Culled from the British Library’s incomparable archives, Dogs in Books features illustrations from rare editions of classic literature and contemporary renderings from popular books. With everything from illuminated manuscripts to comics, Dogs in Books demonstrates the timelessness of our undying love and respect for dogs and proving that they have always been more than just a pet. Illustrated in color throughout, this is an ideal gift for every dog lover.

Catherine Britton is a former senior editor at the British Library and is currently senior editor at ACC Publishing. This is her first book with Mark Batty Publisher.

“Bratrud is a mastermind that hasn’t stumbled in years … All killer, no filler.” —Bradley Carbone, Complex

“I started skateboarding around ’89, and then basically started making art at the same time,” Todd Bratrud said, and he’s been working feverishly on his shockingly fresh skate graphics and personal art ever since. Todd Bratrud’s work runs the gamut from cute to crude, but each piece is visually arresting, with bold lines and eye-popping colors. Bratrud’s wild imagination gives us tattooed babies wrestling, a skateboarding lawn gnome, sexy lizard ladies, grisly dismemberment, and plenty of blood and skulls.

 Todd Bratrud has his own skateboard companies, The High 5 and Teenage Runaway. He has designed and illustrated for the best in the business, including The Skateboard Mag, Consolidated Skateboards, Flip Skateboards, Enjoi, Familia Skateshop, Burlesque Design, Volcom, Nike SB, Burton Snowboards, and Creature Skateboards. In 2010, he was named Complex’s #1 Skateboard Artist Right Now.

The Art of Todd Bratrud is the second installment in Mark Batty Publisher’s Seen Unknown series, edited by Winston Tseng. As art director for Enjoi Skateboards, Tseng has worked with some of today’s most genre-defying visual artists and designers whose work extends well beyond skateboard culture. From sneaker and apparel design to product packaging, posters, high-profile ad campaigns, and fine art galleries, the work of Seen Unknown artists is often recognizable, though their creators’ names remain unknown—until now. The Art of Marc McKee is the first title in the Seen Unknown series.

In 1929, the first neon sign in Poland went up in Warsaw. Popular from the start, the earliest neon signs were made to order—free in design, shape, and color, and significantly influencing other forms of advertising like poster design and typography. Polish Cold War Neon tells the fascinating story of neon in Poland by preserving and celebrating the remnants of this rich and influential history.

Designed and built by prominent architects, graphic designers, and artists, and overseen by a chief graphic designer in the state-run company Reklama, Polish neon signage was renowned for its outstanding technical and artistic qualities. During its peak, Reklama maintained over 1,000 neon signs, whose playfulness and folly stood out in dark and oppressed Poland, ornamenting otherwise drab cities and towns. In Polish Cold War Neon, Ilona Karwińska collects her own stunning photographs, archival images, original neon designs, and interviews with their designers to reveal the untold story of Polish neon.

British photographer Ilona Karwińska specializes in portraiture and world cultures. Based in London, she is a graduate of Goldsmiths College and the London College of Printing. She has been exploring the disappearing world of Cold War Era neon and graphics for more than five years, and has been credited with starting a new “school of neon,” as well as helping to found the Neon Muzeum. Her work has been featured in Creative Review, A4, Icon, The Telegraph, Newsweek, and Time Out. Karwińska regularly exhibits in international galleries.

Balance focuses on the current European scene, documenting the lives of musicians who strike a balance between their day jobs and this vital musical force. From tattooists in Portugal to miners in Poland, Balance uncovers the twin lives of those working to support their passion. Hardcore has always been more than just music and although the performers and fans across the continent speak different languages and live in different places, they are tied to each other through a communal music scene that transcends borders.

Tom Barry is the drummer for London hardcore band Kartel and has been a fixture of the city’s hardcore music scene since the 1990s. He began covering alternative and underground music as a staff writer with Big Cheese magazine before moving into youth work and continuing to contribute to community-focused publications. His writing has covered a variety of subjects, from interviews with Slayer to the content of local school meals.

Sophia Schorr-Kon is a freelance photographer who took up photography at the London College of Communication. She has covered a large range of UK music festivals such as Glastonbury and Bestival. She has also worked with many bands and musicians, shooting for labels such as Sony. Schorr-Kon also works within the political sphere and regularly contributes to the New Statesman.

Each trio of photos in KMF highlights a different quirk of stardom and popular culture. Author Sarah Huber makes electrically funny connections, from putting together a group of has-been gingers like Carrot Top to probing readers’ reactions to bombshells from cinema’s golden age. Each page is full of Huber’s witty commentary and little-known facts that will appeal to snark lovers anywhere. A bit crude, very fun and funny, and completely irreverent, KMF will find a place in the homes of pop-culture connoisseurs the world over.

