"Not for the average coffee table" is how Peter Menzel describes his photography books.
That's for sure. Keep an eye on your coffee table if it favors a title like Robo Sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, written by Menzel with his partner, journalist Faith D'Aluisio. The book examines intelligent robots and takes up the question of whether they will ever merge with human beings as one species. Sir Arthur C. Clarke called it, "One of the most mind-stretching, and frightening, books I've ever read."
Perhaps your coffee table's taste runs to Man Eating Bugs: The Art and Science of Eating Insects, in which Menzel and D'Aluisio travel to places where people still eat as early human beings did -- on crunchy little critters.
Less eww-inspiring, but certainly no less fascinating, is their latest book, Hungry Planet: What the World Eats, a photographic study of what 30 families in 24 countries eat during the course of a week. And Material World: A Global Family Portrait, looks at 30 families who agreed to be photographed with all their possessions (coffee table included) outside their home.
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written on Monday Mar 12, 2007
goods,
foods,
books.
