Featured Titles

A new book from one of Reaktion’s bestselling authors, which examines the use of colour and luminosity in science, art and the modern world, uniquely posing questions about the ultimate non-colour: grey.

The Road to Independence? – now available in a revised and expanded second edition – describes the rise of modern Scottish nationalism and also explains Scotland’s historic role within Britain, and how this has changed radically in the last 50 years. The Second Edition features a new foreword by First Minister of Scotland Alex Salmond.

What is perverse sex and what isn’t? The Pleasure’s All Mine explores the gamut of sexual activity that has been seen as strange, abnormal or deviant over the last 2,000 years.

A cornucopia of life in the kitchen and in the studio throughout the twentieth century and beyond, The Modern Art Cookbook explores a wide-ranging panoply of artworks of food, cooking and eating from Europe and the Americas – from the early moderns through the Impressionists, Symbolists, Cubists, Futurists and Surrealists up to today’s art – as well as writing about food from contemporary novelists, writers and poets.

Imaginary Animals shows how, despite their liminal role, griffins, dog-men, mermaids, dragons, unicorns, yetis and many other imaginary creatures are socially constructed through the same complex play of sensuality and imagination as ‘real’ ones. Featuring nearly 200 striking images, the book traces the history of imaginary animals from Palaeolithic art to the Harry Potter stories and robotic pets.