The Virtuoso:
Fact To Face With
40 Extraordinary Talents
By Ken Carbone with Photographs by Howard Schatz
We know it when we are lucky enough to encounter it, in whatever form it takes: a flawless bank shot, a magical card trick, or a transporting piano solo. Brilliantly captured in these pages, virtuosity is the unthinkable ventured, the impossible attained—humbling, exalting, and irresistible.
What creates a virtuoso? What combination of talent, luck, and will shapes a remarkable body of work? What do extra ordinary people have in common and how are they unique? This daring book pares lively profiles with intimate portraits to reveal what makes forty truly exceptional people tick. Some, like Muhammad Ali or Mikhail Baryshnikov are world famous, others relatively obscure. But all are among the best of the world at what they do, whether it’s tying flies, puzzling over evolution, running a restaurant, or playing the guitar.
Essays by noted figures—Frank Deford on skill, Judith Jamison on mentors, John Russell on genius, and Peter Blake on vision—provide a thoughtful context for exploring the subject of virtuosity. Elegantly designed, The Virtuoso is an inspiring celebration of human achievement.
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The Hat Book
By Leslie Smolan with Photographs by Rodney Smith
How a hat is worn can reveal or conceal. The Hat Book is a visual essay on the experience, the whimsy, and the sense of style that hats bestow. In many ways, it is about play-acting—how one can be many things under the cover of a hat. The photographs tell the story and the introduction sends the reader off in the right direction. There are short quotes from Oscar Wilde, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Dr. Seuss among others, that pertain to hats, so the whole book captures the magical experience of wearing a hat. The photographer, Rodney Smith is a photographer of rare talent. He brings a unique vision and technical expertise to his photographs, which have been purchased by many collectors, corporations and museums. In 1986, Nan A. Talese at Houghton Mifflin published Smith’s portraits of the people of Jerusalem in a book entitled In the Land of Light.
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