Images from Francoise Gilot’s sketchbooks. Courtesy of Taschen

Start the spring with a time-traveling array of books on real crises and imagined places, beloved cities, art and design,  and what the future may hold for the planet. Among the books we’ll share:

A love letter to the city of Chicago by rock music critic Jessica Hopper

Bord de la Seine in Paris. Courtesy Mairie Paris

A walk through Paris that is, literally, a walk through Paris (Eric Hazan)

An atlas of imaginary lands by writers and cartographers

Françoise Gilot,  Picasso’s muse and lover (one of many) , proves at 96 she’s had her own formidable talent, with three facsimile sketchbooks of her travels.

The first half of young Benjamin Franklin’s life, a rags-to-riches story

The chilling details of the Chernobyl disaster,  little known to Generation Z

Reactor 4 at Chernobyl. It took the former Soviet government 36 hours to declare an emergency and begin evacuation.

The last words of Stephen Hawking on the nature of our universe (Brief Answers to Big Questions)

Is it the end of our planet, with no Plan B? The Uninhabitable Earth: Life after Warming

Come back soon for recommendations, reviews, and author interviews.