A unique approach to a hot subject - digital photography and Photoshop. The only book that shows you how to do it: pictures first, words second. More than 1,500 color photographs and screen-shots that take you through the entire process.

Published in Association with the Smithsonian Institution

500 stunning photographs from the late 1800s to the present day celebrate African-American culture. “It is glorious-this history of ours! It is a great story-that of the Negro in America! It begins way before America was America or the U.S.A. It covers a wide span, our story. Let me tell it to you.”-Langston Hughes

“The photographs in Black: A Celebration redefine the black cultural image in America.” --Cheryl Finley, Ph.D.

Photography offers a unique method for capturing the life and soul of a community while it creates a record we can use to understand who we are now and to illustrate the story of who we were. Black: A Celebration looks at the way in which culture is constructed through photographs. Photographing friends, people and places, and family members and their possessions is a transformative act that can instill a sense of joy and dignity in the subject, photographer, and viewer.

“Some of us-hopefully most of us-are trying to understand and appreciate the effect our recent election will have on you, the citizens of the rest of the world.” --James Zetlen, creator of Sorryeverybody.com

Twenty-year-old University of Southern California student James Zetlen launched www.sorryeverybody.com on November 4, 2004, as a way for Americans to express their disappointment, grief, and outrage about the results of the election and how it will affect people around the world for at least the next four years. To date, almost 30,000 people have uploaded their thoughts, images, and opinions to the Web site.

The circle of love begins, and ends, with the number-one-screen-kisser in history, Marilyn Monroe, and moves backward and forward through time from 1933 through to the modern day. Timeless photographs of big-screen (and a few real-life) lovers flow from page to page in a virtual orgy of cinematic romance. Marilyn Monroe dips down to kiss Tony Curtis, who is shown on the next page snuggling with Natalie Wood, who in turn cuddles up to real-life lover/husband Robert Wagner, who is shown in the next frame with Janet Leigh, and on and on.

Dickens was a landmark biography when first published in 1990. This special abridged edition takes the reader into the fascinating life of one of the world’s greatest writers—Dickens’ penurious and painful childhood, the triumphant reception of his first novel, and other significant events in the life of this legendary writer. Peter Ackroyd is a master biographer with a seductive prose style, and this massive volume is likely to stand as the Dickens biography for decades to come.