Jack Ziegler is a pivotal figure in the history of contemporary cartooning. An artist who redefined what a gag cartoon can be, he blends the conventions of a comic strip with the traditional format of a one-panel captioned cartoon, giving readers of The New Yorker some of their funniest moments for nearly 30 years. And though his self-stated ambition is modest-"just wanting to be funny"-his editors over the years praise him as a genius with a "touch of madness." (Balancing that is the opinion, shared by the artist himself, of friend and fellow cartoonist Bill Woodman: "Oh, Jack-he's just nuts, that's all.") Third in The Essential Cartoonists Library is The Essential Jack Ziegler, joining The Essential George Booth and The Essential Charles Barsotti in respectfully celebrating this unique visual form and its great artists. Compiled and edited by Lee Lorenz, former art editor of The New Yorker, it presents approximately 150 of the artist's best cartoons, as well as photographs, insight into his background, influences, inspirations, working habits, and the appreciations of fellow cartoonists, including Roz Chast, Mick Stevens, and Bob Mankoff.A sharp social satirist whose work sneaks up on you, Ziegler offers a deadpan yet bemused portrait of middle America. Everything appears normal-yet of course it's not. Television comes in by pipeline. "Say, this isn't so bad," comes a thought bubble from under a grave. And two dogs suspiciously eye a cat calendar. No idea is too far-fetched, too silly, too pointed-and suddenly you're laughing out loud.

In this brilliant, engrossing work, Jack Turner explores an era—from ancient times through the Renaissance—when what we now consider common condiments were valued in gold and blood. Spices made sour medieval wines palatable, camouflaged the smell of corpses, and served as wedding night aphrodisiacs. Indispensible for cooking, medicine, worship, and the arts of love, they were thought to have magical properties and were so valuable that they were often kept under lock and key. For some, spices represented Paradise, for others, the road to perdition, but they were potent symbols of wealth and power, and the wish to possess them drove explorers to circumnavigate the globe—and even to savagery. Following spices across continents and through literature and mythology, Spice is a beguiling narrative about the surprisingly vast influence spices have had on human desire. Includes eight pages of color photographs. One of the Best Books of the Year: Discover Magazine, The Christian Science Monitor, San Francisco Chronicle

Each week about fifty New Yorker cartoonists submit ten ideas, yielding five hundred cartoons for no more than twenty spots in the magazine. Arguably the most brilliant single-panel-gag cartoonists in the world create a bunch of cartoons every week that never see the light of day. These rejects were piling up in the dusty corners of studios all over the country. Sam Gross, who has been contributing since 1962, has more than 12,000 rejected cartoons. (Seriously. He's been numbering every single cartoon he's ever submitted to The New Yorker since the very beginning.) Enter editor Matthew Diffee. He tapped his fellow cartoonists, asking them to rescue these hilarious lost gems. From the artists' stacks of all-time favorite rejects, Diffee handpicked the standouts -- the cream of the crap -- and created The Rejection Collection, a place where good ideas go when they die. Too risqué, silly, or weird for The New Yorker, the cartoons in this book offer something no other collection has: They have never been seen in print until now. With a foreword by New Yorker cartoon editor Robert Mankoff that explains the sound judgment, respectability, and scruples not found anywhere in these pages, and handwritten questionnaires that introduce the quirky character of each artist, The Rejection Collection will appeal to fans of The New Yorker...and to anyone with a slightly sick sense of humor.

With deadpan humor that combines sneaky social satire with clever wordplay, "The New Yorker" cartoonist Jack Ziegler serves up his most delicious and satisfying comic fare: 125 tasty morsels about food culture and consumption.

An exclusive sneak peek inside the creative minds of more than 50 New Yorker cartoonists, celebrating legends and newcomers alike with stunning photography and engaging profiles. For a century, The New Yorker has provided readers with hundreds of thousands of cartoons that humorously (and accurately) encapsulate the cultural happenings in our world. From politics to pop culture, New Yorker cartoonists have found a way to make complex topics digestible through lines, shades, and clever, witty captions. In honor of the magazine’s 100th birthday, this celebratory collection captures the brilliantly quirky personalities behind some of The New Yorker’s most iconic cartoons. Filled with striking portraits by world-renowned photographer Alen MacWeeney, captivating profiles by long-time New Yorker contributor Michael Maslin, and a sampling of each artist’s work, these pages offer an exclusive peek inside the creative brains of over fifty prominent cartoonists, both seasoned and newly minted. From legends like Roz Chast and Jack Ziegler to contemporaries like Liana Finck and Jeremy Nguyen, this landmark volume is a beautiful homage to the artists who have long brought joy, humor, and satire to our lives.

The "New Yorker" cartoon editor has collected dead-on portraits and eye-opening ruminations on all things bookish, courtesy of the magazine's renowned stable of cartoonists, from Charles Barsotti to Roz Chast, Ed Koren to Frank Modell, and Jack Ziegler to Victoria Roberts.

A cogent and provocative argument about the art of film, Essential Cinema is a fiercely independent reference book of must-see movies for film lovers everywhere.