LOOKING at THINGS

Book Proposal

RELATED TITLES

Whilst everyday objects are a popular subject, most of the publications focus on the histories such as Phaidon’s The Design Book and Weidenfield & Nicolson’s Century Makers. Alongside these are similar stories of inventions such as Breverton’s Encyclopedia from Quercus and 30 Second Great Inventions from Ivy Press. A wider cultural study has been undertaken by Bloomsbury Academic who publish a series of Object Lessons, each of which is a collection of essays on a single subject which they describe as ‘the hidden lives of ordinary things’. Tim Harford, the economist and broadcaster, has written two editions of 50 Things that Made the Modern Economy which demonstrate how each object changed the world. Other books featuring artefacts include the famous Neil MacGregor’s A History of the World in 100 Objects. This has stimulated many other titles including A History of Women, and Henry VIII. Probably the most competitive of these is a History of the World in 100 Modern Objects from the Sunday Times columnist Francesca Hornak which features a series of social ‘vignettes’ based around fetishised objects. This book, like Looking at Things, seeks to comment on contemporary society, but it does it with journalistic satire.