Karen Pfaff Manganillo's Top Book Recommendations

Want to know what books Karen Pfaff Manganillo recommends on their reading list? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of Karen Pfaff Manganillo's favorite book recommendations of all time.

1

Tibor Kalman

Perverse Optimist

Tibor Kalman: Perverse Optimist is the definitive and exuberant document of the late Tibor Kalman's work and ideas. This full-color, oversize title reveals Kalman's thoughts on magazines, advertising, sex, bookstores, food, and the design profession. Product designs, stills and storyboards from his film and video projects, and spreads from his book and magazine work are included. The impressive list of contributors includes Kurt Andersen, Paola Antonelli, David Byrne, Jay Chiat, Steven Heller, Isaac Mizrahi, Chee Pearlman, Rick Poynor, and Ingrid Sischy. less
Recommended by Karen Pfaff Manganillo, and 1 others.

Karen Pfaff ManganilloTibor, Tibor Kalman Chip Kidd Book One, Chip Kidd Once Upon a Time, Slim Aarons Our True Intent is for Your Delight, Martin Parr These are a selection of my favorite creative minds who visually inspire me like no one else. (Source)

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2

Book One

Work, 1986-2006

Described as "the closest thing to a rock star" in graphic design today (USA Today), Chip Kidd is universally recognized as an American master of contemporary book design. At the forefront of a revolution in publishing, Kidd's iconic covers, with their inventive marriage of type and found images, have influenced an entire generation of design practitioners in many fields.Chip Kidd: Book One collects all of his book covers and designs for the first time, as well as hundreds of developmental sketches and concepts-annotated by Kidd and by many of the best-selling authors he's worked with over... more
Recommended by Karen Pfaff Manganillo, and 1 others.

Karen Pfaff ManganilloTibor, Tibor Kalman Chip Kidd Book One, Chip Kidd Once Upon a Time, Slim Aarons Our True Intent is for Your Delight, Martin Parr These are a selection of my favorite creative minds who visually inspire me like no one else. (Source)

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3

Slim Aarons

Once Upon A Time

This volume shows Aarons influential photographs of the international elite in their exclusive playgrounds during the jet-set decades of the 1950s, 60s and 70s. less
Recommended by Karen Pfaff Manganillo, and 1 others.

Karen Pfaff ManganilloTibor, Tibor Kalman Chip Kidd Book One, Chip Kidd Once Upon a Time, Slim Aarons Our True Intent is for Your Delight, Martin Parr These are a selection of my favorite creative minds who visually inspire me like no one else. (Source)

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4

Our True Intent Is All for Your Delight

The John Hinde Butlin's Photographs

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, postcard entrepreneur John Hinde produced a series of images of Butlin's popular holiday camps throughout the British Isles. With his trademark use of bright colors and elaborate staging, each photograph featured a large cast of real holidaymakers. These narrative tableaux of Butlin's quiet lounges, ballrooms and bars were rescued from obscurity by dedicated Hinde fan Martin Parr (who introduces the book). Both grand and humble, they are now regarded as some of the strongest images of their era.
John Hinde (1916-1998) was an important pioneer of...
more
Recommended by Karen Pfaff Manganillo, and 1 others.

Karen Pfaff ManganilloTibor, Tibor Kalman Chip Kidd Book One, Chip Kidd Once Upon a Time, Slim Aarons Our True Intent is for Your Delight, Martin Parr These are a selection of my favorite creative minds who visually inspire me like no one else. (Source)

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5

Time and Again

Science fiction, mystery, a passionate love story, and a detailed history of Old New York blend together in Jack Finney's spellbinding story of a young man enlisted in a secret Government experiment.
Transported from the mid-twentieth century to New York City in the year 1882, Si Morley walks the fashionable "Ladies' Mile" of Broadway, is enchanted by the jingling sleigh bells in Central Park, and solves a 20th-century mystery by discovering its 19th-century roots. Falling in love with a beautiful young woman, he ultimately finds himself forced to choose between his lives in the present...
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Recommended by Karen Pfaff Manganillo, and 1 others.

Karen Pfaff ManganilloI’ve always had an obsession with New York past and present. I’ve probably read this book 10 times. (Source)

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6
Countless writers and artists have spoken for a generation, but no one has done it quite like Chuck Klosterman. With an exhaustive knowledge of popular culture and an almost effortless ability to spin brilliant prose out of unlikely subject matter, Klosterman attacks the entire spectrum of postmodern America: reality TV, Internet porn, Pamela Anderson, literary Jesus freaks, and the real difference between apples and oranges (of which there is none). And don't even get him started on his love life and the whole Harry-Met-Sally situation.

Whether deconstructing Saved by the...
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Recommended by Karen Pfaff Manganillo, and 1 others.

Karen Pfaff ManganilloNever have I read a book that I said “this is so perfect, amazing, hilarious, he’s thinking what I’m thinking (in a much more thought out and cool way)”. (Source)

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7
In her 93 remarkable years, Brenda Ueland published six million words. She said she had two rules she followed absolutely: to tell the truth, and not to do anything she didn't want to do. Her integrity shines throughout If You Want to Write, her best-selling classic on the process of writing that has already inspired thousands to find their own creative center. Carl Sandburg called this book "The best book ever written about how to write." Yet Ueland reminds us that "Whenever I say 'writing' in this book, I also mean anything that you love and want to do or to make." Ueland's writing and her... more
Recommended by Guy Kawasaki, Karen Pfaff Manganillo, and 2 others.

Karen Pfaff ManganilloIf You Want to Write, by Brenda Euland, is undoubtedly the book that changed my way of thinking and opened up my mind to a creative career. It validated being creative… and that that is a great thing. (Source)

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