Library Collections
Be Creative Booklist
This summer, our Summer Reading Program is encouraging your to Be Creative! Here are some books to help encourage your creative spirit.
For printable bookmarks with these books and locations, click here.
Architecture • Art • Crafts • Creativity • Decor • Gardening • Performing Arts • Photography
Architecture
| American Masterworks: Houses of the 20th and 21st Centuries (Kenneth Frampton) - NEWBOOKS 728.3709 FRAMPTON OVERSIZE: This beautiful, authoritative book celebrates great American residential design. Its wide-ranging content highlights the most important works by the influential architects of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Check Availability | |
| Conversations With Frank Gehry (Barbara Isenberg) - NEWBOOKS 720.92 ISENBERG: An unprecedented, intimate, and richly illustrated portrait of Frank Gehry, one of the world’s most influential architects. Drawing on the most candid, revealing, and entertaining conversations she has had with Gehry over the last twenty years, Barbara Isenberg provides new and fascinating insights into the man and his work. Check Availability | |
| Discovering London's Buildings: With Twelve Walks (John Bold) - NEWBOOKS 720.9421 BOLD: A celebration of London's architectural heritage through a selection of themes including houses, churches, railway stations and pubs. Culminates in 12 architectural walks, each carefully planned to explore a diversity of building and architectural heritage. Check Availability | |
| Frank Lloyd Wright: The Buildings (Alan Hess) - NEWBOOKS OVERSIZE 720.92 HESS: Features the great non-residential masterpieces of architecture by this American genius. Extensive, all-new photography shows the buildings to an extent rarely seen while rich text by author Alan Hess coupled with insightful essays by Wright scholars David G. De Long and Kathryn Smith uncover the great innovative richness of the master architect's non-residential work, ultimately inviting a reevaluation of the architectural legacy of this almost mythical figure. Check Availability | |
| Great Architecture of Michigan (John Gallagher) - NEWBOOKS OVERSIZE 720.9774 GALLAGHER: Learn about Michigan's most celebrated historical buildings, everything from the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island to the Fisher Building in Detroit. Check Availability | |
| Gustav Stickley's Craftsman Homes and Bungalows (Gustav Stickley) - NEWBOOKS 728.3709 STICKLEY: In 1901, Gustav Stickley began to create the first uniquely American style of furniture and home design—known as Craftsman. Stickley's principles of home design include construction that is in harmony with its landscape, open floor plans, built-in storage, and natural lighting. This resource, a combination of three of Stickley's works, is a comprehensive introduction to the design and building of beautiful Craftsman homes. Check Availability | |
| The New Bungalow (Matthew Bialecki) - NEWBOOKS 728.373 NEW: This volume offers attractive, environmentally-aware alternatives to the arts and crafts bungalow. The color photographs and accompanying text exhibit a variety of styles, from pure classical to the more interpretive, and run the gamut in affordability. Check Availability | |
| On Architecture (Ada Louise Huxtable) - NEWBOOKS 724.6 HUXTABLE: On Architecture gathers together the best of Huxtable's writing, from one of her first pieces in the New York Times in 1963 on Le Corbusier's Carpenter Center at Harvard, to lengthy essays in the New York Review of Books, to her current writing in the Wall Street Journal. Check Availability |
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Art
| 501 Great Artists (Steven Fathing, ed.) - NEWBOOKS 709.22 FIVE: A comprehensive guide to the giants of the art world. Check Availability | |
| Avant Gardeners (Tim Robinson) - NEWBOOKS 712 ROBINSON: Avant Gardeners presents the fifty most exciting and innovative contemporary garden - and landscape - design practices from around the world, profiling the work of each designer through informative texts, photographs and plans. Check Availability | |
| The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution (Denis Dutton) - NEWBOOKS 701.17 DUTTON: The Art Instinct unites two of the most fascinating and contentious disciplines, art and evolutionary science, in a provocative new work that will change the way we think about the arts, from music to literature to pottery. Check Availability | |
| Artistic Fitness (Ed Tadem) - NEWBOOKS 741.24 TADEM: Fifty quick exercises to increase your artistic skill. Check Availability | |