Give it a whirl! Who would you kill, marry, and fuc of…

• The Kardashians: Khloe, Kim, and Kourtney
• The Dictators: Stalin, Hitler, and Mao
• The Talk Titans: Ellen Degeneres, Oprah Winfrey, and Tyra Banks
• The Guidos: Vinny, Ronnie, and Paulie D

Invite friends to play along with the book, and continue the fun with the KMF companion app, free at www.kmfapp.com, which includes global rankings so you can see how your choices stack up.

Sarah Huber graduated from Loyola Marymount University with a degree in Television Production and went straight to work for Entertainment Tonight. For the past five years she has worked as the voice over coordinator for ET’s sister show, The Insider.

- Epicurious

Bountiful with Dionysian flair, and paired with beer selections and soundtracks, these recipes rely on hearty tubers, root vegetables, and bushels of other ingredients readily available during the winter months. Imagine a rice bowl that echoes Primal Scream’s decadent psychedelia; mushrooms with the musty umami of early Rolling Stones; squash ice cream as sweet and tangy as Os Mutantes. Salad Daze celebrates virtuous veggies in the name of health, sustainability, and, most importantly, over-the-top flavors and good times.

There’s no humdrum Caesar salad here. Illustrated with sumptuous photography by globetrotter Amanda Marsalis alongside the detailed recipes, Salad Daze guides readers through the finer points of real artisanal cheeses, shows how to roast and bake with beer, and explains how to make pantry potions like Sriracha, Woostershire, kimchi, and even a cough syrup cocktail, all vegan without the typical processed ingredients or corn syrup.

The Hot Knives bring fun, style, experimentation, and even danger to their recipes, in the form of vegetable “weapons” that will destroy any preconceptions of boring vegetarian cooking. The Hot Knives Vegetarian Cookbook: Salad Daze promises to leave you “feeling stoned on the awesome power of properly cooked produce.”

Check out the blog that started it all: urbanhonking.com/hotknives.

Alex Brown is the general manager for Gourmet Imports and a well-regarded cheese monger whose expertise has been quoted in Imbibe Magazine, LA Weekly, and the Los Angeles Times. Evan George is a journalist who has written extensively about beer, coffee, and cooking for Los Angeles Magazine, Condé Nast Traveler, and the Los Angeles Times.  Amanda Marsalis (amandamarsalis.com) is a portrait, lifestyle, and travel photographer living in Los Angeles. Her photography has been featured in Dwell, The Fader, Food & Wine, GQ, Newsweek, New York Times Magazine, Time, Vice, and Wired, and she has shown her work at New Image Art Gallery, Sky High Gallery, and Ed. Varie.

As is the case every year, OFFF produces a sumptuous book that serves as the festival catalogue and an invaluable resource for anyone that wants to know about the bleeding edge of visual culture. OFFF, Year Zero promises to be the most impressive book yet, comprising artwork and essays created specifically for the festival and only available in this book, as well as an exclusive DVD. Every page is die-cut, so the artworks can be hung on the walls of homes and studios. The staggering list of contributing artists and designers includes Stefan Sagmeister, Rick Poyner, Erik Spiekermann, Keetra Dean Dixon, and Vimeo founder Blake Whitman.

More information about OFFF on their website.

The unique viewpoints in Infinite Instances come from a staggering number of fields, including architecture, journalism, poetry, physics, visual and media arts, biology, photography, engineering, film, history, music composition, writing, psychiatry, and design. Essays delve into imaginative subjects like the effect of modern technology on the experience of time, cyclical time structures and diatonic rhythms in music, and the disparity between psychological and actual age. It includes a catalog of people’s drawings of the passage of time; devices that capture a drawn record of the daily growth of plants, and a potential “time machine.” With astounding clarity, insight, and original thinking, the contributors in Infinite Instances come together to chip away at the inscrutable nature of time.

Olga Ast is a conceptual interdisciplinary artist whose work investigates the connection between space, time, and information, and their impact on everything around us. In 2009 Ast organized and curated the ArcheTime conference and exhibition dedicated to exploring artistic, academic, and scientific concepts of time. The project is supported by Artspire (a program of the New York Foundation for the Arts), the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the Tank Space for Performing & Visual Arts, the NYC Future Salon, EFA Project Space, WIX Lounge, and SET gallery.

Rotman’s photographs are accompanied by dozens of artist interviews—with the likes of JENKS, ABNO, CHUBS, HARSH, NESTA, REYES, CYMES, APEX, and many, many more—which reveal personal stories, insights into inspiration, and harrowing tales of agility, all in the name of getting up.

Steve Rotman is a San Francisco-based photographer who trains his lens on urban art. Under his internet handle Funkandjazz, he has posted more than ten thousand images on the web and established himself as a true aficionado of Bay Area graffiti and street art.