Dorling Kindersley
Author of DK Eyewitness Travel Guide: Paris
About the Author
Disambiguation Notice:
Please do not combine this page for the publishing firm with page for any individual author. Thank you.
The packaging and publishing firm was founded by Christopher Dorling and Peter Kindersley.
Series
Works by Dorling Kindersley
Remarkable Books: The World's Most Historic and Significant Works (DK History Changers) (2017) 359 copies, 3 reviews
Art That Changed the World: Transformative Art Movements and the Paintings That Inspired Them (2013) 225 copies, 2 reviews
Grow All You Can Eat in 3 Square Feet: Inventive Ideas for Growing Food in a Small Space (2015) 223 copies, 1 review
Birds of North America (American Museum of Natural History Photographic Guides) (2009) 173 copies, 1 review
Banned Books: The World's Most Controversial Books, Past and Present (DK Secret Histories) (2022) 166 copies, 6 reviews
Remarkable Diaries: The World's Greatest Diaries, Journals, Notebooks, & Letters (DK Great) (2020) 157 copies
The Concise Human Body Book: An Illustrated Guide to Its Structure, Function and Disorders (2009) 151 copies
The Ultimate Peter Rabbit: A Visual Guide to the World of Beatrix Potter (2002) 126 copies, 1 review
Millennium Year By Year: A Chronicle of World History from AD 1000 to the Present Day (1999) 125 copies, 1 review
Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Life: The Definitive Visual Guide to Prehistoric Animals (2019) 119 copies
Animal: A Brilliant Visual Guide to Animals From Ants to Zebras (DK Eyewitness) (2012) 113 copies, 1 review
Timelines of History: The Ultimate Visual Guide to the Events That Shaped the World, 2nd Edition (2018) 105 copies
Space Shuttle: The First 20 Years -- The Astronauts' Experiences in Their Own Words (2002) 102 copies, 1 review
Super Bug Encyclopedia: The Biggest, Fastest, Deadliest Creepy-Crawlers on the Planet (Super Encyclopedias) (2016) 96 copies
Small Plot, Big Harvest: A Step-by-Step Guide to Growing Fruits and Vegetables in Small Spaces (2012) 90 copies, 1 review
Artist's Painting Techniques: Explore Watercolors, Acrylics, and Oils; Discover Your Own Style; Grow as an Art (2016) 87 copies
The Illustrated Mahabharata: The Definitive Guide to India s Greatest Epic (2017) 83 copies, 1 review
Norse Myths: Meet the Gods, Monsters, and Heroes of the Vikings (2021) — Publisher — 80 copies, 2 reviews
The Complete Gardener's Guide: The One-Stop Guide to Plan, Sow, Plant, and Grow Your Garden (2020) 78 copies
Mammoth Science: The Big Ideas That Explain Our World (DK David Macaulay How Things Work) (2020) 75 copies
LEGO Star Wars Ideas Book: More than 200 Games, Activities, and Building Ideas (Lego Ideas) (2018) 69 copies
Super Simple Biology: The Ultimate Bitesize Study Guide (DK Super Simple) (2020) 69 copies, 1 review
Encyclopedia of Landscape Design: Planning, Building, and Planting Your Perfect Outdoor Space (2017) 68 copies
Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Everything: The Ultimate Guide to the World Around You (DK Eyewitness) (2023) 65 copies, 2 reviews
Beginner Gardening Step by Step: A Visual Guide to Yard and Garden Basics (2019) 64 copies, 1 review
Children's Book of Philosophy: An Introduction to the World's Great Thinkers and Their Big Ideas (2015) 62 copies
DK Compact World Atlas: The Essential Atlas for All the Family with Easy-to-Read Maps and Country Factfiles (2001) 57 copies
LEGO® NINJAGO: Build Your Own Adventure: With Lloyd Minifigure and Exclusive Ninja Merch, Book Includes More Than 50 Buil (LEGO Build Your Own Adventure) (2015) 56 copies
Birds of North America Eastern Region (American Museum of Natural History Photographic Guides) (2011) 55 copies
Complete Pottery Techniques: Design, Form, Throw, Decorate and More, with Workshops from Professional Makers (2019) 53 copies
LEGO DC Comics Super Heroes Build Your Own Adventure (LEGO Build Your Own Adventure) (2017) 52 copies
Where on Earth? Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Life: The Amazing History of Earth's Most Incredible Animals (2019) 52 copies
Smartgarden Regional Guide: Southeast (American Horticultural Society Smartgarden Regional Garden Guides) (2004) 46 copies
Beginner's Step-by-Step Coding Course: Learn Computer Programming the Easy Way (DK Complete Courses) (2020) 46 copies, 1 review
Cultural Treasures of the World: From the Relics of Ancient Empires to Modern-Day Icons (DK Wonders of the World) (2022) 46 copies