| Dancer: Degas, Forain and Toulouse-Lautrec (Annette Dixon) - OVERSIZE 704.9497 DIXON: Although Edgar Degas' dancers are featured regularly in major exhibitions, setting this catalogue apart is its comparison of the work of the Impressionist with that of the lesser-known (but no less important) Jean-Louis Forain and the famous (but chronologically later) Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Check Availability | |
| Frank Lloyd Wright's Glass Designs (Carla Lind) - NEWBOOKS 748.5913 LIND: Looks at the innovative ways Wright used glass in windows, skylights, and decorative designs Check Availability | |
| Gustav Klimt: Drawings & Watercolors (Rainer Metzger) - OVERSIZE 759.36 METZGER: Here, Rainer Metzger brings together hundreds of Klimt's works on paper in a way that enriches our knowledge of the artist and enhances the visual impact of his oeuvre. Check Availability | |
| How to Read a Painting: Lessons From the Old Masters (Patrick De Rynck, ed.) - 753.0903 HOW: De Rynck presents 150 paintings and frescoes that have attained the status of masterpieces. Each work is displayed on a full-color two-page spread that includes detailed close-ups and a meticulous decoding of the painting's subject, symbols, and intent. Check Availability | |
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Spiral Jetta: A Road Trip Through the Land Art of the American West (Erin Hogan) - 709.0407 HOGAN: Erin Hogan hit the road in her Volkswagen Jetta and headed west from Chicago in search of the monuments of American land art: a salty coil of rocks, four hundred stainless-steel poles, a gash in a mesa, four concrete tubes, and military sheds filled with cubes. Her journey took her through the states of Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas. Spiral Jetta is a chronicle of this journey. Check Availability |
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Crafts
| Beyond the Bead: Making Jewelry with Unexpected Finds (Margot Potter) - NEWBOOKS 745.5942 POTTER: Beyond the Bead leads readers through a series of techniques for creating unique mixed-media jewelry. Step-by-step instruction is provided for all the techniques including working with glass, resin and plastic, polymer and metal clay, felt and fibers, hardware store goods, paper art supplies and even odds and ends from around the home. Check Availability | |
| Decorative Knot Craft (Kim Sang Lan) - NEWBOOKS 745.5942 KIM: Readers will explore the art of decorative knotting to create over twenty imaginative jewelry and accessory projects. Eleven exciting knotting techniques are demonstrated, from basic tying to more intricate macram and ornamental styles. Each technique is clearly illustrated with detailed step-by-step instructions and striking photography to ensure crafters of all skill levels will quickly begin to enjoy the ancient technique of knot art. Check Availability |
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| Martha Stewart's Encyclopedia of Crafts (eds. Martha Stewart Living Magazine) - NEWBOOKS 745.5 MARTHA: Organized by topic, this comprehensive resource contains projects, templates, and detailed instructions for more than 30 craft techniques such as beading, jewelry making, paper cutting, and silkscreening. Instructions for each technique are followed with how-to projects. Check Availability | |
| Material Obsession: Modern Quits with Traditional Roots (Kathy Doughty) - NEWBOOKS 746.4604 DOUGHTY: Doughty and Fielke present 23 vibrant quilt patterns that appear fresh and modern, but are often based on traditional designs. They explain how any quilter, novice or seasoned, can create striking variations of their own by seeking inspiration from both the fabric in front of them and the world around them. Check Availability | |
| Micro-Macrame: 30 Beaded Designs for Jewelry (Annika DeGroot) - NEWBOOKS 746.4222 DEGROOT: Macramé has reemerged with a gorgeous new twist. Evocative of the Victorian-era macramé lace that decorated fashionable women’s shawls and purses this accessible new book updates the art of macramé lace with a range of stunning beaded jewelry designs Check Availability | |
| Modern Mark Making: From Classic Calligraphy to Hip Hand Lettering (Lisa Engelbrecht) - OVERSIZE 745.61 ENGELBRECHT: A complete volume offering lettering arts techniques as well as project ideas Check Availability | |
| Origami Card Craft (Karen Elaine Thomas) - NEWBOOKS 736.982 THOMAS: With Origami Card Craft, you can impress your friends with origami-inspired cards, boxes, and envelopes that pop up, fan out, and even hold hidden messages. Check Availability | |
