Media noted and received.

The 3rd Act, by Drew Yanno.

Continuum/192 pp./$14.95 (sb).

About Stephen Bann, edited by Deborah Cherry. Blackwell Publishing/208 pp./$29.95 (sb).

Aesthetic Computing, edited by Paul A. Fishwick. MIT Press/457 pp./$42.50 (hb).

Against the Grain, essay by John Elderfield, interview by Ann Temkin, forward by Glenn D. Lowry. Museum of Modern Art/128 pp./$40.00 (hb).

Americanizing the Movies and "Movie-Mad" Audiences, 1910-1914, by Richard Abel. University of California Press/391 pp./$29.95 (sb).

The Appreciative Journey: A Guide to Developing International Cultural Exchanges, by Michael Sikes, Mary Campell-Zopf, Jami Goldstein, and Wayne Lawson. Ohio Arts Council/108 pp./$24.00 (hb).

Art from Start to Finish: Jazz, Painting, and Other Improvisations, edited by Howard S. Becker, Robert R. Faulkner, and Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett. University of Chicago Press/248 pp./$24.00 (sb).

Art of the Digital Age, by Bruce Wands. Thames & Hudson/223 pp./$50.00 (hb).

Bas Jan Ader: In Search of the Miraculous, by Jan Verwoert. Afterall Books/96 pp./$16.00 (sb).

Best of Black and White: Erotic Photography, edited by Peter Delius. Prestel Publishing/128 pp./$45.00 (hb).

Bombay, by Lalitha Gopalan. BFI Publishing/88 pp./[pounds sterling]9.99 (sb).

Bookworm: The Art of Rosamond Purcell, by Rosamond Purcell. Quantuck Lane Press/160 pp./$35.00 (hb).

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Brigitte Lacombe: cinema/theater, edited by Janet Johnson. Shirmer/Mosel/292 pp./$39.95 (sb).

Candida Hofer: Libraries, essay by Umberto Eco. Schirmer/Mosel/272 pp./$99.95 (hb).

Candida Hofer: Opera de Paris, by Gerard Mortier. Schirmer/Mosel/80 pp./$49.95 (hb).

Chris Marker, by Nora M. Alter. University of Illinois Press/232 pp./$19.95 (sb).

Cindy Sherman, edited by Johanna Burton. MIT Press/240 pp./$15.95 (sb).

Cinema at the End of Empire: A Politics of Transition in Britain and India, by Priya Jaikumar. Duke University Press/304 pp./$22.95 (sb).

Cinephelia and History, or The Wind in the Trees, by Christian Keathley. Indiana University Press/212 pp./$50.00 (sb).

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City 2000, edited by Teri Boyd. University of Illinois Press/276 pp./$49.95 (hb).

City Language Berlin, by Christoph Mangler. Prestel/128 pp./$14.95 (hb).

Collage: The Making of Modern Art, by Brandon Taylor. Thames & Hudson/224 pp./$34.95 (sb).

A Companion to Contemporary Art since 1945, edited by Amelia Jones. Blackwell Publishing/648 pp./$49.95 (sb).

Contemporary Desert Photography: The Other Side of Paradise, by Marilyn Cooper and Katherine Plake Hough. University of Washington Press/64 pp./$20.00 (sb).

The Decency Wars: The Campaign to Cleanse American Culture, by Frederick S. Lane. Prometheus Books/367 pp./$28.00 (hb).

Directed by Steven Spielberg: Poetics of the Contemporary Hollywood Blockbuster, by Warren Buckland. Continuum/256 pp./$19.95 (sb).

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The Director's Cut: Picturing Hollywood in the 21st Century, edited by Stephen Littger. Continuum/352 pp./$18.95 (sb).

Doctor Dogwit's Second Book of Transitive Aspects: A Chronicle of Tribulation in the Highlands of Exeter, by Gary Richman. Blue Book Issue/28 pp./price unavailable (sb).

Dream Worlds: Architecture and Entertainment, text by Oliver Herwig, photographs by Florian Holzherr. Prestel Verlag/160 pp./$60.00 (hb).

Dreaming in Black and White: Photography at the Julien Levy Gallery by Katherine Ware and Peter Barberie. Philadelphia Museum of Art & Yale University Press/336 pp./$65.00 (hb).

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This book was published to accompany the exhibition of the same title at the Philadelphia Museum of Art during the summer of 2006. This "supercatalog" of 336 pages begins with two in-depth essays by Katherine Ware and Peter Barberie, both from the museum. The two texts explain and contextualize the importance of Julien Levy's gallery in New York from 1931 to 1949. They are followed by 145 pages of high-quality reproductions of photographs shown at the gallery during that period, and chosen from among the 2,500 pieces of the Julien Levy collection now belonging to the museum. As early as the 1930s, the Julien Levy Gallery revealed to an American audience the works of such photographers as Eugene Atget, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Walker Evans, Andre Kertesz, Nadar, Man Ray, and many others. A list of all the photographic exhibitions held at the gallery concludes the volume. This book is an extremely valuable source of information about the American photographic scene in the middle of the twentieth century, and one of its key players.

BRUNO CHALIFOUR is a freelance critic and photographer, educator, and PhD candidate.

Dudley Murphy: Hollywood Wild Card, by Susan Delson. University of Minnesota Press/272 pp./$27.95 (hb).

