{"title":"Series: Object Lessons","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eObject Lessons\u003c\/em\u003e offers insightful meditations on everyday things, inviting readers to consider familiar objects and ideas from fresh perspectives. 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An almost miraculous 19th-century contraption, the bicycle promises to transform our lives and the world we live in, yet its time seems always yet-to-come or long-gone-by. \u003cem\u003eBicycle\u003c\/em\u003e by Dr Jonathan Maskit takes us on an interdisciplinary ride to see what makes the bicycle a magical machine that could yet make the world a safer, greener, and more just place.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eObject Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in \u003cem\u003eThe Atlantic.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46769397170412,"sku":"9781501338090","price":21.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/14660523482722.jpg?v=1756418590"},{"product_id":"rust-by-professor-jean-michel-rabate-9781501329494","title":"Rust","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eObject Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIt’s happening all the time, all around us. We cover it up. We ignore it. \u003cem\u003eRust\u003c\/em\u003e takes on the many meanings of this oxidised substance, showing how technology bleeds into biology and ecology. Jean-Michel Rabaté combines art, science, and autobiography to share his fascination with peeling paints and rusty metal sheets. Rust, he concludes, is a place where things living, built, and remembered commingle.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eObject Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in \u003cem\u003eThe Atlantic\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46833450778860,"sku":"9781501329494","price":21.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/14574563482722.jpg?v=1758460064"},{"product_id":"space-rover-by-stewart-lawrence-sinclair-9781501399954","title":"Space Rover","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eObject Lessons\u003c\/em\u003e is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn 1971, the first lunar rover arrived on the moon. The design became an icon of American ingenuity and the adventurous spirit and vision many equated with the space race.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFifty years later, that vision feels like a nostalgic fantasy, but the lunar rover’s legacy paved the way for Mars rovers like Sojourner, Curiosity, and Perseverance. Other rovers have made accessible the world’s deepest caves and most remote tundra, extending our exploratory range without risking lives. Still others have been utilized for search and rescue missions or in clean-up operations after disasters such as Chernobyl.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFor all these achievements, rovers embody not just our potential, but our limits. Examining rovers as they wander our terrestrial and celestial boundaries, we might better comprehend our place, and fate, in this universe.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eObject Lessons\u003c\/em\u003e is published in partnership with an essay series in \u003cem\u003eThe Atlantic\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46833482727660,"sku":"9781501399954","price":21.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/15279163482722.jpg?v=1758462864"},{"product_id":"bookshelf-by-lydia-pyne-9781501307324","title":"Bookshelf","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eObject Lessons\u003c\/em\u003e is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eEvery shelf is different, and every bookshelf tells a different story. One bookshelf can creak with character in a bohemian coffee shop, while another can groan with gravitas in the Library of Congress. \u003cem\u003eBookshelf\u003c\/em\u003e by writer and historian Lydia Pyne explores these differences and finds bookshelves to be holders not just of books, but of many other things: values, vibes, and verbs that can be contained and displayed in the buildings and rooms of contemporary human existence.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWith a shrewd eye toward this particular moment in the history of books, Pyne takes the reader on a tour of the bookshelf that leads critically to this juncture: amid rumours of the death of book culture, why is the life of the bookshelf in full bloom?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eObject Lessons\u003c\/em\u003e is published in partnership with an essay series in \u003cem\u003eThe Atlantic.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46854120341740,"sku":"9781501307324","price":21.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/14352863482722.jpg?v=1759234554"},{"product_id":"bread-by-scott-cutler-shershow-9781501307447","title":"Bread","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eObject Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eBread\u003c\/em\u003e is an object that is always in the process of becoming something else: flour to grain, grain to dough, dough to loaf, loaf to crumb. Bread is also often a figure or vehicle of social cohesion: from the homely image of “breaking bread together” to the mysteries of the Eucharist. But bread also commonly figures in social conflict — sometimes literally, in the “bread riots” that punctuate European history, and sometimes figuratively, in the ways bread operates as ethnic, religious, or class signifier.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eDrawing on a wide range of sources, from the scriptures to modern pop culture, \u003cem\u003eBread\u003c\/em\u003e tells the story of how this ancient and everyday object serves as a symbol for both social communion and social exclusion.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eObject Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in \u003cem\u003eThe Atlantic.