The Life of Objects

A brilliant, bittersweet novel about love and family, husbands and wives, parents and children.From beloved bestselling author David Nicholls.Douglas and Connie - scientist and artist, husband and wife - live a quiet and quietly unremarkable life in the suburbs of London. Until, suddenly, after more than twenty years of marriage, Connie decides she wants a divorce.Heartbroken but determined, Douglas comes up with the perfect plan: he is going to win back the love of his wife and the respect of Albie, their teenage son, by organising the holiday of a lifetime.The hotels are booked, the tickets bought, the itinerary planned and printed.What could possibly go wrong?

Memory and Agency in Ancient China offers a novel perspective on China's material culture. The volume explores the complex 'life histories' of selected objects, whose trajectories as ginle objects ('biographies') and object types ('lineages') cut across both temporal and physical space. The essays, written by a team of international scholars, analyse the objects in an effort to understand how they were shaped by the constraints of their social, political and aesthetic contexts, just as they were also guided by individual preference and capricious memory. They also demonstrate how objects were capable of effecting change. Ranging chronologically from the Neolithic to the present, and spatially from northern to southern mainland China and Taiwan, this book highlights the varied approaches that archaeologists and art historians use when attempting to reconstruct object trajectories. It also showcases the challenges they face, particularly with the unearthing of objects from archaeological

Paul Nash (1889-1946) created an individual pathway through English art in the first half of the 20th century, shaping a body of work that recognised the importance of the modern movement and stimulat

Berlin, 1938. When Beatrice, a young Irish Protestant lace maker, is whisked away from her dreary life to join the household of Felix and Dorthea Metzenburg, she feels like she’s landed in the middle

In the 1920s and 1930s, anthropology and ethnography provided new and striking ways of rethinking what art could be and the forms which it could take. This book examines the impact of these emergent d

Annette Lemieux is one of the most notable of the generation of feminist artists who came to prominence in the 1980s. Her fusion of conceptualism with a studio practice that remains respectful of abst

Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a trailblazer. A fighter. And a public servant who has dedicated her life to the pursuit of equality.When Ruth was a young girl, her mother encouraged her to read, be independen

★ 國際知名首飾與物件藝術家費莉可・范德雷斯特重要作品集★ 以動物為主角，融合編織、金屬與玩具材料，展現獨創藝術風格★ 從童趣出發，延伸至環境保護與人類觀看動物的深層思考荷蘭首飾與物件藝術家費莉可・范德雷斯特（Felieke van der Leest）以極具辨識度的創作風格，在國際當代首飾藝術界占有一席之地。她擅長將鉤針編織等纖維技法，結合貴金屬、塑膠玩具動物與鮮明色彩，創作出既華麗又充滿幽默感的首飾與物件。她筆下的動物不只是裝飾元素，更像一個個帶著情緒與性格的角色，在作品中演出機智、俏皮卻耐人尋味的故事。在這些看似輕盈、繽紛的作品背後，也能看見藝術家對動物處境、環境議題與人類行為的細膩觀察。她的創作總帶著一種自由奔放的想像力，讓觀者在微笑之餘，也被悄悄觸動。本書收錄藝術家自1996年至今的重要首飾與物件作品，完整展現她如何以獨特語言，讓藝術、童心與思考彼此交會。這是一本適合設計、工藝、當代藝術與動物主題愛好者珍藏的精彩作品集。"When I am working with colors, I feel like a painter. When I am working with metal, I feel like a constructor. And when I am working with toys, I feel like a child." (Felieke van der Leest). The work of Dutch jewelry and object artist Felieke van der Leest (born in 1968) expresses the very special affection that she has for animals. With unbridled fantasy she creates pieces that ostentatiously, colorfully and playfully revolve around her little friends. She combines techniques used in textile work, such as crochet, with valuable metals and plastic toy animals. Within the

Barbara Maria Stafford is at the forefront of a growing movement that calls for the humanities to confront the brain’s material realities. In Echo Objects, she argues that humanists should seiz

This book examines the nature of economic objects that form the subject matter of economics, and studies how they resemble or differ from the objects studied by the natural sciences. It explores the q

The objects we encounter in ordinary life and scientific practice -- cars, trees, people, houses, molecules, galaxies, and the like -- have long been a fruitful source of perplexity for metaphysicians

Trained as a photographer, Terry Border left the commercial world for story-telling. His complex vignettes are made of the simplest, everyday items: a jar of spices, a cigarette stub, a flower, a sna

Watson explores the subtle forces of memory fields and suggests that matter has the capacity to absorb emotional "fingerprints," the mental fossils that channel echoes from the past. He demonstrates

【兩屆紐伯瑞獎得主2026最新力作】當電池電量即將歸零，我們對愛的記憶是否能重新開機？《The Second Life of Snap》一場關於生存、友誼與「告別」的溫柔革命。在資源極度匱乏、由大企業掌控一切的未來世界「亮谷」，十二歲的女孩 Zuzu 對冷冰冰的機器人毫無興趣。然而，當失業的父親帶回一台過時的第一代保衛機器人「Snap」時，一切都改變了。Snap 雖然博學卻有些頑固，最糟糕的是，他的電池正一天天耗盡，且無法再充電。在一個水與食物都被配給的殘酷世界，Zuzu與她的好友們必須在 Snap 徹底「重設」之前，展開一場拯救計畫。這不只是一台機器人的第二生命，更是一群少年在塵土與烈日下，攜手找回希望的生命啟示錄。Twelve-year-old Zuzu Santos doesn't want a robot. She and her best friends, otherwise known as "the Valleycats," would rather explore Bright Valley on their own. But then Zuzu meets Snap, a know-it-all guardian robot with a limited battery life and an abundance of hope. A gripping, stand-alone, thematically rich survival story by two-time Newbery Medalist Erin Entrada Kelly, for fans of The Wild Robot and A Rover's Story. Bright Valley Subsidized Camp #5 is not a perfect place to live. It's dusty, there are no trees to provide respite from the beating sun, the trailers are falling apart, and the water supply is heavily rationed. But to twelve-year-old Zuzu Santos and her three b

From the author of the internationally bestselling The Book of Doors, another fantastical, stand-alone novel in which a trio of seemingly everyday people are members of a secret society tasked with finding and protecting hidden magical objects--ordinary items with extraordinary properties. The world of unknowable objects--magical items that most people have no idea possess powers--has been quiet for decades, but the three current members of a secret society have remained watchful, meeting every six months in the basement of a bookshop in London. They are pledged to protect their archive of magical items hidden away, safe from the outside world--and the world safe from them. But when Frank Simpson, the longest-standing member of the Society of Unknowable Objects, hears of a new artifact coming to light in Hong Kong, he sends Magda Sparks--author by day and newest member--to investigate.Within hours of arriving in Hong Kong, Magda is facing death and danger, confronted by a professional

From the author of the Sunday Times bestselling The Book of Doors comes a second fantastical, stand-alone novel bursting with adventure and magic and heart. A handful of very ordinary individuals are members of a rather extraordinary society - its sole purpose being to track down unknowable objects that are out there, hiding in plain sight, to keep these items safe from the outside world . .. and the outside world safe from them. Get ready to be spellbound by the new, fantastical novel from the Sunday Times bestselling author of fantasy sensation The Book of Doors .. . 'A dazzling, globe-trotting thriller with a spectacular dash of magic.Like Michael Crichton at his finest, but with fantasy. Brilliant stuff!' SUNYI DEAN, bestselling author of The Book EatersThe world of unknowable objects - magical items that most people have no idea possess powers - has been quiet for decades . .. But three current members of a secret society have remained watchful, meeting every six months in the bas