Heavily Illustrated "Serious" Books
April 10, 2013 10:40 AM   Subscribe

I'm looking for examples of informative nonfiction books that are heavily illustrated, but are not textbooks.

David Hockney's Secret Knowledge is pretty much exactly what I'm taking about. Lots of straight up art history books would seem to fit but might stray into textbook territory.

I will stress that I'm not looking exclusively for art relate books. Science, history, pop-science, space, etc. are all welcome. Anything (that's good) with lots of informative illustrations, photos, charts, graphs, etc.
posted by cmoj to Media & Arts (30 answers total) 34 users marked this as a favorite
 
Would any of the Gonick books count, or are they too textbooky?
posted by aramaic at 10:42 AM on April 10, 2013 [3 favorites]


Best answer: The DK Eyewitness books and The Way Things Work are extremely informative and awesomely illustrated. Technically for children, but I am unashamed to say that I can easily lose an hour or more if I happen across one.
posted by phunniemee at 10:45 AM on April 10, 2013 [5 favorites]




Best answer: Eagle Annual Cutaways is a great and detailed book of cutaway diagrams of machines, cars, rockets, buildings, etc....
posted by bottlebrushtree at 10:51 AM on April 10, 2013


Best answer: I think Ching's A Visual Dictionary of Architecture fits your bill. I'm sure it is used in courses, but it is by no means a textbook.
posted by OmieWise at 10:53 AM on April 10, 2013 [2 favorites]


Best answer: Pretty much anything non-fiction by David Macauley!
posted by jetlagaddict at 10:55 AM on April 10, 2013 [1 favorite]


Best answer: You might like the Information is Beautiful book
posted by backwards guitar at 10:55 AM on April 10, 2013


An Incomplete Education
posted by seemoreglass at 11:02 AM on April 10, 2013 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: I would say that the Gonick books are both too textbooky and not "serious" enough if that makes sense.
posted by cmoj at 11:04 AM on April 10, 2013


Best answer: The Unfeathered Bird
posted by vegartanipla at 11:06 AM on April 10, 2013 [1 favorite]


Best answer: The works of Edward Tufte?
posted by Dr. Wu at 11:13 AM on April 10, 2013 [3 favorites]


the illustrated version of Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything is fantastic
posted by changeling at 11:16 AM on April 10, 2013 [1 favorite]


Godel, Escher, Bach is pretty heavily illustrated, especially if you count musical scores and graphical depictions of algorithms as illustration. It's also totally awesome.
posted by makeitso at 12:41 PM on April 10, 2013 [1 favorite]


Best answer: Not sure if this is too far out of your wheelhous (also its $400), but... Modernist Cuisine.

It also comes in an "at home" edition (for the bargain price of $100)
posted by softlord at 12:57 PM on April 10, 2013 [2 favorites]


Response by poster: Modernist Cuisine is a perfect example that I should have thought of since I already have it!
posted by cmoj at 1:15 PM on April 10, 2013


Best answer: Would the Geometry of Pasta also work?
posted by jetlagaddict at 1:18 PM on April 10, 2013


A lot of cookbooks and gardening books fit this bill.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 1:47 PM on April 10, 2013 [1 favorite]


Best answer: You need David Macaulay's "The Way We Work." Gorgeous, informative, accessible.
posted by MonkeyToes at 1:49 PM on April 10, 2013


Best answer: on a illustrated dinosaur kick last year from reading a Steven J Gould article. The two great dino & wildlife illustrators I discovered are Zdenek Burian (amazing book. search around to find better pics. This is the link I bought it from) and Charles R. Knight. Both were a big hit with the nephews.
posted by halatukit at 2:03 PM on April 10, 2013


Best answer: A classic:

The Ashley Book of Knots
posted by The Minotaur at 2:39 PM on April 10, 2013 [1 favorite]




Best answer: Since Minotaur already beat me to Ashley Book of Knots (So well known that knot geeks often refer to knots by their "ABOK #".), how about Freedom of the Hills? Another classic.
posted by zen_spider at 5:07 PM on April 10, 2013


I was going to suggest Tufte as well, but really anything in the information design or maps world will fit the requirements.
posted by you're a kitty! at 6:05 PM on April 10, 2013 [1 favorite]


Best answer: Alan Fletcher's The Art of Looking Sideways.
posted by scruss at 6:41 PM on April 10, 2013


Best answer: Underground - David Macaulay

a visual journey through a city's various support systems by exposing a typical section of the underground network and explaining how it works. We see a network of walls, columns, cables, pipes and tunnels required to satisfy the basic needs of a city's inhabitants.
posted by bobdow at 8:32 PM on April 10, 2013 [1 favorite]


Best answer: Atkins' Molecules.

Also, The Anchor Atlas of World History (link is to image search results).
posted by kristi at 10:39 PM on April 10, 2013


Best answer: Everyday Wonders is one of my all-time favorites. It's not a textbook, but a meandering collection of puzzles, thought experiments, interviews, quotes, and discussions of interesting scientific and philosophical concepts.
posted by Rhaomi at 1:15 AM on April 11, 2013




Response by poster: I saw a few that I wasn't convinced met my threshold of illustratedness (and didn't best-answer them), but I might end up buying them anyway.

I mean, going through these books is gonna be awesome, but I'm excited about how good my library is gonna look right now.
posted by cmoj at 12:53 AM on April 12, 2013


Best answer: Oh, here's another, which I think I learned about here on MeFi: Moving Heavy Things. A little gem of a book.
posted by Dr. Wu at 9:21 AM on April 13, 2013


« Older My feet are "winter tender"   |   The best cardio machine for an apartment? Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.