The World's Must-See Places: A Look Inside More Than 100 Magnificent Buildings and Monuments (2011) 45 copies, 2 reviews
Animal Knowledge Genius: A Quiz Encyclopedia to Boost Your Brain (DK Knowledge Genius) (2021) 43 copies
The Grumpy Reindeer: A Winter Story About Friendship and Kindness (First Seasonal Stories) (2022) 40 copies, 2 reviews
Watercolor Techniques for Artists and Illustrators: Learn How to Paint Landscapes, People, Still Lifes, and More. (2020) 40 copies, 1 review
Dinosaur Ultimate Handbook: The Need-To-Know Facts and Stats on Over 150 Different Species (2021) 38 copies
RHS Complete Gardener's Manual: The one-stop guide to plan, sow, plant, and grow your garden (2011) 38 copies
Great Cities: The stories behind the world's most fascinating places (DK History Changers) (2021) 37 copies
The Very Hungry Caterpillar's Very First Encyclopedia (The Very Hungry Caterpillar Encyclopedias) (2022) 37 copies
The Essential Manager's Handbook: The Ultimate Visual Guide to Successful Management (DK Essential Managers) (2016) 36 copies
Lost in the Clouds: A gentle story to help children understand death and grief (Difficult Conversations) (2021) 36 copies, 3 reviews
Stress The Psychology of Managing Pressure: Practical Strategies to turn Pressure into Positive Energy (2017) 36 copies
Mythology (Visual Reference Guides) — Author — 35 copies
Behind the Scenes at the Zoo: Your All-Access Guide to the World's Greatest Zoos and Aquariums (2021) 35 copies
Super Dinosaur Encyclopedia: The Biggest, Fastest, Coolest Prehistoric Creatures (DK Super Nature Encyclopedias) (2020) 35 copies
Help Your Kids with Geography, Ages 10-16 (Key Stages 3-4): A Unique Step-by-Step Visual Guide, Revision and Reference (2019) 34 copies
Dinosaur and Other Prehistoric Creatures Atlas: The Prehistoric World as You've Never Seen It Before (DK Where on Earth? Atlases) (2021) 33 copies
Exploration Map by Map: From Migrations and Encounters to Voyages and Discoveries (DK History Map by Map) (2025) 33 copies
Around the World in 80 Ways: The Fabulous Inventions that get us From Here to There (2018) 33 copies
The Advanced Photography Guide: Expert Techniques to Take Your Digital Photography to the Next Level (2018) 32 copies
15-Minute Mandarin Chinese: Learn in Just 12 Weeks (DK 15-Minute Lanaguge Learning) (2013) 32 copies
Student World Atlas, 9th Edition: The Ultimate Reference for Every Student (DK Reference Atlases) (2019) 32 copies
Great Diaries: The world's most remarkable diaries, journals, notebooks, and letters (2020) 32 copies
LEGO NINJAGO Build Your Own Adventure Greatest Ninja Battles: with Nya minifigure and exclusive Hover-Bike model (LEGO Build Your Own Adventure) (2018) 30 copies
Modern Flexitarian: Plant-inspired Recipes You Can Flex to Add Fish, Meat, or Dairy (2020) 29 copies
The LEGO® Movie 2 : The Awesomest, Most Amazing, Most Epic Movie Guide in the Universe! (2018) 29 copies
Success The Psychology of Achievement: A Practical Guide to Unlocking You Potential in Every Area of Life (2017) 28 copies
DK Readers L1: LEGO NEXO KNIGHTS Stop the Stone Monsters!: Discover the Knights' Battle Secrets! (DK Readers Level 1) (2017) 27 copies
Africa: The Definitive Visual History of a Continent (DK Definitive Visual Histories) (2024) 26 copies
Bake It: More Than 150 Recipes for Kids from Simple Cookies to Creative Cakes! (2019) 26 copies, 1 review
Lost Masterpieces: Stolen, Damaged, Mislaid, Destroyed - The World's Most Elusive Works of Art (2022) — Author — 25 copies
The Memory Activity Book: Practical Projects to Help with Memory Loss and Dementia (2018) 25 copies, 1 review
Dutch in 3 Months with Free Audio App: Your Essential Guide to Understanding and Speaking Dutch (Hugo in 3 Months) (2022) 25 copies
Through the Night Sky: A collection of amazing adventures under the stars (Journey Through) (2020) 25 copies, 1 review
Birds of North America Western Region (American Museum of Natural History Photographic Guides) (2011) 25 copies
Strengthen Your Back: Exercises to Build a Better Back and Improve Your Posture (2018) 23 copies, 1 review
What's Where on Earth? Animal Atlas: The World's Wildlife as You've Never Seen it Before (2021) 23 copies
Eyewitness Mythology: Discover the amazing adventures of gods, heroes, and magical beasts in extraordinary stories from around the world (DK Eyewitness) (2017) 22 copies
Children's Illustrated Factopedia: Over 50, 000 Essential Facts, Figures, and Dates (1995) 22 copies
