Best of CH: Top Five Books of 2008

by Karen Day

Books can at times be like an art and culture lover's version of the baseball card, collecting them as mementos of our favorite players or going the extra mile and scoring a limited edition we know will always be of great worth. With alluring images and genres to suit even your quirkiest interest, it can be difficult to decipher which to own and which to just cozy up with for a few hours in the corner of a local independent bookstore. While we'd love to own them all, unfortunately, unlike baseball cards, books are a little heavier both in size and on the wallet. With that in mind, we've selected five out of the many books we wrote about in 2008 we believe are a sure knockout.

Digital By Design
In a world becoming more advanced every minute, with everything from virtual reality pinball machines to the common smart phone, it's difficult to make sense of it all. U.K. design studio (and CH heroes) Troika (check out Troika on CH Video here) does just that with their recent book, "Digital By Design," a complete survey of the most innovative digital products and works of art today.

I Was Told There Would Be Cake
Full-time writer, part-time maker of dioramas, New Yorker Sloane Crosley has released a collection of her witty essays entitled "I Was Told There'd Be Cake." Recounting tales of plastic pony collections, wanting to raise her unborn kids in Belgium and locking herself out of her apartment twice in one day, Crosley's stories will make you think of Larry David if he was a cute thirty year-old woman. No wonder HBO snapped up the rights to the book. Available from Amazon or Powell's.

Rachel Papo: Serial No. 3817131
Ohio-born Israeli Rachel Papo began photographing female soldiers in 2004. Having worked as a photographer in the Israeli Air Force for two years during her mandatory military service, Papo had experienced first hand being “plucked from her home surroundings and placed in a rigorous institution where her individuality is temporarily forced aside in the name of nationalism” as she describes it in her artist's statement. The project is titled Serial No. 3817131 from the author's own military service. Available from powerHouse Books.

Ferran Adrià: A Day at elBulli
How does one become known as the most wildly inventive chef at what is often regarded as the best restaurant in the world? As the new book "A Day at elBulli" from Phaidon reveals, raw talent only takes you so far. The rest is planning, planning and more planning. No one understands that better perhaps than Ferran Adrià, whose attitude is that "ambition without patience is a dangerous thing." Read more about Adrià's meticulous cooking in the book, available at Amazon or Powell's.

Radio Silence: A Selected Visual History of American Hardcore Music
Much like John Cusak’s character in High Fidelity, we at CH constantly wrestle with the proper way to organize our records. Alphabetical? Chronological? Emotional significance? "Radio Silence," a forthcoming book from MTV Press/Powerhouse Books, takes a clever approach to the classic dilemma. An unprecedented documentation of the American hardcore scene from 1978-1994, the book includes all sorts of memorabilia. But it's the collection of hardcore album covers laid out in compelling grids and arranged according to aesthetics that sets it apart from other documentations of an era. (Pictured above, click to enlarge). The book is available at Amazon or PowerHouse.