| Painted Furniture: Decorating Ideas and Projects - 745.723 PAINTED: Transform vintage finds and unfinished pieces into the stars of your decorating with clever designs, fresh color, and easy techniques from the home experts at Better Homes and Gardens (R) Books. Check Availability | |
| Sewing Green: Projects and Ideas for Stitching With Organice, Repurposed, and Recycled Fabric (Betz White) - NEWBOOKS 646.4 WHITE: Betz White takes stitching to an even higher level of sustainability, presenting 25 projects made from "repurposed" thrift-store and back-of-the-closet finds and organic fabrics. Check Availability |
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Creativity
| The Creative Edge (Mary Todd Beam) - NEWBOOKS 751.4 BEAM: Mary Todd Beam demonstrates how to take your creativity to the next level by further exploring ways to use color, design, metaphors and symbols to bring that creative edge to your work. New techniques focus on expressing life experiences and recording the world around you in addition to insights of artistic expression from Beam and a host of contributing artists. Check Availability | |
| Insider's Guide to Creating Comic and Graphic Novels (Andy Schmidt) - NEWBOOKS 741.5973 SCHMIDT: In this unprecedented, behind-the-scenes guide, former Marvel editor and current IDW senior editor Andy Schmidt and his superstar industry friends give you the inside track on creating engaging, professional-looking comic books. Check Availability | |
| Legends of Literature (Phillip Sexton, ed.) - 808.02 LEGENDS: For more than 85 years, "Writers Digest" magazine has chronicled the work, opinions, and personalities of the 20th-centurys greatest literary minds. This collection reprints some of the best essays, interviews, and articles published in the magazines history. Check Availability | |
| Listening to Stone (Dan Snow) - NEWBOOKS 779.36 SNOW: Dry stone wallers are not excused from bouts of existential mud- wrestling just because they choose to tussle with the physical world every day." So writes the author of In the Company of Stone in stories of his work--viewed as a type of meditation--as a certified master craftsman of dry stone constructions for clients in New England and elsewhere. Check Availability | |
| Reading Like a Writer (Francine Prose) - 808.2 PROSE: A distinguished novelist and critic offers an inside look at how the professionals read--and write. Written with passion, humor, and wisdom, "Reading Like a Writer" instructs listeners to return to literature with a fresh eye and an eager heart. Check Availability | |
| Rejected: Tales of the Failed, Dumped, and Canceled (Jon Friedman, ed.) - NEWBOOKS 791.0922 TALES: Friedman gathers a hilarious compilation of rejection stories and rejected works from well-known and under-the-radar comedians, writers, artists, and television personalities. Check Availability | |
| Slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations (Nancy Duarte) - NEWBOOKS 658.452 Duarte: Presents practical approaches for developing an effective presentation, covering such topics as creating diagrams, displaying data, arranging elements, creating movement, and interacting with slides. Check Availability | |
| Style Evolution: How to Create Ageless Personal Style in Your 40s and Beyond (Kendall Farr) - NEWBOOKS 646.404 FARR: The author of the successful "The Pocket Stylist" follows up with a book thataddresses the specific fashion needs of the over-40 crowd. Check Availability | |
| Vintage Vavoom (eds. of Romantic Homes Magazine) - 747 VINTAGE: Explains how to create unique, personalized touches by blending family heirlooms, flea market finds, refurbished antiques, and other pieces into a modern décor, offering advice on shopping, mixing and matching, and expressing one's personal style. Check Availability |
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Decor
| The Art of Tile (Jen Renzi) - NEWBOOKS 747.9 RENZI: Tile enthusiast and design writer Renzi tackles everything tile, providing a comprehensive idea resource and instruction manual for using tile to add character to a home. The text includes an unprecedented catalog of more than 1,500 options. Check Availability | |
| Can't Fail Color Schemes: Kitchens & Baths (Amy Wax) - 747.94 WAX: Wax shows readers how to coordinate paint colors, textures, and accessories while factoring in such things as light effects and psychology of color. Check Availability | |
