Things Come Apart: A Teardown Manual for Modern Living

Welcome to Todd McLellan's unique photographic vision of the material world: fifty design classics-arranged first by size and then by intricacy-are beautifully displayed, piece by piece, exploding in mid-air and dissected in real-time, frame-by-frame video stills. This book makes visible the inner workings of some of the world's most iconic designs. From SLR camera to mantel clock to espresso machine, from iPad to bicycle to grand piano, every single component of each object is revealed. These disassembled objects show that even the most intricate of modern technologies can be broken down and understood, while beautifully illustrating the quality and elegance of older designs. Stunning photography is interspersed with essays by notable figures from the worlds of restoration, DIY, and design innovation who discuss historical examples of teardowns, disassembly, and reverse-engineering. Each photograph is itself a work of art and offers a reinterpretation of our familiar world. They connect people with the child-like joy of taking something apart to see how it works and will appeal to anyone with a curiosity about the material world.

Here is the book trailer:

And here you can enjoy Todd McLellan dropping a piano...

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So you think you are neat? You think you'll go to extremes to defend your love of tidiness and ensure everything is perfectly organised? Well, Ursus Wehrli might raise the bar a little bit...

The modern world can get messy. Fortunately, Swiss artist Ursus Wehrli is a man of obsessive order, as he demonstrates with eye-catching surprise in The Art of Clean Up. Tapping into the desire for organization and the insanity of uber-order, Wehrli humorously categorizes everyday objects and situations by color, size, and shape. He arranges alphabet soup into alphabetical order, sorts the night sky by star size, and aligns sunbathers' accoutrements -- all captured in bright photographs sure to astonish even the pickiest of neat freaks.

Check out Ursus oranising/tidying up sunbathers and their gear:

Did you know that the new Lemony Snicket book is out today?

That it's the first volume in a new series called All The Wrong Questions?

Do you want to click the button below to watch the trailer?

Who is that standing behind you?

These are all the wrong questions...

And don't forget our Lemony Snicket competition ends on October 31 (coincidence? Highly unlikely.).

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