Books by John Miller

Legends 2: Women Who Changed the World Through the Eyes of Great Women Writers

by John Miller, Kirsten Miller

This intimate collection of portraits reveals both writer and subject in fifty inspired pairings. Novelist Susan Orlean compares notes with Joan Didion, Orna Feldman marvels at Fresh Air's Terry Gross, Elizabeth Hardwick rediscovers Zelda Fitzgerald, and dozens more are memorably revealed. Each piece is accompanied by a lush, full-page duotone by such eminent photographers as Annie Leibovitz, Matthew Rolston, Brigitt LaCombe, and Michael Collopy. These fifty women come from all walks of life: art, politics, literature, fashion, science, and sports, but they all have one thing in common: they have made legendary contributions to our world.

Legends: Women Who Have Changed the World Through the Eyes of Great Women Writers

by John Miller

Rendered by women artists and writers, these portraits illuminate the most influential women of our time. Liv Ullman marvels at Anne Frank’s faith in the face of atrocity. Claudia Roth Pierpont explores how Virginia Woolf’s atypical persona informed literature for the next hundred years. Camille Paglia champions Amelia Earhart as a pioneer who invaded the male world. The book also celebrates the fire of Angela Davis, the courage of Aung San Suu Kyi, the brains of Eleanor Roosevelt, and the brio of Ella Fitzgerald. The essays are accompanied by striking duotone photographs by such photographers as Alfred Stieglitz, Man Ray, and Cecil Beaton. Pairings include Joan Didion on Georgia O’Keeffe, Terry Tempest Williams on Rachel Carson, and Gloria Steinem on Marilyn Monroe.

The Stuarts

by John Miller

An established biographer examines the Stuart monarchs and the dynasty as a whole.

The Stuart dynasty continues to be one of the most popular royal families for readers. Ruling from 1603 - 1714, theirs was a time of high political and religion tension and many revolts. The Stuarts, begining with James and the first unification of three British Kingdoms, shares the stories of this powerful family, ending with Queen Anne, whose death without an heir ended the dynasty. This is a dramatic and important history that takes a close look at all of the individual rulers as well at the dynasty as a whole.

Unofficial Minecraft STEM Lab for Kids: Family-Friendly Projects for Exploring Concepts in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (Volume 16) (Lab for Kids, 16)

by John Miller, Chris Fornell Scott

Minecraft + STEM = An unstoppable force for fun and learning! In Unofficial Minecraft STEM Lab for Kids, you’ll find a collection of 48 creative, collaborative projects that make learning science, technology, engineering, and math exciting for the whole family. Venture off on six action-packed Quests, each with four unique Labs that pair a hands-on activity with an in-game project.

Just a few of the exciting things you’ll create and learn about:
Hands-on activities: Concoct glow-in-the-dark slime Grow pipe cleaner snowflakes Design and build a model Martian habitat Mix milk and soap to create “fireworks” Make a working volcano Create an electromagnet In-game projects: Craft a laboratory to serve as your in-game headquarters Carve a crystal ice castle Construct a working dam Design and use a custom teleporter Build an underwater oceanographic field station Start with a lesson on terminology and gameplay, learn how to document Lab activities with sketchnoting, and meet five leading Minecraft experts who share how their experiences with the game have contributed to their success.

The popular Lab for Kids series features a growing list of books that share hands-on activities and projects on a wide host of topics, including art, astronomy, clay, geology, math, and even how to create your own circus—all authored by established experts in their fields. Each lab contains a complete materials list, clear step-by-step photographs of the process, as well as finished samples. The labs can be used as singular projects or as part of a yearlong curriculum of experiential learning. The activities are open-ended, designed to be explored over and over, often with different results. Geared toward being taught or guided by adults, they are enriching for a range of ages and skill levels. Gain firsthand knowledge on your favorite topic with Lab for Kids.

Kim Gordon: Noise Name Paintings and Sculptures of Rock Bands That Are Broken Up

by John Miller, Paul Chan, Frank Guan

Kim Gordon's noise paintings and sculptures blur the boundaries of the page, the stage and the gallery. “I approach music and visual art in different ways; I consider them utterly separate art forms,” says Gordon. “This book brings them together.” Her work embodies a musical subculture, juxtaposing authorship, visualization and the reciprocal influences of multidisciplinary poetic communication. By scrawling their names on white canvases, her series of Noise Name paintings pay tribute to bands such as The Stooges and Pussy Galore. Published to accompany an exhibition at the Benaki Museum in Athens organized by the DESTE, this limited-edition volume includes a vinyl record of the performance of Gordon and Bill Nace as Body/Head, which took place on the museum's rooftop, as well as a book with essays by Paul Chan, Frank Guan and John Miller.

Jessica Stockholder (English and Dutch Edition)

by John Miller, Jessica Stockholder

Approaching architectural space and scale with the formal inventiveness and speed common to gestural abstract painting, Stockholder took the art world by storm in the late 80's. The first half of the catalog chronicles Stockholder's installations from 1983-1991 in 35 beautiful color plates. Accompanying the reproductions are short descriptions, authored by the artist, addressing the architectural and material choices of each installation. The second half of the catalogue contains John Miller's essay "Formalism and Its Other", which keenly places Stockholder's activity somewhere between the rigorous formalism of Clement Greenberg's critical writing and the liberating potential of Allan Kaprow's Happenings.