East Art Map: Contemporary Art and Eastern Europe, edited by IRWIN. MIT Press/500 pp./$45.00 (sb).

The Education of a Photographer, edited by Charles H. Traub, Steven Heller, and Adam B. Bell. Allworth Press/256 pp./$19.95 (sb).

Eleven Septembers, by Reiner Leist. Prestel/512 pp./$85.00 (hb).

Encountering Eva Hesse, edited by Griselda Pollock and Vanessa Corby. Prestel/224 pp./$60.00 (hb).

Entropy 101, photographs by Sarah Boss. Boss Works/218 pp./$49.99 (sb).

Eyesight Alone: Clement Greenberg's Modernism and the Bureaucratization of the Senses, by Caroline A. Jones. University of Chicago Press/544 pp./$45.00 (hb).

F is for Phony: Fake Documentary and Truth's Undoing, edited by Alexandra Jubasz and Jesse Lerner. University of Minnesota Press/244 pp./$20.00 (sb).

Feelings Are Facts: A Life, by Yvonne Rainer. MIT Press/504 pp./$37.95 (hb).

Floodscapes, by John Goto. Churchill College/University of Cambridge/23 pp./price unavailable (sb) [exhibition catalog].

Full Metal Apache: Transactions between Cyberpunk Japan and Avant-Pop America, by Takayuki Tatsumi. Duke University Press/272 pp./$22.95 (sb).

Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic Culture, by Alexander R. Galloway. University of Minnesota Press/168 pp./$17.95 (sb).

Greece: Images of an Enchanted Land, 1954-1965, photographs by Robert A. McCabe. Quantuck Lane Press/204 pp./$85.00 (hb).

Guitar Eros, by Jean-Baptiste Mondino. Schirmer/Mosel/180 pp./$59.95 (hb).

Harald Szeemann: Exhibition Maker, by Hans-Joachim Muller. Ursus Books/168 pp./$35.00 (sb).

Illya Kabakov: The Man Who Flew into Space from His Apartment, by Boris Groys. Afterall Books/62 pp./$16.00 (sb).

In the Name of the Father, the Daughter, and The Holy Spirits, by Isabella Rossellini. Schirmer/Mosel/144 pp./$35.00 (hb).

Information Please: Culture and Politics in the Age of Digital Machines, by Mark Poster. Duke University Press/320 pp./$79.95 (hb), $22.95 (sb).

Is There Life After Film School?, by Julie MacLusky. Continuum/216 pp./$19.95 (sb).

Joe, photographs by Hiroshi Sugimoto, text by Jonathon Safran Foer. Prestel/96 pp./$80.00 (hb).

Leavin'a Testimony: Portraits from Rural Texas, by Patsy Cravens. University of Texas Press/348 pp./$34.95 (hb).

Little Polar Bears, by Thorsten Milse. Prestel/176 pp./$45.00 (hb).

Marilyn Monroe: The Complete Last Sitting, by Bert Stern. Schirmer/Mosel/464 pp./$120.00 (hb).

Mark Lewis, by Mark Lewis, essays by Michael Connor, et al. Liverpool University Press/120 pp./[pounds sterling]22.50 (hb).

The Moment of Seeing: Minor White at the California School of Fine Arts, by Stephanie Comer and Deborah Klochko. Chronicle Books/208 pp./$40.00 (hb).

My Father, by Liza Nguyen. Schaden.com/60 pp./[euro]20 (hb).

The New Creative Artist, by Nita Leland. North Light Books/176 pp./$29.99 (hb).

New Philosophy for New Media, by Mark B.N. Hansen. MIT Press/368 pp./$19.95 (sb).

The New Visual Culture of Modern Iran by Reza Abedini and Hans Wolbers. Mark Batty Publishers/160 pp./$49.95 (hb).

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The New Visual Culture of Modern Iran reminds me what is great about "art." This book of full-color, full-bleed images employs the exact formal elements a student in any studio art program would have been taught, yet the imagery oozes and breathes a culture unknown to me. The title may be a bit presumptuous; however, the works contained include photographs, experimental posters, video stills, illustrations, and designs for logos, greeting cards, exhibitions announcements, theatrical performances, CDs, book covers, and brochures.

The amount of imagery in comparison to the text is vast: Hans Wolbers wrote a one-page foreword about how the project began and Reza Abedini (whose work in the book is some of the strongest design I have seen in a while) contributed a two-page essay as both an Iranian and an art educator. Aside from the quantity and range of imagery that would impress even the most uninformed viewer, the power of this book's publishing fulfills its title's claim. Emotionally humanistic and powerfully charged imagery made by Iranians currently living and working in their home country successfully usurps the narrow-focused media coverage of that region--a stereotype that would have "them" be what "we" think they are.

ILANA SWERDLIN

Not Quite a Memoir: Of Films, Books, the World, by Judy Stone. Sillman-James Press/486 pp./$29.95 (sb).

On the Waterfront, by Leo Braudy. BFI Publishing/88 pp./$13.95 (sb).

Our Secret Secret: Escaping the Cage We're All In, by J.H. Vowels. Feedback Publishing/314 pp./$24.95 (sb).

Parts, by Nikki S. Lee, text by RoseLee Goldberg. Hatje Cantz/88 pp./[euro]29.80 (hb).