Best Gift Books

Until Death Do Us Part [双喜] focuses on the unexpected role cigarettes play in Chinese weddings.

As a token of appreciation, it is customary for the bride to light a cigarette for each and every man invited. The bride and the groom are then invited to play some cigarette-smoking games of an unprecedented ingenuousness. This publication pays homage to a tradition in which love and death walk hand in hand.

These photos come from Thomas Sauvin's Beijing Silvermine project - an archive of half a million negatives salvaged over the years from a recycling plant on the outskirts of Beijing.

More on Beijing Silvermine and Thomas Sauvin

3rd Edition

Product Dimensions: 53 x 83 x 21mm

Material: Paperback, in original cigarette box, 108 pages

Publisher: Jiazazhi Press

Mountain River Jump! is an artist duo founded in 2016 by twin sisters Huang Shan and Huang He. The duo has a variety of creative formats in art, often applying “divination consulting” as a performance to examine the potential of such art medium, and to interact with the audience at the intrinsic level. They have chosen 49 Chinese animal idioms frequently used in daily China, then illustrated for them and made them into 49 divinatory cards.

Through these 49 divinatory cards, we can see how Chinese ancestors described human's situation through animal idioms. This kind of metaphors can also be found in Zhou Yi. These 49 cards can be distributed into 7 groups, from 0 The Dragon's Nine Distinguished Sons to 48 Time Flies like A Golden Crow and Runs like A Jade Rabbit, including different stages of personal growth. For example, some of the cards are telling stories about newborn, development, fights, reflections, and rebirth.

In China, there is a long history of divination. Mountain River Jump! is using Cards of Chinese Animal Idioms to see what will come out when eastern cultural genes mix with fortunetelling in the context of the contemporary world. Meanwhile, they have strong curiosity towards human psychology and individual's narration. With their studies into Oriental mysticism and folklore, the artists pry open the topics of identity politics, labor issues, feminism, life politics, modernity and others.

Foraging for mushrooms with John Cage: writing, art, photography and ephemera from an idiosyncratic chapter in the composer's life

Imagined as an extended mushroom-foraging expedition, John Cage: A Mycological Foray gathers together Cage’s mushroom-themed compositions, photographs, illustrations and ephemera. Indeterminacy Stories and other writings by Cage are interwoven throughout the first volume within a central essay examining Cage’s enduring relationship with mycology. Also included is a transcript of Cage’s 1983 performance, MUSHROOMS et Variationes. The second volume is the inaugural reproduction of Cage’s 1972 portfolio, Mushroom Book, authored in collaboration with illustrator Lois Long and botanist Alexander H. Smith. Readers are thus drawn through the landscape of Cage’s mycologically centred oeuvre and interests, discovering assorted works, images, compositions, philosophies and ephemera, as one might encounter assorted fungi and flora while foraging.

John Cage: A Mycological Foray constitutes a new, idiosyncratic chapter in Cage’s oeuvre, a departure from the composer’s more established narrative.

American composer and music theorist John Cage (1912–92) was a pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music and a leading figure of the postwar avant-garde. His influence extended to the realms of dance, poetry, performance and visual art.

Material: Slip, pbk, 2 vols, 224 pgs, 40 color, 32 duotone, 28 bw.

Product Dimensions: 8 x 11 in

Publisher: ATELIER ÉDITIONS

ISBN: 9781733622004

From the Subtle Asian Baking community comes Modern Asian Baking at Home, must-have recipes for beloved sweet and savory treats found across Asia.

Explore new ingredients, surprising techniques, and interesting textures through lush photography and rewarding recipes that include exciting yet familiar contemporary bakes with innovative Asian twists. The results are unforgettable delights like miso-mochi brownies and spicy gochujang flourless chocolate cake. There’s even a recipe for homemade boba!

This is the perfect cookbook for anyone nostalgic for Asian desserts as well as hobbyist and avid home bakers interested in using vibrant ingredients like miso, matcha, pandan, and soy sauce to expand their repertoires. No passport is needed when you can easily create and experience popular Asian sweets and one-of-a-kind Asian-influenced drinks, custards, cakes, and frozen treats at home.

For this book, there are two editions. One is paperback, and the other one is hardcover. A few images repeats in these two.

Artist's statement:

This project is about elderly woman wearing facekini on the beach. Facekini is something like bikini but is covering the face.

Many people may think these images are funny. Sure, humor is a part of my intention, but it’s far from my ultimate purpose. In this project, I try to explore a kind of self-gazing with some surreal, dramatic, and humorous portraits of Chinese. This is very similar to the current situation in China, where society is full of surreal landscape. This project attempts to document these fleeting things.

These masks are hand-made by themselves, which are made of tattered vest, rag or swimsuits, and even cloth from useless pants, so you won't find one same mask on the beach.

Each facekini consists of different fabric materials. You may think it's very artistic. They will consider whether the mask goes well with their swimsuit.

In fact, they also know that others may find it ridiculous and strange. But they say the main function of facekini is for UV protection, as well as the offshore pollution in recent years. And more jellyfish attack human. It can avoid getting hurt when wearing a facekini. It also represents another layer of meaning: if you look around the beach, young girls don't wear facekini, men neither. Only middle-aged and elderly women wear mask. So, I think another reason is that these middle-aged and elderly women are ashamed of exposing their aging and deformed bodies. Wearing mask will make them much more comfortable and confident. I still don't know what these people I've photographed look like.

Author: Peng Yangjun

Format:

150mm X 190mm X 25mm, 252 pages, paperback

• Published by Jiazazhi
• Size：233mm x 70mm x 68mm
• Hardcover with silk-screen printing
• Box includes 3D glasses, 66 pieces of 3D cards, and a booklet
• Second edition of 1200
• Published in May 2018

Pick up a shell and put it to your ear. What do you hear?

The Seashell Oracle guides oceanic thinking about the past, present, and future through 44 cards and a guidebook for their interpretation. Pull a card at turnings of the tide to consider the currents we’re caught in and the unseen ways we’re linked through the water that flows around and through us all.

With original collages made from vintage illustrations by artist Bethany van Rijswijk. Packaged in a beautiful box, with booklet and cards nested inside.

• Dimensions: 5.3″ x 3.8″ x 1.3″ (13.5 x 9.7 x 3.3 cm)
• Weight: 10.6 oz (299.4 g)
• Made in China

Walk deep into the forest. Pick up a mushroom and peer under its cap. What will you find? 

The Mushroom Oracle Deck guides mycelial thinking about the past, present, and future through 44 cards and an accompanying booklet representing mushrooms, the forest, mushroom people, and fungal structures—and the multitudes, layers, and connections each contains. Consult the Mushroom Oracle by pulling a card at new beginnings, forks in the path, closings, and seasonal transitions. The reader is encouraged to consider their connections to others, their environment, and themselves.

With original collages made from vintage botanical illustrations by artist Bethany van Rijswijk. Packaged in a beautiful box, with booklet and cards nested inside.

• Dimensions: 5.3″ x 3.8″ x 1.3″ (13.5 x 9.7 x 3.3 cm)
• Weight: 10.6 oz (299.4 g)
• Made in China