Archi-doodle: An Architect's Activity Book by Steve Bowkett

Despite the intimidating title this isn't a book just for architects, it's for anyone who is interested in buildings.  Our copy has been slowly and deliciously devoured by both me and my 10-year old daughter, and I've recommended it to anyone who will listen.

Archi-doodle is a landscape A4 sized 160 page book and on every page is a task with inspiration, for instance, sketches of the world's tallest buildings with space for your own, famous buildings cut in half vertically for you to complete, sneakily learning about the buildings (Taj Mahal and Eiffel Tower) as you go, bridges to complete over a canyon, road and estuary and on and on.  This is simply an enchanting book, introducing thorough creative fun all the major figures and movements in world architecture, from Gaudi to Bauhaus, windows, roofs and islands to underwater cities.

A Short Book About Drawing by Andrew Marr

Andrew Marr is of course one of the BBCs best known news correspondents, reporting and commanding interviews with insight, making difficult and complex situations digestible to the viewer.  And he is famously fighting his way back from a life changing stroke.  But all his life he has sketched and in this book he reflects on what drives him and millions like him, not necessarily (but sometimes) world famous artists, often ordinary people, to draw.  He speaks of what drawing asks of in the viewer and what it does for the creator.  It is generously illustrated with his own sketches and paintings, some paper and canvas, many created on his iPad.  Inspiring and insightful.

Graffiti School: A Student Guide by Chris Ganter

Step by step this good sized guide takes you through how to create street art.

The book begins with a history of graffiti from ancient Rome to the Hip Hop movement of the 70s to the present day with an extensive piece on legality.  A second chapter covers terminology (tags, throwups, silverpieces, wildstyle) before moving on to designing your own graffiti.

The book is well structured, taking the user from simple to complex, from how to create linear tags right through to a full scale burner.  There are plenty of exercises at each stage to help any one understanding the different styles within graffiti and to develop their own.

Guidance is given on the use of tools with an extensive section on the safe use of spray cans and how to control them to create various effects, there are pages of design samples and idea for backgrounds and fill-ins.

At the end is a manual for teachers giving guidance and lesson plans

All in all a very impressive book both for use by any one on their own wanting to learn about graffti and how to create it, and for teachers and students.

Happy Graffiti: Street Art with Heart by Jenny Foulds

A wonderful little book for anyone who enjoys street art or gentle anarchy.  Happy Graffiti is pictures of graffiti from around the world that reclaim unwanted spaces with pictures and phrases that make you smile and are a sweet world away from the corporate machinations of advertising that use mawkish sentiment to manipulate in the name of profit.  These are anonymous reminders to smile, be kind to each other, to love life in the greyest places, and this book is a celebration of the joy of life colouring outside the lines.

The Silence of Animals by John Gray

To be honest I picked this up because I thought it would be about how animals communicate, but instead it is about how we as human animals view ourselves as above other members of the animal kingdom and the pitfalls of viewing our human history as a progression from the past to the present.  Gray really made me think, about the basic assumption many of us hold that as time goes on and humans become more educated and exposed to 'civilization' that we naturally will become less savage and more altruistic, when all the evidence is against that thesis.  He writes of the silence of humans and its qualatitive difference from the non-language and silence of animals, and why we search silence out.  Challenging, difficult and rewarding.

Rags and Bones: New Twists on Timeless Tales by Melissa Marr and Tim Pratt

On the one hand this is a really interesting collection, who wouldn't like to see some of their favourite authors rewriting the stories that have influenced them.  However, because most of these are not fairy stories I didn't know the inspirations, it would have been useful to have either a reprint of the stories included in the case of shorter ones or good summaries.  I did like the actual stories and found them moving, disturbing and haunting in turn, but I just felt this book was missing a trick.

Amazing Spaces by George Clarke

If you have ever longed for a secret hideaway, a bit of space in your life, if you built dens as a child and loved to play in tents, if you dream of escaping in a campervan this book will delight you. 

In George Clarke's Channel 4 series Amazing Spaces he met people building their own hideaways, either from scratch or reclaiming unwanted buses, caravans and shipping containers.  He created his own project too.  The series was very good and sometimes the book released to accompany a tv series can be a little lacking but that isn't the case with this one.  Clarke combines tasty pictures of the projects with plans and information on how every inch of these tiny spaces is put to multiple uses, a table is a bed, and a bath, and storage.

The book is divided into 3 sections

The first is an introduction on starting to think about your own project.  Why do you want this space, who is it for and how will it be used, where do you want it to be and will you build from scratch or use an existing space?

The second section is the projects featured in the series, broken down into movable spaces (caravans, buses, boats and trucks), multi-functional spaces (huts, tiny apartments, caravans and containers), new spaces (building from scratch) and recycled spaces (using existing resources)

The last section is on the practicalities of making your dream into reality, planning, using designers and/or architects, sketches, action plans, budgets, health and safety, the boring but vital stuff to make it all happen.

A nice size, illustrated in full colour throughout, delicious to look at and full of enough information to help a anyone take their dreams forward.