Just plain people

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Bridget Christie

Bridget Christie is a stand-up comedian, idiot and feminist. On the 30th of April 2012, a man farted in the Women's Studies Section of a bookshop and it changed her life forever. A Book For Her details Christie's twelve years of anonymous toil in the bowels of stand-up comedy and the sudden epiphany that made her, unbelievably, one of the most critically acclaimed British stand-up comedians this decade, drawing together the threads that link a smelly smell in the women's studies section to the global feminist struggle. Find out how nice Peter Stringfellow's fish tastes, how yoghurt advertising perpetuates rape myths, and how Emily Bronte used a special ladies' pen to write Wuthering Heights. If you're interested in comedy and feminism, then this is definitely the book for you. If you hate both then I'd probably give it a miss. "Christie is adept at turning on a sixpence between being comical, or serious, or both at once, and at pricking her own earnestness." (Telegraph). "Christie piles derision and tomfoolery upon everyday sexism, while never pretending that jokes alone will solve the problem." (Guardian).

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Mark Peters

"This three part novel roams the wildernesses of Manitoba and Minnesota during the 1960s. Young Archie, having grown up without a father, stumbles through his teenage years and is given direction by his unusual Uncle Emil. One-eyed Emil, having survived an explosion, near death in the recapture of the Philippines, and the recent loss of his wife, has not lost his sense of humor. While on their canoe journey to an unnamed Manitoba lake, the building of Emil's cabin, and Emil's hike through the Boundary Waters while Archie is in Vietnam, Emil occasionally sidetracks onto tales he has only recently made up. His encounter with Elvis, the true story of Moses, the extinction of the dinosaurs; nothing is off limits for Emil: "While I was reading I got to thinking about what it would have been like if the stories had been about real animals instead of toy ones. You know, Pooh as a grizzly, eight foot tall, three inch claws and teeth like razors. I don't think his little pig buddy would have lasted very long ... ""--Amazon.com

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text and photographs by Bruce Hucko

Art is a rich and ancient tradition among the Tewa Pueblo Indians of northern New Mexico, going back to the pictures their ancestors carved and painted on stone across the Southwest. Today Pueblo art is created in an environment in which traditional forms overlap with modern media. Nowhere is this fusion more evident than in the art of Pueblo children. In Where There Is No Name for Art, photographer and "art coach" Bruce Hucko introduces us to some of his Tewa Pueblo. Students through their drawings, paintings, and words and through his photographs of them at work and at play. These children straddle two worlds. They participate in traditional dances and play video games. They paint airplanes and horses, basketball stars and sacred kivas. They also do their homework, help with the chores, and listen to rap music. The children's vibrant, imaginative artwork is complemented by their humorous and thoughtful commentary on living in a. Changing culture. Presenting an insider's view of what it means to be growing up Pueblo today, the children talk about their families and their communities, share their feelings about their culture, and discuss the process of making art.

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Mary Blume

Mary Blume brings her insight, humor, and unique perspective to bear on the French in this collection of thirty-three years of International Herald Tribune columns. A trusted insider in an exclusive world, Blume is also the quintessential American in Paris. Francophiles will love her intimate conversations with French icons such as Francois Truffaut and her tribute to Simone Signoret. In another essay, Blume takes us back to the humble beginnings of the Citroen 2 CV, which began as a motorized wagon and became a beloved symbol to the French, despite its ungainly practicality. From "The Friends of Mona Lisa" to "The Fine Art of Window Shopping", this collection of sixty-one pieces, with illustrations by Ronald Searle, is a delightful celebration of French ways and their meaning.