| Celerie Kemble: To Your Taste - Creating Modern Rooms With a Traditional Twist (Celerie Kemble) - 747 KEMBLE OVERSIZE: Celerie takes you by the hand, gives you a detailed look at many of her signature interiors, and enthusiastically reassures you that, with the right information and attitude, you can overcome challenges and artfully achieve the ultimate design goal—a perfect blend of beauty and comfort. Check Availability | |
| Color Style (Carolyn Warrender) - 747.94 WARRENDER: This practical, informative illustrated guide to understanding and using color enables you to create a stylish home that reflects your individual taste and is a pleasure to live in. Check Availability | |
| Country Living: 500 Kitchens: Style, Function, and Charm (Dominique Devito) - NEWBOOKS 747.797 DEVITO: Country Living steps into the kitchen with 500 new and exciting ways to transform the heart of the home. Packed with winning photographs of warm and inviting rooms, this inspiring guide covers color and pattern, floors and walls, storage, appliances, sinks, work surfaces, windows and lighting, and other charming accessories. Check Availability | |
| Flip! For Decorating (Elizabeth Mayhew) - NEWBOOKS 747 MAYHEW: From a "Today" show lifestyle expert and special projects editor for "House Beautiful" comes an engaging, motivational guide to help readers make decorating choices that are simple and achievable for any home environment. Check Availability | |
| How To Decorate: The Best of Martha Stewart Living (Martha Stewart) - NEWBOOKS 747.213 STEWART: Presents a collection of decorating information and projects for every room of the house, including tips on using color to set the mood, using stenciling, making curtains, and more Check Availability | |
| Michael Taylor: Interior Design (Stephen M. Salny) - OVERSIZE NEWBOOKS 747.092: One of the most innovative, imitated, and internationally respected design icons of the twentieth century, Michael Taylor brought with him a new vision that changed California's, and the profession's, approach to interiors. More than fifty of his commissions and other projects, ranging from classical to "Californian," illustrate the breadth of his talent. Check Availability | |
| P. Allen Smith's Bringing the Garden Inside (P. Allen Smith) - OVERSIZE NEWBOOKS 747.98 SMITH: Explains how to bring the beauty of the garden into the home to create a comfortable and stylish environment for every room, offering ideas and easy-to-follow projects for container gardening, topiaries, creative floral arrangements, and houseplants. Check Availability | |
| Simply Elegant Flowers With Michael George (Michael George) - NEWBOOKS 745.92 GEORGE: This beautiful book combines the stunning photography of some of George's most popular flower arrangements along with step-by-step instructions that teach readers how to recreate his simple yet elegant style. Check Availability |
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Gardening
| Every Garden Is a Story (Susannah Seton) - 635 SETON: Inspiring stories paired with beautiful photos and solid tips. Check Availability | |
| The Fence Bible (Jeff Beneke) - 717 BENEKE: Hands-on home improvement expert Jeff Beneke provides an in-depth, comprehensive, how-to encyclopedia that enables homeowners to choose and build the fences and gates that are best for their landscape - both for appearance and function. Check Availability | |
| Garden Color (Sue Fisher) - 712.2 FISHER: Working season by season and color by color, Fisher lists proven garden performers. This practical and accessible guide is made inspiring and irresistible by its knockout photographs. Check Availability | |
| Garden Design (Chris Young ed.) - NEWBOOKS 712 GARDEN: Showing step-by-step techniques for tackling every aspect of garden design, this resource is replete with detailed information that will help readers create the perfect outdoor space. Check Availability | |
| Grow Vegetables (Alan Buckingham) - NEWBOOKS 635 Buckingham: Whether growing vegetables on a balcony, inside an apartment, or in a garden, this manual teaches the tools and methods needed to grow produce. Check Availability | |
| Outside the Not So Big House (Julie Moir Messervy and Sarah Susanka) - 712.6 MESSERVY: Through the unique pairing of bestselling author and residential architect Sarah Susanka and landscape designer and award-winning writer Julie Moir Messervy, two highly qualified experts teach us how to think in a new way about designing our outdoor spaces--so they are in keeping with our interior ones. Check Availability | |
