Shakespeare for everyone to enjoy

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Doug Elliott and Bill Barnes

***Australia and Sherlock Holmes*** is the third title in The Baker Street Irregulars’ International Series, which brings the best non-fiction Holmesian writing from around the world to a larger audience. The history of Australian Sherlockians can be traced back over 100 years to a photograph of a group of miners printed in *The Strand Magazine* in 1904. ***Australia and Sherlock Holmes*** captures the distinctive Sherlockian voice from Down Under. Editors Bill Barnes and Doug Elliott provide context for, and an introduction to, Sherlock Holmes in Australia. They gathered materials written between 1959 and 2007, mostly from *News from the Diggings* and T*he Passengers’ Log*. These incisively written scholarly essays includes two pieces about the larger-than-life Richard Hughes, an Australian journalist who made one of the scoops of the (last) century by obtaining the first interview with the Cambridge spies Burgess and Maclean. (Hughes was a real-life inspiration for novelists John le Carré and Ian Fleming.) Popular culture is well represented by a piece covering Sherlock Holmes films conceived but never filmed, and accompanied by delightful, apocryphal movie posters. Well-reasoned papers link both Watson’s childhood and the speckled band snake to Australia; a fine, perhaps definitive essay addresses “The *Gloria Scott*.” There is much more in this volume attesting to the continuing remarkable popularity of the great detective around the globe, and particularly in Australia, and the creative whimsy with which Holmesian scholars play “The Game.”

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Tim McCreight

Design Language brings fresh insight to students and practicing designers by examining the words they use. This compact volume presents 100 keywords with background, etymology and commentary. Whether the word is as familiar as edge or perhaps new to you, like synesthesia, you'll find yourself moving easily from one entry to the next, intrigued by the rich layers of meaning you discover. Teachers of design will appreciate the brief, clear, and inclusive presentation. The dynamic layout invites notation, making the book a starting point for personal vocabulary, both visual and literal. The sewn binding is tough enough for years of studio use, and the compact size will fit into a toolbox or pocket. Design Language understands that a book can't teach design. Instead, it helps people learn design, by using vocabulary to explore style, form, and composition.

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Lou Ann Walker

Discusses the work of pop artist Roy Lichtenstein and describes how he develops a painting from original idea to finished piece.

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Laura Miller

THE MAGICIAN'S BOOK is the story of one reader's long, tumultuous relationship with C.S. Lewis'The Chronicles of Narnia. Enchanted by its fantastic world as a child, prominent critic Laura Miller returns to the series as an adult to uncover the source of these small books' mysterious power by looking at their creator, Clive Staples Lewis. What she discovers is not the familiar, idealized image of the author, but a more interesting and ambiguous truth: Lewis's tragic and troubled childhood, his unconventional love life, and his intense but ultimately doomed friendship with J.R.R. Tolkien. Finally reclaiming Narnia "for the rest of us," Miller casts the Chronicles as a profoundly literary creation, and the portal to a life-long adventure in books, art, and the imagination.