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46854141280492,"sku":"9781501307447","price":21.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/14354093482722.jpg?v=1759235035"},{"product_id":"burger-by-carol-j-adams-9781501329463","title":"Burger","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eObject Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe burger, long the All-American meal, is undergoing an identity crisis. From its shifting place in popular culture to efforts by investors such as Bill Gates to create the non-animal burger that can feed the world, the burger’s identity has become as malleable as that patty of protein itself, before it is thrown on a grill. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eCarol Adams’s \u003cem\u003eBurger\u003c\/em\u003e is a fast-paced and eclectic exploration of the history, business, cultural dynamics, and gender politics of the ordinary hamburger.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eObject Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46854188007660,"sku":"9781501329463","price":21.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/14574253482722.jpg?v=1759236151"},{"product_id":"cigarette-lighter-by-jack-pendarvis-9781501307362","title":"Cigarette Lighter","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eObject Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eSmokers, survivalists, teenagers, collectors… The cigarette lighter is a charged, complex, yet often entirely disposable object that moves across these various groups of people, acquiring and emitting different meanings while always supplying its primary function, that of ignition. While the lighter may seem at first a niche object—only for old-fashioned cigarette smokers— in this book, \u003cem\u003eJack Pendarvis\u003c\/em\u003e explodes the lighter as something with deep history, as something with quirky episodes in cultural contexts, and as something that dances with wide-ranging taboos and traditions.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003ePendarvis shows how the lighter tarries with the cheapest ends of consumer culture as much as it displays more profound dramas of human survival, technological advances, and aesthetics.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eObject Lessons\u003c\/em\u003e is published in partnership with an essay series in \u003cem\u003eThe Atlantic\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46854231032044,"sku":"9781501307362","price":21.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/14353243482722.jpg?v=1759238362"},{"product_id":"earth-by-professor-jeffrey-jerome-cohen-9781501317910","title":"Earth","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eObject Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eEarth\u003c\/i\u003e, a planetary scientist and a literary humanist explore what happens when we think of the Earth as an object viewable from space. As a “blue marble,” “a blue pale dot,” or, as Chaucer described it, “this litel spot of erthe,” the solitary orb is a challenge to scale and to human self-importance.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBeautiful and self-contained, the Earth turns out to be far less knowable than it at first appears: its vast interior is an inferno of incandescent and yet solid rock and a reservoir of water vaster than the ocean, a world within the world.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eViewing the Earth from space invites a dive into the abyss of scale: how can humans apprehend the distances, the temperatures, and the time scale on which planets are born, evolve, and die?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eObject Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in \u003ci\u003eThe Atlantic\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46854463815916,"sku":"9781501317910","price":24.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781501317910.jpg?v=1759243197"},{"product_id":"egg-by-dr-nicole-walker-9781501322853","title":"Egg","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eObject Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis book is about a strange object—strange in part because it is something that we all have been, and that many of us eat. 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The environment is not only everything we see around us but also, at a lesser scale, a hailstorm of molecules large and small that constantly penetrates our bodies, simultaneously nourishing and threatening our health. The concept of oneness with our surroundings urges a reckoning of what we are doing to 'the environment,' and consequently, what we are doing to ourselves.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBy taking us through this journey of questioning, Rolf Halden’s \u003cem\u003eEnvironment\u003c\/em\u003e empowers readers with new knowledge and a heightened appreciation of how our daily lifestyle decisions are impacting the places we occupy, our health, and humanity’s prospect of survival.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWith illustrations by Griffin Finke.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eObject Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in \u003cem\u003eThe Atlantic.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46854479479020,"sku":"9781501361906","price":21.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781501361906.jpg?v=1759244177"},{"product_id":"eye-chart-by-professor-william-germano-9781501312342","title":"Eye Chart","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eObject Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eDesert nomads tested their vision by distinguishing a pair of stars. 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S. Eliot’s proverbial coffee spoons but in 1mg-, 5mg-, or 300mg-doses, \u003cem\u003ePill\u003c\/em\u003e traces the uncanny presence of psychiatric pills through science, medicine, autobiography, television, cinema, literature, and popular music. 