| Perennial Gardener's Design Primer (Stephanie Cohen) - 635.932 COHEN: Offers fun, organized, and - most important - attainable advice on how to create gorgeous gardens using these beloved plants. Check Availability | |
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The Practical Rock & Water Garden (Peter Robinson) - OVERSIZE 635.9672 ROBINSON: How to use rocks and water to their best advantage when planning your garden or when creating just a rock & water garden. Check Availability |
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Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways (Debra Prinzing) - NEWBOOKS 728.9 PRINZING: Profiling 30 of the country's most innovative, inviting, and inspiring sheds, this guide contains an extensive resource section and sample blueprints for projects that can transform an ordinary shed into a wonderful space in just a weekend. Check Availability |
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Performing Arts
| Delta Blues (Ted Gioia) - 781.643 GIOIA: From the field hollers and ring shouts of nineteenth-century plantations to the electrified exploits of Delta expatriates like Muddy Waters and B. B. King, Delta Blues traces the stories of the blues, as raw and ragged as the singers themselves. Check Availability | |
| Here Come the Beatles: Stories Of a Generation (Enzo Gentile) - NEWBOOKS 782.42126 HERE: Even more than thirty years after they recorded their last song together, John, Paul, George, and Ringo are still as beloved as they were when they made their first appearance. A unique tribute, this publication is a must-have for any Beatles’ fan with an unquenchable thirst for everything Beatles: music, books, film, posters—everything. Check Availability |
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| Hollywood Dreams Made Real (Mark A. Viera) - OVERSIZE NEWBOOKS 791.4302 VIERA: In this fascinating volume, acclaimed film historian Mark A. Vieira interweaves the previously unpublished recollections of Irving Thalberg's wife, Norma Shearer, and those of other M-G-M veterans with newly discovered transcripts of interviews and data from previously unseen production records. Most of the more than 250 photographs have never before been reproduced. Check Availability | |
| It Still Moves: Lost Songs, Lost Highways, and the Search For the Next American Music (Amanda Petrusich) - 781.6409 PETRUSICH: Part travelogue, part musical history, Amanda Petrusich's It Still Moves outlines the sounds of the new, weird America - honoring the rich traditions of gospel, blues, country, folk, and rock that feed it while simultaneously exploring the American character as personified by its songs and landscapes. Check Availability | |
| Mainly on Directing: Gypsy, West Side Story and Other Musials (Arthur Laurents) - NEWBOOKS 792.6023 LAURENTS: Playwright, screenwriter, and director Arthur Laurents writes about directing Broadway musicals, especially Gypsy and West Side Story, about other musicals and other directors, interacting with producers, writers, and actors, and about life with his late partner, Tom Hatcher. Check Availability | |
| Make 'em Laugh (Laurence Maslon) - NEWBOOKS 792.2309 MASLON: A lighthearted survey of American comedy from the past century and the achievements of its top contributors includes interviews with such figures as Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Cosby, and Ellen DeGeneres. Check Availability | |
| Music Quickens Time (Daniel Barenboim) - 780 BARENBOIM: Music Quickens Time reveals how the sheer power and eloquence of music offers us a way to explore how we live, and to illuminate and resolve some of the most intractable issues of our time. Check Availability | |
| Reading Dance (Robert Gottlieb, ed.) - 792.8 READING: With its huge range of content accompanied by the anthologist's incisive running commentary, Reading Dance will be a source of pleasure and instruction for anyone who loves dance. Check Availability | |
| The Story of 42nd Street (Mary C. Henderson) - 792.0974 HENDERSON: With archival images documenting its heyday, decay, and reconstruction, theatre historians Henderson and Greene givey ou the unadultrated history and inside scoop behind the theaters, actors, producers, characters and productions that wrote a story like no other: the story of Forty-second Street. Check Availability |
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Photography
