TD 63-73

Total Design and its pioneering role in graphic design. An insider’s view by Ben Nos. Work by Ben Bos, Wim Crouwel, Friso Kramer, Benno Wissing and their teams. (2016)

[ Philosophy ] [ Horror ]

Tentacles Longer Than Night

Systematic, comprehensive exploration of the links between philosophy, religion, and the horror genre. By Eugene Thacker. (2015)

[ Architecture ]

The Architecture of Closed Worlds: Or, What Is the Power of Shit?

From the space program to countercultural architectural groups experimenting with autonomous living, The Architecture of Closed Worlds documents a disciplinary transformation and the rise of a new environmental consciousness. By Lydia Kallipoliti. (2018)

[ Design ]

The Art of Looking Sideways

The Art of Looking Sideways is a primer in visual intelligence, an exploration of the workings of the eye, the hand, the brain and the imagination. By Alan Fletcher. (2001)

[ Design ]

The Design of Dissent

Examining graphic work focusing on social and political concerns from around the globe. By Milton Glaser and Mirko Ilic. (2005)

[ Technology ] [ Futures ]

The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space

Dr. O’Neill put his three-pronged plan of Space Colonization, Space Solar Power and Large Scale Space Construction into easily accessible form with the release of this book. By Gerard K. O’Neill. (1976)

[ Design ]

The History of Graphic Design. Vol. 1, 1890–1959

70 years of graphic design, designers, and developments from the late 19th century through the economic boom after World War II, spanning designs that would form the basis for further revolutions. By Jens Müller. (2018)

[ Design ]

The History of Graphic Design. Vol. 2, 1960–Today

The most comprehensive exploration of graphic design to date. With around 3,500 seminal pieces and 78 landmark projects, year-by-year spreads, and profiles of industry leaders. By Jens Müller. (2018)

[ Science Fiction ]

The Listeners

A classic of science fiction, this book predicted and inspired the creation of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). By James Gunn. (1972)

[ Design ]

The Moderns

Meet the men and women who invented and shaped Midcentury Modern graphic design in America. By Steven Heller and Greg D'Onofrio. (2017)

[ Design ] [ Science Fiction ]

The Movie Art of Syd Mead: Visual Futurist

This book represents the most extensive collection of Mead’s visionary work ever printed, compiling hundreds of images, sketches and concepts from a career spanning almost 40 years. By Syd Mead. (2017)

[ Science Fiction ]

The Peripheral

The story of a young woman caught between two worlds, The Peripheral interweaves two futures — pre-jackpot USA and post-jackpot London — to tell a story which gets to the heart of the way we live now. By William Gibson. (2015)

[ History ]

The Russian Cosmists

A dynamic and wide-ranging examination of the lives and ideas of the Russian Cosmists. By George M. Young. (2012)

[ Comics ]

The Snooty Bookshop

A collection of fifty literary cartoons printed on postcards. By Tom Gauld. (2018)

[ Futures ]

The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming

It is worse, much worse, than you think. If your anxiety about global warming is dominated by fears of sea-level rise, you are barely scratching the surface of what terrors are possible. By David Wallace-Wells. (2019)

[ Technology ] [ Futures ]

The Visioneers

How a Group of Elite Scientists Pursued Space Colonies, Nanotechnologies, and a Limitless Future. By W. Patrick McCray. (2012)

[ Futures ]

The Worst Is Yet to Come: A Post-Capitalist Survival Guide

The Worst is Yet to Come explores the disturbing possibility that the current crisis of neoliberal capitalism isn’t going to spawn an emancipatory renaissance, but a world that is much, much worse. By Peter Fleming. (2019)

[ Technology ] [ Futures ]

Toward Distant Suns

Based on the most up-to-date research available, this book tackles the problems of technology and lifestyle that will face those men and women whose mission is to settle space. By T. A. Heppenheimer. (1979)

[ Design ]

Trade Marks & Symbols Vol 1: Alphabetical Designs

A comprehensive, profusely illustrated guide to more than 1,500 trademarks from all over the world. By Yasaburo Kuwayama. (1973)

[ Design ]

Trade Marks & Symbols Vol 2: Symbolical Designs

A comprehensive, profusely illustrated guide to more than 1,500 trademarks from all over the world. By Yasaburo Kuwayama. (1973)

[ Design ] [ History ]

Trevor Paglen: From the Archives of Peter Merlin, Aviation Archaeologist

In From the Archives of Peter Merlin, Aviation Archaeologist, multidisciplinary artist Trevor Paglen collaborates with Peter Merlin, a former NASA archivist, on this new artist’s book featuring a photographic inventory of objects from the aerospace historian’s archive of research culled from military bases such as Area 51. (2019)

[ Science Fiction ]

Tropic of Kansas

The United States of America is no more. Broken into warring territories, its center has become a wasteland DMZ known as the Tropic of Kansas. By Christopher Brown. (2017)

[ Design ] [ Science Fiction ]

Typeset in the Future: Typography and Design in Science Fiction Movies

Writer and designer Dave Addey invites sci-fi movie fans on a journey through seven genre-defining classics, discovering how their typography and design create compelling visions of the future. (2018)

[ Art ] [ Weird ]

UFO Presences

A visual road trip exploring the places UFO sightings have taken place across America, mixing photographs with news clippings and other relevant ephemera. By photographer Javier Arcenillas. (2018)

[ Travels ] [ Place ]

Underland: A Deep Time Journey

An extraordinary journey into our relationship with darkness, burial, and what lies beneath the surface of both place and mind. Taking a deep-time view of our planet, Macfarlane asks a vital and unsettling question: “Are we being good ancestors to the future Earth?” By Robert Macfarlane. (2019)

[ Comics ]

Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art

McCloud, in an incredibly accessible style, explains the details of how comics work: how they're composed, read and understood. By Scott McCloud. (1993)

[ Design ] [ History ]

Unusual Sounds

The hidden history of library music, featuring interviews and extraordinary visuals from the field’s most celebrated creators. By David Hollander. (2018)

[ Design ]

VNIITE: Discovering Utopia: Lost Archives of Soviet Design

The previously untold story of the VNIITE – the All-Union Scientific Research Institute of Technical Aesthetics. The ‘Vniitians’, designed for the future and developed new theories and approaches to design in the USSR. (2018)

[ Philosophy ] [ Weird ]

Weird Realism: Lovecraft and Philosophy

As Hölderlin was to Martin Heidegger and Mallarmé to Jacques Derrida, so is H.P. Lovecraft to the Speculative Realist philosophers. By Graham Harman. (2012)

[ Science Fiction ] [ Art ]

Worlds Beyond: The Art of Chesley Bonestell

A richly illustrated book about the life and work of Chesley Bonestell, the "Father of Modern Space Art". By Ron Miller and Frederick C. Durant III. (1983)