Mike Kelley: Educational Complex (Afterall Books / One Work)

by John Miller

An illustrated examination of a 1995 work by Mike Kelley that marked a significant change in his work.
One of the most influential artists of our time, Mike Kelley (1954–2012) produced a body of innovative work mining American popular culture as well as modernist and postmodernist art—relentless examinations of subjectivity and of society that are both sinister and ecstatic. With a wide range of media, Kelley's work explores themes as varied as post-punk politics, religious systems, social class, and repressed memory. Using architectural models to represent schools he attended, his 1995 work, Educational Complex, presents forgotten spaces as frames for private trauma, real or imagined. The work's implications are at once miniature and massive. In this book, John Miller offers an illustrated examination of this milestone work that marked a significant change in Kelley's practice.
A “complex” can mean an architectural configuration, a psychological syndrome, or a political apparatus, and Miller approaches Educational Complex through corresponding lines of inquiry, considering the making of the work, examining it in terms of education and trauma (sexual or otherwise), and investigating how it tests the ideological horizon of art as an institution. Miller shows that in Educational Complex, Kelley expands his political and aesthetic focus, including not only such artifacts as generic forms of architecture but (inspired by the infamous McMartin Preschool case) popular fantasies associated with ritual sex abuse and false memory syndrome. Through this archaeology of the contemporary, Miller argues, Kelley examines the mandate for education and the liberal democratic premises underpinning it.

Pynchon's California

by John Miller, Scott McClintock

Pynchon’s California is the first book to examine Thomas Pynchon’s use of California as a setting in his novels. Throughout his 50-year career, Pynchon has regularly returned to the Golden State in his fiction. With the publication in 2009 of his third novel set there, the significance of California in Pynchon’s evolving fictional project becomes increasingly worthy of study. Scott McClintock and John Miller have gathered essays from leading and up-and-coming Pynchon scholars who explore this topic from a variety of critical perspectives, reflecting the diversity and eclecticism of Pynchon’s fiction and of the state that has served as his recurring muse from The Crying of Lot 49 (1965) through Inherent Vice (2009).

Contributors explore such topics as the relationship of the “California novels” to Pynchon’s more historical and encyclopedic works; the significance of California's beaches, deserts, forests, freeways, and “hieroglyphic” suburban sprawl; the California-inspired noir tradition; and the surprising connections to be uncovered between drug use and realism, melodrama and real estate, private detection and the sacred. The authors bring insights to bear from an array of critical, social, and historical discourses, offering new ways of looking not only at Pynchon’s California novels, but at his entire oeuvre. They explore both how the history, geography, and culture of California have informed Pynchon’s work and how Pynchon’s ever-skeptical critical eye has been turned on the state that has been, in many ways, the flagship for postmodern American culture.

CONTRIBUTORS: Hanjo Berressem, Christopher Coffman, Stephen Hock, Margaret Lynd, Scott MacLeod, Scott McClintock, Bill Millard, John Miller, Henry Veggian

Walrus (Animal)

by John Miller, Louise Miller

From Lewis Carroll’s poem “The Walrus and the Carpenter” to the Beatles’s “I am the Walrus,” walruses have played an enigmatic role in popular culture. With their prominent tusks and distinctive whiskers, these odd-looking but charismatic animals have long held a crucial place in the lives and folklore of Arctic indigenous cultures, both as a vital food source and as a part of traditional oral literature. However, commercial trade of walrus products has caused the creatures to be hunted to the brink of extinction, with disastrous effects on human populations in the Arctic.

Combining natural, cultural, and environmental history, Walrus explores the intriguing story of an animal that today is on the front lines of conservation debates. John Miller and Louise Miller describe the problems facing walruses even after the twentieth-century bans on nonindigenous walrus hunting―shrinking pack-ice caused by global warming and the exploitation of Arctic oil and gas resources are destroying the animal’s habitat. Wonderfully illustrated with images of walruses in the wild and from art and popular culture, Walrus offers a refreshing account of these large-flippered mammals while also illustrating the ethical dilemmas they embody, from the intensifying conflict between the developed world and indigenous interests to the impact of global warming on arctic animals.

Ultimate Unofficial Minecraft Challenge A Collection of Creative, Collaborative Projects That Connect In-game Challenges with Hands-on Activities

by John Miller, Chris Fornell Scott

Unlock Minecraft’s powerful potential as a teaching tool with these engaging in-world and real-world activities for kids!

Written by two experienced educators who have successfully used Minecraft in their classrooms, Ultimate Unofficial Minecraft Challenge teams in-game builds and other projects with out-of-game, hands-on activities to create fun adventures in learning.

Adapted from the authors’ popular and well-reviewed Unofficial Minecraft Lab for Kids and Unofficial Minecraft STEM Lab for Kids, Ultimate Unofficial Minecraft Challenge offers a series of exciting “labs” or lessons across a range of subjects, including STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math), art, culture, and history. 

• Create shadow puppets to perform a scene from a favorite story, then recreate and animate a movie scene using Minecraft. 
• Grow crystals using a super-saturated salt solution, then build a crystal castle in-game. 
• Fold and fly paper airplanes, then let your imagination run wild while crafting airships in Minecraft. 
• Concoct glow-in-the-dark goo, then set up a colorful light spectrum in-game using beacons.
• And more!