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Chefs are heroes and thought leaders, well-executed entrées go viral, dining out has become theatre, plating has become art and ubiquitous Instagram content. However, in recent years, restaurants have faced crisis upon crisis.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eRestaurant\u003c\/em\u003e takes a deep dive into the drives, desires, and anxieties we bring to dining out during this time of uncertainty. It explores the meaning we find in good food and warm hospitality. It shows why the restaurant offers unique opportunities to change the quality of our engagement with others and to create shared meaning across the table.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47072357286124,"sku":"9798765121825","price":21.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9146743488869.jpg?v=1765097072"},{"product_id":"lawn-by-giovanni-aloi-9798765108789","title":"Lawn","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eObject Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eA quintessential feature in Western gardens and landscaping, the lawn is now at the centre of a climate change controversy. The large carbon footprint maintenance, its unquenchable thirst for fertilisers, weedkillers, and water, and the notorious unfriendliness towards all forms of wildlife have recently attracted criticism and even spurred an anti-lawn movement.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eLawn\u003c\/i\u003e untangles the colonial-capitalist threads that keep our passion for mown grass alive despite mounting evidence that we’d be better off without it. The lawn is aesthetically and ideologically versatile. From museums and hospitals to corporate headquarters and university campuses, it has become the verdant lingua franca of institutions of all kinds. Its formal homogeneity and neatness imply reliability, constancy, and solicit our trust. But beneath the lawn lies a stratification of intricate ideological and ecological issues that over time have come to define our conception of nature.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47362763849964,"sku":"9798765108789","price":21.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9016383488869.jpg?v=1772900360"},{"product_id":"magazine-by-prof-jeff-jarvis-9781501394959","title":"Magazine","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eObject Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFor a century, magazines were the authors of culture and taste, of intelligence and policy — until they were overthrown by the voices of the public themselves online. Here is a tribute to all that magazines were, from their origins in London and on Ben Franklin’s press; through their boom — enabled by new technologies — as creators of a new media aesthetic and a new mass culture; into their opulent days in advertising-supported conglomerates; and finally to their fall at the hands of the internet.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis tale is told through the experience of a magazine founder, the creator of \u003ci\u003eEntertainment Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e at Time Inc., who was also TV critic at \u003ci\u003eTV Guide\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003ePeople\u003c\/i\u003e and finally an executive at Condé Nast trying to shepherd its magazines into the digital age.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eObject Lessons\u003c\/i\u003e is published in partnership with an essay series in \u003ci\u003eThe Atlantic.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47362818605292,"sku":"9781501394959","price":21.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/15229213482722.jpg?v=1772901436"},{"product_id":"relic-by-ed-simon-9798765102282","title":"Relic","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eObject Lessons\u003c\/em\u003e is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eEvery culture, every religion, every era has enshrined otherwise regular objects with a significance which stretches beyond their literal importance. Whether the bone of a Catholic martyr, the tooth of a Buddhist lama, or the cloak of a Sufi saint, relics are material conduits to the immaterial world. Yet relics aren't just a feature of religion. The exact same sense of the transcendent animates objects of political, historical, and cultural significance.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFrom Abraham Lincoln's death mask to Vladimir Lenin's embalmed corpse, Emily Dickinson's envelopes to Jimi Hendrix's guitar pick, relics are the objects which the faithful understand as being more than just objects. 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It’s the \"devil’s horn,\" it’s the voice of jazz — an extension of the player’s soul — it is a character trait of U.S. Presidents, YouTube sensations, and cartoon characters. It has both enhanced and ruined songs; it is sensuous yet abrasive, and it is the only instrument widely excluded from symphonies and orchestras, never quite being taken seriously. As an object that symbolises living on the margins of society, the saxophone has never been kind to its players.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBlending research, cultural criticism, and personal narrative about her saxophonist father, who lived on the margins until his unexpected death, Mollie Hawkins explores more than just the history of this expressive instrument. She illuminates the dark paths that our passions can lead us down. \u003cem\u003eSaxophone\u003c\/em\u003e turns the lens around to ask us all: what does it mean to devote your life to such an object — even if it kills you? 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In a narrative that moves from Mexico to the United States and back, Sánchez Prado discusses the definition of the taco, the question of the tortilla and the taco shell, and the existence of the taco as a modern social touchstone that has been shaped by history and geography.