A camera makes enemies; a sketchbook, friends. Firm in this belief, Irwin Allan Sealy carried to China just his pen and a book of blank pages. When the literary conference that took him there ended and his fellow writers returned to India, Sealy stayed on to travel the railroads of the north in search of a town reminiscent of his Himalayan hometown and a man who might resemble himself. Sign language, good will, and plain luck see him through, but in a northern mining town known for its ancient Buddhist cave sculptures, Sealy finally comes to the conclusion that his other was unreachable, his hometown was one of a kind, and his only hope was a pen, allowing him to record his memories, sketches, and adventures along the way. Sealy is known for both his fiction and his travelogue From Yukon to Yukatan: A Western Journey. This facsimile edition of The China Sketchbook, however, adds a special dimension to a travel narrative--the sketches and scribbles give readers a more immediate and unrestrained insight into the mind of a very fine writer and chart an unusual and quirky travel diary.

San Francisco based artist and illustrator Felicia Chiao's "Sketchbook 6" is a faithful 1:1 reproduction of her personal sketchbook. Featuring 63 beautifully detailed color illustrations complete with Post-it note sketches and a personal handwritten introduction on a bleed sheet, this publication is as close to owning the original as one can get.

In this unique travelogue, an artist depicts his experiences and observations while living in western China with colorful illustrations. The nation of China is a constant source of fascination, yet we rarely glimpse life beyond its urban centers. Far west of Beijing and Shanghai, in the remote Chinese province of Yunnan, pioneering artist Henrik Drescher settled over a decade ago. While residing in his adopted home, Drescher records his experiences and observations in his illustrated notebooks, capturing everyday life in settings ranging from street markets to mountainscapes. These richly illustrated pages are compiled here for the first time. Drescher’s loyal fans will appreciate this window onto the life of the artist at the height of his powers, while those with an interest in Chinese culture will marvel at this rarely seen view of a country in the global spotlight.

For the last fifteen years, Gregory Halpern has been photographing in Omaha, Nebraska, steadily compiling a lyrical, if equivocal, response to the American Heartland. In loosely-collaged spreads that reproduce his construction-paper sketchbooks, Halpern takes pleasure in cognitive dissonance and unexpected harmonies, playing on a sense of simultaneous repulsion and attraction to the place. Omaha Sketchbook is ultimately a meditation on America, on the men and boys who inhabit it, and on the mechanics of aggression, inadequacy, and power.

This is a collection of occasional essays by Liang Shih-chiu (1903-1087), the first scholar to have trenaslated the complete works of Shakespeare into Chinese. The authors turns homely things into interesting subjects, produceing curious vignettes from the panorama of society and reflects on the deeper meanings of life. In Chinese and English.

Featuring never-before-seen drawings by the renowned contemporary artist, a beautiful facsimile edition that reveals the working process of an extraordinary creative mind Sketchbook reproduces original working drawings and sketches by the contemporary American artist and designer Daniel Arsham, whose work freely crosses the boundaries of art, architecture, film, and design, and also speaks to fans of pop culture, including sneakerheads, car enthusiasts, and anime devotees. Spanning a decade and featuring previously unpublished drawings by this highly skilled draftsman, this beautifully produced facsimile edition provides an unprecedented, intimate look at Arsham’s working process, revealing a new side of an extraordinary creative mind. Published in association with No More Rulers

Sketchbooks are an outstanding feature in more than a few exhibitions: they have a downright prominent place in showcases, above them monitors where all sheets can be seen on touch screens – a visual pleasure and an exciting event. Unfortunately, however, many people continue to be rather baffled by sketchbooks. What goes on there? Most are convinced that the purpose of a sketchbook is to prepare for a work – typically a painting. Its pages contain impressions of a preliminary nature, sketched in a few strokes, which are completed at another time and another place. But things have changed, and this is a development we have to examine at long last in greater depth: sketchbooks can accomplish more; they plough a field other than that of “pre-liminarity”! To date there is no publication that explores their true significance within the creative process. Is it not called for to take a close look at the weight artists attach to the “silent companion in their jacket pocket”? This is the purpose of this book.