Bandon Public Library

You cannot stand underneath the masterwork that is the Sistine Chapel without considering the genius and painstaking work that went into its creation. Michelangelo Buonarroti never wanted to paint the Sistine Chapel, though. Appointed by the temperamental Julius II, Michelangelo believed the suspiciously large-scale project to be a plot for failure conspired by his rivals and the "Warrior Pope." After all, Michelangelo was not a painter—he was...

Hailed by readers and critics across the country, this engrossing biography of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo reveals a woman of extreme magnetism and originality, an artist whose sensual vibrancy came straight from her own experiences: her childhood near Mexico City during the Mexican Revolution, a devastating accident at age eighteen that left her crippled and unable to bear children, her tempestuous marriage to muralist Diego Rivera and intermittent...

Traces the life of the influential twentieth-century photographer to link the extraordinary arc of her experiences to her iconic images, exploring her role in shaping both photography and contemporary art while offering insights into the unique perspectives that drew her to her subjects.

"Bob Wiseman believes most things in life are universal, or, as his friend Joe once said, everything is everything. Bearing in mind this fortune cookie advice, Wiseman writes about finding the link between music and daily tasks, like teaching a five-year-old "Twinkle, Twinkle" and doing the dishes each night. Bob writes daily, the way someone else might practice scales; although his sense of the instrument and the musician has changed over the years,...

Winslow Homer was the antithesis of the unkempt bohemian artist of the nineteenth century. He not only always maintained the appearance of an English country gentleman, but was also an everyday sort of man, both in his life and his paintings. Yet he is ranked as one of America's greatest painters. The reason is not hard to discover, for Winslow Homer's powerful epic statements spoke for America with a breadth that few other artists have achieved....

As he entered his seventies, the great Italian Renaissance artist Michelangelo despaired that his productive years were past. Anguished by the death of friends and discouraged by the loss of commissions to younger artists, this supreme painter and sculptor began carving his own tomb. It was at this unlikely moment that fate intervened to task Michelangelo with the most ambitious and daunting project of his long creative life. 'Michelangelo, God's...

"From Alec Nevala-Lee, the author of the Hugo and Locus Award finalist Astounding, comes a revelatory biography of the visionary designer who defined the rules of startup culture and shaped America's idea of the future. During his lifetime, Buckminster Fuller was hailed as one of the greatest geniuses of the twentieth century. As the architectural designer and futurist best known for the geodesic dome, he enthralled a vast popular audience, inspired...

"Edward Lear, the renowned English artist, musician, author, and poet, lived a vivid, fascinating life, but confessed, 'I hardly enjoy any one thing on earth while it is present' ... Lear was a man of great simplicity and charm--children adored him--yet his humor masked epilepsy, depression, and loneliness. [The author's] beautifully illustrated biography, full of the color of the age, brings us his swooping moods, passionate friendships, and restless...

Rosamond Bernier has lived an unusually full life--remarkable for its vividness and diversity of experience--and she has known many (one is tempted to say all) of the greatest artists and composers of the twentieth century. In Some of My Lives, Bernier has made a kind of literary scrapbook from an extraordinary array of writings, ranging from diary entries to her many contributions to the art journal L'OEIL, which she cofounded in 1955. The result...

"My Brother Was an Only Child" was Jack Douglas' very first humour book, having written for famous radio and television celebrities such as Jack Paar, Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and Jimmy Durante, as well as TV shows such as "Adventures of Harriet and Ozzie", "The George Gobel Show", and "Laugh-In". It perfectly captures the sense of humour prevalent in this era and is as refreshing and side-splittingly funny now as it was then.