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eChallenging the idea of centrality and authenticity, Sánchez Prado shows instead that the taco is a contemporary, transcultural food that has always been subject to transformation.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47363005612268,"sku":"9798765135624","price":21.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/17ccf74ff87ecde25d8c4a10adfb79c4.jpg?v=1772931743"},{"product_id":"dust-by-dr-michael-marder-9781628925586","title":"Dust","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eObject Lessons\u003c\/em\u003e is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eNo matter how much you fight against it, dust pervades everything. It gathers in even layers, adapting to the contours of things and marking the passage of time. In itself, it is also a gathering place, a random community of what has been and what is yet to be, a catalogue of traces and a set of promises: dead skin cells and plant pollen, hair and paper fibres, not to mention dust mites who make it their home.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAnd so, dust blurs the boundaries between the living and the dead, plant and animal matter, the inside and the outside, you and the world (“for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return”).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eDust\u003c\/em\u003e treats one of the most mundane and familiar phenomena, showing how it can provide a key to thinking about existence, community, and justice today.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eObject Lessons\u003c\/em\u003e is published in partnership with an essay series in \u003cem\u003eThe Atlantic.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47383778984172,"sku":"9781628925586","price":21.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/26674933482767.jpg?v=1773380078"},{"product_id":"gin-by-shonna-milliken-humphrey-9781501353277","title":"Gin","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eObject Lessons\u003c\/em\u003e is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eGin tastes like Christmas to some and rotten pine chips to others, but nearly everyone familiar with the spirit holds immediate gin nostalgia.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAlthough early medical textbooks treated it as a healing agent, early alchemists (as well as their critics) claimed gin’s base was a path to immortality—and also Satan’s tool. In more recent times, the gin trade consolidated the commercial and political power of nations and prompted a social campaign against women. Gin has been used successfully as a defence for murder; blamed for massive unrest in 18th-century England; and advertised as an abortifacient.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFrom its harshest proto-gin distillation days to the current smooth craft models, gin plays a powerful cultural role in film, music, and literature—one that is arguably older, broader, and more complex than any other spirit.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eObject Lessons\u003c\/em\u003e is published in partnership with an essay series in \u003cem\u003eThe Atlantic\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47383821091052,"sku":"9781501353277","price":21.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/14812393482722.jpg?v=1773382575"},{"product_id":"pub-by-professor-philip-howell-9798765102312","title":"Pub","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\"Erudite, quirky, and amusing.\" Sebastian Faulks\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eObject Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe pub is an English institution. 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Golf balls embody our efforts to impose our will on the land, whether the local golf course or the Moon, but their unpredictable spin, bounce, and roll often defy our control.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eDespite their considerable technical refinements, golf balls reveal the futility of control. They inevitably disappear in plain sight and find their way into hazards. Golf balls, quite amusingly, play with people.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eGolf Ball\u003c\/em\u003e, Dr. Harry Brown's short treatise on the subject, serves up surprising lessons about the human desire to tame and control the landscape through technology.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eObject Lessons\u003c\/em\u003e is published in partnership with an essay series in \u003cem\u003eThe Atlantic\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47424200900844,"sku":"9781628921380","price":21.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781628921380.jpg?v=1774768905"},{"product_id":"grave-by-allison-c-meier-9781501383656","title":"Grave","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eObject Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eGrave\u003c\/em\u003e takes a ground-level view of how burial sites have transformed over time and how they continue to change. As a cemetery tour guide, Allison C. Meier has spent more time walking among tombstones than most. Even for her, the grave has largely been invisible, an out of the way and unobtrusive marker of death. However, graves turn out to be not always so subtle, reverent, or permanent.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWhile the indigent and unidentified have frequently been interred in mass graves, a fate brought into the public eye during the COVID-19 pandemic, the practice today is not unlike burials in the potter’s fields of the colonial era. Burial is not the only option, of course, and Meier analyses the rise of cremation, green burial, and new practices like human composting, investigating what is next for the grave and how existing spaces of death can be returned to community life.