Read This details book selections by local authorities, luminaries, institutions, and locals that share deep affections for the written word. These selections are brought to you by library staff members Danuta Zwierciadlowski, Angela Evans, Hillary Webb, and Emma Somers at Emily Carr University of Art + Design.

1 | Habibi / Craig Thompson (New York : Pantheon Books, 2011)
HW – “This is a heart-wrenching story of survival as our protagonists endure kidnapping, slavery, whoring for food, and torture. Under all this devastation is an undercurrent of love and care. The drawings in this novel are downright unbelievable; the story is captivating on its own, but the illustrations are worth revisiting over and over, which you will have to do since you won’t want to take the time to drool over them when the story compels you to keep going till you know how it ends. Having recently visited Morocco, the Arabic-infused patterns and calligraphy take me back to that beautifully decorated place.”

2 | The Complete Designers’ Lights II / Clémence & Didier Krentowski (Zürich : JRP|Ringier, 2014)
ES – “This book has changed the way I see lighting, the way I look at lamps. I am obsessed. Clémence and Didier Krentowski are the founders of Galerie Kreo (Paris), home to the hundreds of lamps they have collected over the last 30 years. This book features over 500 beautiful photographs of lamps from their collection, with a focus on Italian and French designs from the 1950’s to the 1990’s. I am not a designer. Lighting is something I have given thought to, but never in the serious, analytical or aesthetically rigorous sense. When you start to really look at lighting, really start to place it in its contexts, it becomes deeply meaningful. As articulated in an interview by Pierre Doze, ‘the associations triggered by light are extremely rich intellectually, politically, and culturally.’ Since lusting over this book for the last few months I have found myself actually making lamps by combining pieces of lighting fixtures I find at thrift stores, refinishing my own lamps with bright colours and changing my home – and life – one light at a time.”

3 | Marian Bantjes: Pretty Pictures / Marian Bantjes, Rick Poynor (New York : Metropolis Books, 2013)
DZ – “Indulge yourself and spend some time with this book by Canadian graphic artist Marian Bantjes. She presents her work from 2003 to 2012, speaks directly and frankly about it, tells the stories, describes the processes and the outcomes, and lets you know whether it was good or bad. Her work covers the spectrum from vector graphics to macaroni. Every time I open this book I get lost in a world of visual delight and keep hearing Frank Sinatra singing I Did It My Way.”

4 | Unfathomable city : a New Orleans atlas / by Rebecca Solnit and Rebecca Snedeker ; cartographers, Richard Campanella, Ben Pease, Jakob Rosenzweig, Molly Roy, Shizue Seigel (Berkeley, California : University of California Press, 2013)
AE – “This collection of essays and maps compiled by Rebecca Solnit and Rebecca Snedeker provides an intriguing viewpoint into the enigmatic nature of New Orleans. A series of beautifully designed maps draw visual connections between the shifting landscape and points of human interest. Short and accessible essays discuss topics from reflective political commentary to whimsical points of intrigue. While some of these associations can be tenuous and fall into the realm of the quirky rather than the informative, other pairings offer novel insights into the history of human experience in the region. The book’s design and layout are distinctive, inviting, and will help draw you into this unique exploration of New Orleans.”