British Museum Book Club
British Museum Press, one of the largest museum publishers in the world, offers award-winning titles for many different markets, including general readers, academics, children and families. These highly-illustrated books cover archaeology, history, the Classical world, treasures from the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and much more, all drawn from the British Museum's unrivalled collections.
Here our authors, British Museum curators and experts in their fields, give us a sneak preview of their forthcoming books.
23 August 2010
1600 years ago, the 24 August witnessed a tumultuous event. After two years of frantic diplomatic activity, Alaric and his army of Goths were let into Rome, where they went on the rampage. The calamity that took place on this day shook Rome to its core, eventually bringing about the collapse of the Roman empire, and the end of Roman rule in Britain.
To mark the anniversary of this ignomious event, Sam Moorhead will be signing copies of his book, AD410: The Year that Shook Rome in the Great Court on Tuesday 24 August, 13.00-14.00.
Published to coincide with the anniversary of the sack of Rome, AD410 is an epic tale of imperial folly and court intrigue, all brought vividly to life with dramatic storytelling, interwoven with contemporary histories, letters and testimonies – many newly translated.
Sam Moorhead is is National Finds Advisor for Iron Age and Roman coins in the Department of Portable Antiquities and Treasure in the British Museum.
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13 August 2010
NEW Haiku Animals book
Haiku Animals is a brand new book, illustrated with beautiful images by Japan’s most famous artists and including a selection of much-loved haiku focusing on the world of animals, birds and insects. The haiku form is a perfect way of capturing a moment of experience or a fleeting impression, and in this book, the impressions are strengthened and extended by the illustrations.
Buy this intriguing book now for only £9.99.
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4 August 2010
Join us for a chance to meet Aileen Dawson, author of the newly-published English & Irish Delftware 1570-1840 and curator of post-Renaissance ceramics here at the British Museum.
Tin-glazed earthenware has been made in Europe since the 15th century. In Britain floor tiles and drug pots were made in Aldgate, London in the 16th century by immigrant potters from the Low Countries. In the early 17th century factories making dishes and other wares were set up close to the River Thames, before manufacture spread from to centres such as Bristol, Liverpool and Dublin. Known as ‘gally ware’ in the 17th century, this type of pottery has come to be known as ‘delftware’ from the Dutch town of Delft, which is renowned for its manufacture.
The British Museum collection of delftware is one of the finest in the world and this beautifully illustrated book features over 140 items from the collection, many of which have never been published before.
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21 July 2010
Look Here by Axelle Russo
The ultimate picture book, Look Here is a witty collection of visual delights from the British Museum. Packed with wonderful photography, the book appeals to people of all ages and speakers of all languages. Introducing the title is author Axelle Russo; a Picture Researcher at the British Museum:
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14 July 2010
South Indian Paintings
Join us for a special chance to meet author Anna L. Dallapiccola who’s new book South Indian Paintings has just been published.
The British Museum’s outstanding collection of South Indian paintings features around1000 works which range from the 17th to the 20th century. This is the first publication of the entire collection, and reproduces 250 of the most important works in full colour. Read the rest of this entry »
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9 June 2010
1 July, 6-8pm
Join us for a chance to meet Clarissa von Spee, author and curator of The Printed Image in China, who will be talking about the exhibition and signing books.
Receive 20% off all British Museum Press books on Chinese Art.
Enjoy a free glass of wine.
For more information:
Click here for more information on the exhibition.
Click here to look inside the book.
The British Museum Book Shop is located just beyond the cloakroom, at the South end of the Egyptian Sculpture Gallery.
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19 May 2010
14 May – 15 August 2010
A small temporary display in Gallery 90 (Prints & Drawings) to complement the new book by C. Gere and J. Rudoe Jewellery in the age of Queen Victoria: a mirror to the world. Read the rest of this entry »
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19 May 2010
The British Museum Bookshop is delighted to announce the launch of late night Thursdays – discounts and booksignings over a glass of wine, on the first Thursday of every month.
3 June, 6-8pm
Ancient Greece and Rome
A chance to meet the authors and have your book signed by Sam Moorhead and David Stuttard (authors of AD 410: The Year That Shook Rome). Customers will receive 20% off all British Museum Press books on Ancient Greece and Rome and a glass of wine.
“AD 410 tells the story with splendid set pieces, lovely pictures and excellent maps…exciting, but also complex, personality-packed tale.”
BBC History Magazine, April 2010
Dates for your diary:
Thursday 1 July: receive 20% off books on China and have your book signed by Clarissa von Spee, author and curator of The Printed Image in China.
Thursday 5 August: receive 20% off books on India, with signings by Anna L. Dallapiccola, author of South Indian Paintings, Indian Love Poetry, Indian Art in Detail.
If you can’t make this event you can still take advantage of this fantastic offer by shopping online. Please enter the promotional code THURSDAYLATE at the checkout. Shop online now.
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5 March 2010
The Benin collection of the British Museum is one of the world’s most prominent. Benin objects fall into two distinct groups – the works of ivory and cast metal (’Bronzes’), made by court artists as marks of royal distinction, and the exquisite carved ivories made as souvenirs for the foreigners who were among the first Europeans to visit West Africa. While the latter objects have been in the West since the sixteenth century, the former were almost unknown when they were dramatically revealed at the end of the nineteenth century and both the general public and professional ‘experts’ on Africa struggled to incorporate them into the world as then known.
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22 February 2010
David Stuttard, co-author of AD 410: The Year that Shook Rome
As we enter the period of Lent, it is perhaps as good a time as any to consider the impact of Christianity on the Roman world in the years leading up to the momentous events of AD 410. And as good a place as any to witness the growing influence of the new religion is in England, just south of the M25 corridor in Kent, at a Roman country house now called Lullingstone villa.
For much of its three-hundred-year life span, Lullingstone villa was relatively unremarkable. It was probably built around AD 100, one of a number of well appointed and comfortable mansions, each with its own estate, which dotted the fertile Darent Valley, within easy distance of the province’s new capital Londinium and the estuary of the River Thames. Indeed, its owners seem to have valued the fecundity of their valley to such an extent that they later built a shrine, apparently to the local water nymphs, whose walls they painted with graceful representations of the goddesses. Read the rest of this entry »
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