Thought-provoking case studies on cities, photographs and booksPhotographic books are almost as old as photography itself, and the city is one of their first and more recurring themes. Cities have been, and they continue to be, intensely photographed under a wide variety of forms, materialities, intentions and genres. This volume examines how a city can be moulded through the particularities of a photographic book, suggesting how urban portraits configure an overlooked, yet quite specific, photo-textual practice. Ranging from early photography to contemporary works, Paper Cities gathers thought-provoking case studies from several international contexts, providing new insights into art, material culture, history, heritage and memory, while simultaneously illuminating the debate on cities, photographs and books. Contributors: Steven Jacobs (Ghent University), Simon Dell (University of East Anglia), Hugh Campbell (University College Dublin), Steven Humblet (LUCA School of Arts), Chris Balaschak (Flagler College), Annarita Teodosio (University of Salerno), Cecile Laly (Université Paris I), Mónica Pacheco (University College London), Douglas Klahr (University of Texas), Johanna M. Blokker (Bamberg University), Philip Goldswain (University of Western Australia).

The city has always been a place of mystery, of magic, and wonder. In cities past, present, and future, in metropoli real and imagined, meet mutilated warrior women, dead boys, mechanical dogs, escape artists and more. From the dizzying heights of rooftops and spires to the sinister secrets of underpasses and gutters, some of the most talented authors writing today will take you on a trip through the urban fantastic. Edited by Ekaterina Sedia, author of The Secret History of Moscow and the forthcoming Alchemy of Stone.

Quentin Jacobson has spent a lifetime loving Margo Roth Spiegelman from afar. So when she cracks open a window and climbs into his life - dressed like a ninja and summoning him for an ingenious campaign of revenge - he follows. After their all-nighter ends, Q arrives at school to discover that Margo has disappeared.

Julia Guarneri's book considers turn-of-the-century newspapers in New York, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, and Chicago not just as vessels of information but as active agents in the creation of cities and of urban culture. Guarneri argues that newspapers sparked cultural, social, and economic shifts that transformed a rural republic into a nation of cities, and that transformed rural people into self-identified metropolitans and moderns. The book pays closest attention to the content and impact of "feature news," such as advice columns, neighborhood tours, women's pages, comic strips, and Sunday magazines. While papers provided a guide to individual upward mobility, they also fostered a climate of civic concern and responsibility. Editors drew in new reading audiences--women, immigrants, and working-class readers--giving rise to the diverse, contentious, and commercial public sphere of the twentieth century.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • "James and Deborah Fallows have always moved to where history is being made.... They have an excellent sense of where world-shaping events are taking place at any moment" —The New York Times • The basis for the HBO documentary streaming on HBO Max For five years, James and Deborah Fallows have travelled across America in a single-engine prop airplane. Visiting dozens of towns, the America they saw is acutely conscious of its problems—from economic dislocation to the opioid scourge—but it is also crafting solutions, with a practical-minded determination at dramatic odds with the bitter paralysis of national politics. At times of dysfunction on a national level, reform possibilities have often arisen from the local level. The Fallowses describe America in the middle of one of these creative waves. Their view of the country is as complex and contradictory as America itself, but it also reflects the energy, the generosity and compassion, the dreams, and the determination of many who are in the midst of making things better. Our Towns is the story of their journey—and an account of a country busy remaking itself.

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