Catch Up with Noah Charney: New Books, Courses, and a Kickstarter Surprise!
Highlights: Exclusive Writing, Alternative Inventions, and Fresh Stories on Art, Film, and Slovenia
Dear Friends and Readers
I’m joining the rest of the writerly world a bit late and shifting to a software-assisted newsletter. I’m planning to send a brief update once a month, including exclusive new writing, updates, and additional goodies if you’d enjoy that. There will be two separate themes, as my work has divided in two: art (history and crime) and Slovenia, so I’ll send out one update per month for each theme. You can stay subscribed to both, subscribe to only one of the two, or of course unsubscribe to all.
New Kickstarter Book: On Inventions
The excitement of the moment is a Kickstarter campaign for a book I’ll be writing. It’s called The Black Book: The Ultimate Guide to Alternative Inventions. It will be a huge folio full of more than 120 handmade illustrations that tells a history and how-to of inventions, ancient and modern, that never took off, but which were fascinating, bizarre, often downright weird, but which can tell us about what it is to be human. In terms of format, if you’ve ever seen David Macauley’s The Way Things Work, then this is along those lines.
I’ve joined a veteran international team on this project—their last Kickstarter book was the second most popular in the platform’s history, raising $3.5 million! This latest campaign isn’t quite at that interstellar level, but is doing very well, with nearly $300,000 earned with ten days to go. If you’re interested in preordering a copy it will be a very cool finished product.
Courses
My two online courses are up and running, one for Yale (“The Herstory of Art”) and one for London’s National Gallery (“The Secret History of Art: Decoding Iconography in Paintings”). There is still time to sign up for the latter, as it begins on November 12 and has no enrolment limit (the Yale course long ago sold out).
New Books
I’ve got two new books out. One I co-wrote with my father, the other launches a new series—the first series on art crime with any publisher.
The 12-Hour Film Expert: Everything You Need to Know about Movies
Noah Charney and James Charney
The only book you need to become an expert on film history, technique, and appreciation. This "gateway book will deepen readers’ appreciation of milestone movies."
(Library Journal)
If you are looking at this book, then you probably love watching movies and television shows. Who doesn’t? But most of us do so as passive entertainment—to wind down, relax, and escape into alternative worlds. Pay close attention though, and you can enhance your movie-watching experience and deepen your appreciation for the art of film. This book will show you how.
In The 12-Hour Film Expert, Noah Charney and James Charney offer readers all they need to know about how films are made and how to watch them in a more thoughtful way. Through twelve chapters covering a wide array of genres and periods, the authors highlight key films in each area of focus and explore important figures and more recent films to help readers develop their core understanding of films, ranging from comedies to silent films, noirs to romances, and everything in between.
Most importantly though, readers will learn how to truly watch movies. The 12-Hour Film Expert asks essential questions: What did the key films do differently? How did they push the envelope, establish new precedents? The result is a capsule-sized “course” in film appreciation. The only book readers need to master their grasp of film history, technique, and appreciation, it is perfect for movie lovers of all ages. Grab the popcorn and settle in!
Forgers and Thieves: The Shadowlands of Art Crime
Noah Charney
Art theft has risen from an occasional event involving the trophies of the wealthy and elite, into a multi-billion-dollar annual criminal industry, run almost entirely by organized crime groups, and a significant funding source for terrorism. It has been listed among the highest-grossing criminal trades worldwide. When ARCA (the Association for Research into Crimes against Art) began, the media and the general public knew very little about art crime. Thanks in part to its efforts, the world is better-informed than ever, but there is still much to surprise and engage, and the stories of art crime never fail to intrigue.
The book is organized into five parts:
Fraud and Forgery
Law, Policing, and Policy
Art, Crime, and Popular Culture
Theft and Security, and
War, Conflict, and Art.
This book is the latest on art crime by the founder of ARCA, Dr. Noah Charney, widely considered the world’s leading authority on the history of art crime. His work on the subject has been included in his best-selling, Pulitzer-nominated books and articles for major publications, including The Guardian, The Washington Post, The Observer, Salon and many others.
Get the paperback (the hardcover is too expensive!)
To read more about the ARCA/Rowman & Littlefield collaborative series, click here.
That’s it for now. Happy November to all!
-Noah