Artist and fashion designer Cinzia Ruggeri (1942-2019) was definitely ahead with her nonconformist perspective and ever experimental practice. She investigated the architectural and social dimension of the body with irony and oneirism.⁠ ⁠ Cinzia Says… is the first monograph on this unconventional figure who moved across disciplines with absolute freedom.⁠ Buy

Noma has been doing things differently from the start, so it's no surprise that they also do their cookbooks a little differently than others. Their latest publication, Noma 2.0 - Vegetable Forest Ocean, comes straight from their test kitchen where they experiment and research. The dishes are incredibly beautiful and highly intriguing. The combinations of flavours, textures and colours, and the unusual ingredients often found in the search for food, are meant to provide inspiration. Thus, with each beautifully arranged dish, you'll find an ingredient list and description that will spark your own ideas. However, if you don't want to "just" be inspired, but want to recreate a Noma dish in great detail, a QR code will lead you to a very detailed recipe.⁠ Buy

As humble booksellers who watch the holiday season unfold from behind a cash register, we here at do you read me?! would be among the first to agree that the holidays have become less about celebrating religious or social events and more about the arrival of a certain rotund figure in a pretty far out red suit. Indeed, each passing December seems to reaffirm the free market’s unfettered socio-cultural ascent–which is good news for fans of money, stuff, and the pursuit of money to buy stuff; and bad news for fans of, say, the planet or human rights. After all, society can’t be too social if we are all collectively staring into the void of Black Friday sales on our non-fair trade iPhones. More

We all know that you can’t judge a book by its cover. A book’s design, though, is an entirely different matter. Everything that goes into the physical creation of a book reflects its contents to a certain degree: romance novels are printed on trashy paper with even trashier imagery for good reason; and it is by no means arbitrary that gilded pages are found in Bibles or that lush paper and fine ink are used for the exhibition catalogues one finds at museums like the Louvre. The medium is the message, or at least a key part of it. This is certainly the case with isolarii–our November Surprise Subscription pick. More

Mikiko Hara has her own way of secretly capturing the strangers who cross her path: a young man on the train, a couple holding hands, a little girl playing in a park… Sometimes their eyes meet briefly as she presses the shutter, but Mikiko Hara does not exchange with her subjects. Yet, these portraits reveal something infinitely personal.⁠ ⁠ Mikiko Hara’s approach, firmly rooted in a documentation of every- day life, extends in the intimacy of her living space: cut flowers in the sink, a strawberry shortcake in the fridge, her three sons dozing on the floor. The eye of the photographer, who is also a mother and wife, moves back and forth from the outside to the inside, from the public to the private sphere. Wherever she is, Mikiko Hara observes and tells stories like fragments of life.⁠ Buy

There are many more edible flowers than the three species you sometimes find on a packaged salad in the supermarket. But since others are poisonous, you need a really good guidebook to get you started. And that guide is now here!⁠ ⁠ More than 100 flowers are presented with their flavor profiles, origins, and edible plant parts, accompanied by vivid photographic portraits. Simple recipes and short essays written by a number of famous chefs, artists, and writers tell the creative and gastronomic story of edible flowers, making this practical handbook an entertaining read. Buy

Reverse Hallucinations in the Archipelago reflects on the changing role of colonial natural history collections in the current ecological crisis.⁠ ⁠ From DNA traces tracing teak furniture back to Indonesian plantations, to the extinction of species in the rapidly changing Malay world, an essayistic composition of Dutch paleoanthropologist Eugène Dubious's Javanese osteo-mythology, to the harmful role of monocultures, especially oil palm. In addition, a series of drone footage by Akademi Drone Indonesia, a group of young environmental activists from Nusantara, documents controversial land grabs in the region and shows the ongoing environmental violence perpetrated for profit.⁠ Buy

The Dictionary of Color Combinations is probably one of the most beautiful books we ever held in our hands! After it has been sold out for a year, we finally have it back in stock and are mesmerized as before.⁠..⁠ ⁠ The pocket size jewel offers 348 incredible color combinations by Japanese painter Sanzo Wada. The compositions of two, three, and four tones could not be more intriguing and with its index registering the CMYK code of every shade used it is an indispensable tool for every designer.⁠ Buy

Theriaca is the independent label managed by artist and fashion designer Asuka Hamada. Based in Germany and Japan, she is currently engaged in a creative project that focuses on the endless creative potential of knitwork. This art book compiles her works and process as part of this endeavour.⁠ ⁠ Discover colourful objects made of yarn, derived from the artist’s fluid inspiration, and unique pieces knitted from non-traditional materials like shoelaces, straws, or paper. The volume provides a comprehensive look at Hamada’s own thought process, spanning from ideation, experimentation, and implementation to actual designs, all while pushing the boundaries of what knitting is capable of. Buy

"In your text, treat Africa as if it were one country. It is hot and dusty with rolling grasslands and huge herds of animals and tall, thin people who are starving. Or it is hot and steamy with very short people who eat primates. Don't get bogged down with precise descriptions."⁠ ⁠ This is a trailblazing collection of writings by rule-breaker Binyavanga Wainaina. Full of sharp satire and piercing wisdom, it contains many of Binyavanga's critically acclaimed works, including the satirical sensation How to Write About Africa, quoted above, which plays with the way Western media have reinforced stereotypes and pre-existing notions about Africa. Buy

On the surface of a red-figure Attica vase, some thousands years ago, an inscription reading “ο Παῖς Καλός” had been engraved. Translating as The Boy Is Beautiful this intricate detail transforms a common vessel into a declaration of homoerotic affection; echoing the sexual liberation of a bygone era.⁠ ⁠ The Boy Is Beautiful took this as an inspiration to investigate into queer Greek chronicles, from myth and history, to contemporary life. A quest with the question what happened between the time of Zeus and Ganymede, Apollo and Hyacinth, Achilles and Patroclus, the Band of Thebes and the Lesbian Sappho, Harmodius and Aristogeiton and the contemporary society full of sexism, homophobie and straightwashed history.⁠ Buy

Photographer Mao Ishikawa planned to photograph US soldiers on the island of Okinawa, but ultimately turned her camera to the girls who worked in the bars there.⁠ ⁠ In the 1970s, Mao Ishikawa began working in bars frequented by black US soldiers on the occupied Japanese island of Okinawa to pursue her photographic project. But the then 22-year-old photographer quickly became fascinated by the girls who worked behind the counters instead of the military men. The bar girls lived their lives to the fullest. Ishikawa candidly captures the hugs, laughter and smiles of young women in the prime of their lives, unafraid to show off, provoke, enjoy and freely express their feelings.⁠ ⁠ The photographs, which show the girls' love affairs, the bars, the afternoons on the beach and the children born of relationships with the soldiers, are a raw celebration of the freedom, strength and unashamed beauty of the women of Okinawa, far from sentimentalities and idealisations.⁠ Buy