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eObject Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in \u003cem\u003eThe Atlantic\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47424206864620,"sku":"9781501383656","price":21.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781501383656.jpg?v=1774768866"},{"product_id":"hotel-by-joanna-walsh-9781628924732","title":"Hotel","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eObject Lessons\u003c\/em\u003e is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eDuring the breakdown of an unhappy marriage, writer Joanna Walsh got a job as a hotel reviewer and began to gravitate towards places designed as alternatives to home. Luxury, sex, power, anonymity, privacy… hotels are where our desires go on holiday, but also places where our desires are shaped by the hard realities of the marketplace.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003ePart memoir and part meditation, \u003cem\u003eHotel\u003c\/em\u003e visits a series of rooms, suites, hallways, and lobbies—the spaces and things that make up these modern sites of gathering and alienation, hotels.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eObject Lessons\u003c\/em\u003e is published in partnership with an essay series in \u003cem\u003eThe Atlantic.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47424277086444,"sku":"9781628924732","price":21.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781628924732.jpg?v=1774768733"},{"product_id":"metronome-by-matthew-h-birkhold-9798765108871","title":"Metronome","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eObject Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWhen the metronome was invented in 1815, it transformed the music world. Composers and musicians now had a tool that could help them maintain a precise and consistent tempo. While giants of classical music like Beethoven early embraced the metronome and proponents came to see its essential role in music instruction, critics believed it created mindless players and inhibited the creation of great art.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe metronome evokes strong feelings because of its uncompromising power. Through it, we are connected to the past, propelled into the future, and kept focused on the present. For that reason, this object has appeared in unlikely settings as athletes, scientists, psychologists, authors, and other professionals have found uses for it beyond music.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eMetronome\u003c\/i\u003e uncovers the surprising and fraught history of a timeless object.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47425663238380,"sku":"9798765108871","price":21.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9798765108871.jpg?v=1774768125"},{"product_id":"ocean-by-dr-steve-mentz-9781501348631","title":"Ocean","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eObject Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe ocean comprises the largest object on our planet. Retelling human history from an oceanic rather than terrestrial point of view unsettles our relationship with the natural environment. Our engagement with the world's oceans can be destructive, as with today’s deluge of plastic trash and acidification, but the mismatch between small bodies and vast seas also emphasises the frailty and resilience of human experience.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFrom ancient stories of shipwrecked sailors to the containerised future of 21st-century commerce, \u003ci\u003eOcean\u003c\/i\u003e splashes the histories we thought we knew into salty and unfamiliar places.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eObject Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in \u003ci\u003eThe Atlantic\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47426656796908,"sku":"9781501348631","price":21.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781501348631.jpg?v=1774767847"},{"product_id":"oil-by-dr-michael-tondre-9781501386626","title":"Oil","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eObject Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBlack gold. Liquid sunlight. Texas tea. \u003cem\u003eOil\u003c\/em\u003e remains the ur-commodity of our global era, having been distilled from ancient algae and marine life to turn modernity’s wheels. Wars are fought over it. Some communities are displaced by its extraction, so that others may reap its benefits. But despite its heated history, few will ever see oil on the ground. Shrouded within a labyrinth of oil fields, pipelines, and manufacturies, it tends to be known only through its magical effects: the thrill of the road, the euphoria of flight, and the metamorphic allure of everything from vinyl records to celluloid film and synthetic clothing.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eMichael Tondre shows how hydrocarbon became today’s pre-eminent power. How did oil come to structure selfhood and social relations? And to what extent is oil not only a commercial product but a cultural one—something shaped by widely imagined dreams and desires? Amid a warming world unleashed by fossil fuels, oil appears as a rich resource for thinking about histories of globalization and technology no less than the energetic underpinnings of literature, film, and art.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eObject Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in \u003cem\u003eThe Atlantic\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin Aotearoa New Zealand","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47426727706860,"sku":"9781501386626","price":21.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781501386626.jpg?v=1774767828"}],"url":"https:\/\/bookhero.co.nz\/collections\/series-object-lessons.oembed?page=2","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}