TIPS: BOOKS & FILMS FOR QUARANTINE
During a time of unprecedented domesticity, we might find the opportunity to lose ourselves in an excellent book or enjoy a cult classic film that’s been on the watch list for too long.
In an ongoing series of tips shared via our Instagram stories, we suggest books and films for the times, offering a bit of escapism, musings on architecture and interiors, pure aesthetic pleasures, celebrations of human touch, lamentations on loneliness and more.
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TEACHING A STONE TO TALK: EXPEDITIONS AND ENCOUNTERS
Annie Dillard
Here, in this compelling assembly of writings, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Dillard explores the world of natural facts and human meanings.
READ
THE EYES OF THE SKIN: ARCHITECTURE AND THE SENSES
Juhani PallasmaFirst
First published in 1996, The Eyes of the Skin has become a classic of architectural theory. It asks the far-reaching question why, when there are five senses, has one single sense – sight – become so dominant in architecture culture and design? With the ascendancy of the digital and the all-pervasive use of the image electronically, it is a subject that has become all the more pressing and topical since the first edition’s publication in the mid-1990s.
WATCH
THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY
In late 1950s New York, Tom Ripley, a young underachiever, is sent to Italy to retrieve Dickie Greenleaf, a rich and spoiled millionaire playboy. But when the errand fails, Ripley takes extreme measures.
Year: 1999
Director: Anthony Minghella
Writers: Patricia Highsmith (novel), Anthony Minghella (screenplay)
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A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN
Virginia Woolf
A Room of One's Own grew out of a lecture that Virginia Woolf had been invited to give at Girton College, Cambridge in 1928. In this classic, Woolf gives us one of the greatest feminist polemics of the century.
WATCH
IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE
Two neighbors, a woman and a man, form a strong bond after both suspect extramarital activities of their spouses. However, they agree to keep their bond platonic so as not to commit similar wrongs.
Year: 2000
Director: Kar-Wai Wong
Writer: Kar-Wai Wong
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ARCHITECTURE OF HAPPINESS
Alain de Botton
One of the great but often unmentioned causes of both happiness and misery is the quality of our environment: the kinds of walls, chairs, buildings and streets that surround us.
WATCH
METROPOLIS
In a futuristic city sharply divided between the working class and the city planners, the son of the city's mastermind falls in love with a working class prophet who predicts the coming of a savior to mediate their differences.
Year: 1927
Director: Fritz Lang
Writers: Thea von Harbou (screenplay), Thea von Harbou (novel)
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CIRCE
Madeline Miller
In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child—not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power—the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves.
WATCH
CAROL
An aspiring photographer develops an intimate relationship with an older woman in 1950s New York.
Year: 2015
Director: Todd Haynes
Writers: Phyllis Nagy (screenplay), Patricia Highsmith (novel)