| Annie Leibovitz at Work (Annie Leibovitz) - NEWBOOKS 770.92 LEIBOVITZ: Annie Leibovitz in her own words. How she made her pictures. The most celebrated photographer of our time talks about Hunter S. Thompson, the Rolling Stones, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Demi Moore, Whoopi Goldberg, The Blues Brothers, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Keith Haring, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Patti Smith, George W. Bush, William S. Burroughs, Kate Moss and Queen Elizabeth. fashion, war, advertising, lighting, cameras and the ten things she is always asked. Check Availability | |
| The Call of Trains: Railroad Photographs (Jim Shaughnessy) - OVERSIZE 779.9385 SHAUGHNESSY: Jim Shaughnessy is one of the most revered names in railroad photography, yet until now there has not been a monograph devoted solely to his work. Photo-historian and railroad enthusiast Jeff Brouws (A Passion for Trains) has worked closely with Shaughnessy to select 170 evocative photographs from his sixty-year career to create The Call of Trains - the first comprehensive overview of his life and work. Check Availability | |
| How to Photograph Absolutely Everything (Tom Ang) - 775 ANG: Avoiding intimidating technical jargon, he explains the basic elements of photography - light, color, composition, and focus - then goes on to show how to make them work for you. From still lifes to children's parties, thunderstorms to sunsets, close-ups to panoramas, every photographic subject, technique, and challenge is covered. Check Availability | |
| Kodak Guide to Digital Photography (Rob Sheppard) - 775 SHEPPARD: Written by a highly respected editor of "PCPhoto" and "Outdoor Photographer" magazines, its authoritative text helps readers choose the right camera, understand the workings of the camera's sensor, master exposure measuring techniques, and determine the best shutter speed and aperture combinations for shooting various subjects. There's an expert discussion of white balance and lighting, from daylight to artificial setups to flash photography, and entire chapters devoted to filters, close-up photography, and action shots. Finally, get practical information on digital file types, downloading, retouching, image processing, converting RAW files, and storing and retrieving images. This book has it all! Check Availability | |
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The Lake Superior Images (Craig Blacklock) - OVERSIZE 779.9917 BLACKLOCK: By Minnesota's premier photographer, Craig Blacklock, Lake Superior Images has become a classic. The original hardcover Lake Superior images made the Minneapolis Star Tribune bestseller list, and at $65 retail sold out its first printing of 10,000 copies in less than 5 months. Now available in a slightly smaller softcover edition, Lake Superior Images offers readers a fascinating glimpse of some of the most remote sections of Lake Superior's shoreline. Check Availability |
| Learning to See Creatively (Bryan Peterson) - 770.1 PETERSON: A noted photographer couples average photos with greatly improved images of the same scene to show how to improve photographic vision. From scenics to portraits, he discusses the compositional and technical methods of perfecting one's photography. Check Availability | |
| The Ongoing Moment (Geoff Dyer) - 770 Dyer: Focusing on the ways in which canonical figures like Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand, Walker Evans, Andre Kertesz, Edward Weston, Dorothea Lange, Diane Arbus, and William Eggleston have photographed the same things-barbershops, benches, hands, roads, signs-award-winning writer Geoff Dyer seeks to identify their signature styles. In doing so, he constructs a narrative in which these photographers-many of whom never met-constantly encounter one another. Check Availability | |
| Portrait Photographer's Handbook (Bill Hurter) - OVERSIZE 778.92 HURTER: Detailing equipment needed for professional portraiture and offering advanced darkroom techniques, this handbook contains everything needed to create top-dollar portraits. Tips are provided for selecting a camera, setting calibrations for every kind of portrait, and controlling the direction and intensity of light with modifiers. This updated edition illustrates each tip with 130 portraits from 20 of the industry's finest portrait photographers. Check Availability |
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Click on the links below to get printable bookmarks on these topics:
Architecture
Art
Crafts
Creativity
Home Decor
Gardening
Performing Arts
Photography
For other good reads, check out our Suggested Reads Page.
*Most summaries are taken from publisher distributed content.