A Lost Art Rediscovered includes a fully illustrated catalogue of all known tiles produced in the region of Constantinople, including the substantial collection owned by the Walters Art Museum, as well as those belonging to museums and private collections around the world. Some tiles included in the catalogue are now lost; the discovery of others is reported here for the first time. A series of scholarly essays gives the ceramics their rightful place in the study of Byzantine art and treats aspects of patronage, manufacture, function, ornament, and cultural significance. This comprehensive publication heralds the first large-scale, permanent installation of the Byzantine tiles in the collection of the Walters Art Museum. Book jacket.

Long before GPS, Google Earth, and global transit, humans traveled vast distances using only environmental clues and simple instruments. John Huth asks what is lost when modern technology substitutes for our innate capacity to find our way. Encyclopedic in breadth, weaving together astronomy, meteorology, oceanography, and ethnography, The Lost Art of Finding Our Way puts us in the shoes, ships, and sleds of early navigators for whom paying close attention to the environment around them was, quite literally, a matter of life and death. Haunted by the fate of two young kayakers lost in a fog bank off Nantucket, Huth shows us how to navigate using natural phenomena—the way the Vikings used the sunstone to detect polarization of sunlight, and Arab traders learned to sail into the wind, and Pacific Islanders used underwater lightning and “read” waves to guide their explorations. Huth reminds us that we are all navigators capable of learning techniques ranging from the simplest to the most sophisticated skills of direction-finding. Even today, careful observation of the sun and moon, tides and ocean currents, weather and atmospheric effects can be all we need to find our way. Lavishly illustrated with nearly 200 specially prepared drawings, Huth’s compelling account of the cultures of navigation will engross readers in a narrative that is part scientific treatise, part personal travelogue, and part vivid re-creation of navigational history. Seeing through the eyes of past voyagers, we bring our own world into sharper view.

With humor and insight born of decades of experience, Al Maag shares what he learned during his Chicago childhood in the 1950s and 60s, a stark contrast to the current C-generation that has grown up with electronic gadgets. Social Media Isn't Social shows why online social media cannot replace face-to-face human connection, and reveals the critical real-life social skills you need to succeed today in business and in life.

A lively story of raising a child to enjoy real food in a processed world, and the importance of maintaining healthy food cultures In Italy, children traditionally sat at the table with the adults eating everything from anchovies to artichokes. Their appreciation of seasonal, regional foods influenced their food choices and this passing down of traditions turned Italy into a world culinary capital. But now, parents worldwide are facing the same problems as American families with the aggressive marketing of processed foods and the prevalence of junk food wherever children gather. While struggling to raise her child, Nico, on a natural, healthy, traditional Italian diet, Jeannie Marshall, a Canadian who lives in Rome, sets out to discover how such a time-tested food culture could change in such a short time. At once an exploration of the U.S. food industry’s global reach and a story of finding the best way to feed her child, The Lost Art of Feeding Kids will appeal to parents, food policy experts, and fans of great food writing alike.

True tales of lost art, built around case studies of famous works, their creators, and stories of disappearance and recovery From the bestselling author of The Art of Forgery comes this dynamic narrative that tells the fascinating stories of artworks stolen, looted, or destroyed in war, accidentally demolished or discarded, lost at sea or in natural disasters, or attacked by iconoclasts or vandals; works that were intentionally temporal, knowingly destroyed by the artists themselves or their patrons, covered over with paint or plaster, or recycled for their materials. An exciting read that spans the centuries and the continents.

The interest generated by the conservation and rehanging of a Velazquez picture "Portrait of a Man", led the Metropolitan Museum to consider how it might hold an exhibition of Velaquez's oeuvre, to show how his work led to this particular picture being painted, and how it informed his future work.