Be More Taylor Swift: Fearless advice on following your dreams and finding your voice (2022) 22 copies
Star Wars The Clone Wars: Secrets of the Force (Ultimate Sticker Collection) (2011) 21 copies, 1 review
My Book of Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Life: Animals and plants to amaze, surprise, and astonish! (2021) 21 copies
The Secret Language of Flowers: The Historical Symbolism and Spiritual Properties of Flowers Throughout Time (DK Secret Histories) (2023) 21 copies
Behind the Scenes at the Museum: Your All-access Guide to the World's Amazing Museums (2020) 20 copies
This Is How We Make Friends: For kids going to preschool (First Skills for Preschool) (2021) 20 copies
Ginseng: Safe and Effective Self-Care for Colds, Respiratory Conditions and Stress (Natural Care Library) (2000) 19 copies, 1 review
Transportation!: Cars, Trains, Ships and Planes as You've Never Seen Them Before (DK Knowledge Encyclopedias) (2024) 18 copies
Plants and Fungi: The Definitive Visual Encyclopedia (DK Definitive Visual Encyclopedias) (2024) 17 copies
Complete Flags of the World (Dk Atlases) 17 copies
Artist's Drawing Techniques: Discover How to Draw Landscapes, People, Still Lifes and More, in Pencil, Charcoal, Ink, and Pastel (2023) 16 copies
An Anthology of Stargazing: A Collection of Stars and Constellations (DK Little Anthologies) (2025) 16 copies
The Dorling Kindersley Illustrated Family Encyclopedia Volume 3 B-C: Benin Empire - Caves (2004) 16 copies
Spanish English Bilingual Visual Dictionary (DK Bilingual Visual Dictionaries) (2005) 16 copies, 1 review
Medical Symptoms: A Visual Guide, 2nd Edition: The Easy Way to Identify Medical Problems (2022) 15 copies
It Can't Be True! Animals!: Unbelievable Facts About Amazing Animals (DK 1,000 Amazing Facts) (2020) 15 copies, 1 review
HULLABALOO ACTIVITY COLORING BOOK SET 15 copies
The Botanist's Sticker Anthology 14 copies
The Human Body Coloring Book: The Ultimate Anatomy Study Guide, Second Edition (DK Human Body Guides) (2024) 14 copies
Outdoor Europe: Epic adventures, incredible experiences, and mindful escapes (DK Eyewitness Travel Guide) (2021) 14 copies
Vitamin C: Safe and Effective Self-Care for Preventing Colds, Cancer and Stress (Natural Care Library) (2000) 14 copies
LEGO Harry Potter Holidays at Hogwarts: With LEGO Harry Potter minifigure in Yule Ball robes (2021) 13 copies
Your Well-Being Garden: How to Make Your Garden Good for You - Science, Design, Practice (2020) 13 copies
LEGO Star Wars Build Your Own Adventure Galactic Missions (LEGO Build Your Own Adventure) (2019) 13 copies
Artist's Painting Techniques: Explore Watercolors, Acrylics, and Oils. Discover Your Own Style. Grow as an Artist (2023) 12 copies
French - English Illustrated Dictionary: A Bilingual Visual Guide to Over 10,000 French Words and Phrases (2023) 12 copies
Super Science Encyclopedia: How Science Shapes Our World (DK Super Nature Encyclopedias) (2021) 12 copies
LEGO DC Super Heroes Heroes Into Battle Ultimate Sticker Collection (Ultimate Stickers) (2015) 12 copies
Success The Psychology of Achievement: A practical guide to unlocking the potential in every area of life (2017) 11 copies
Illustrated Family Encyclopedia Volume 11 O-P Ocean Wildlife to Portugal, History of (2002) — Editor — 11 copies
Mental Wellness: A holistic approach to mental health and healing. Natural remedies, foods... (2021) 11 copies
Montessori for Every Family: A Practical Parenting Guide to Living, Loving and Learning (2021) 11 copies
Extraordinary Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Life Visual Encyclopedia (DK Children's Visual Encyclopedias) (2022) 11 copies
Spanish - English Illustrated Dictionary: A Bilingual Visual Guide to Over 10,000 Spanish Words and Phrases (2023) 10 copies
Help Your Kids with Adolescence: A No-Nonsense Guide to Puberty and the Teenage Years (2017) 10 copies
The Dorling Kindersley Illustrated Family Encyclopedia Volume 6 E-G: Europe, Central to Gardens (2004) 10 copies
French in 3 Months with Free Audio App: Your Essential Guide to Understanding and Speaking French (Hugo in 3 Months) (2022) 10 copies
Portuguese in 3 Months with Free Audio App: Your Essential Guide to Understanding and Speaking Portuguese (Hugo in 3 Months) (2022) 10 copies
Grow Pests and Diseases: Essential Know-how And Expert Advice For Gardening Success (DK Grow) (2022) 10 copies
Arthritis: Your Comprehensive Guide to Pain Management, Medication, Diet, Exercise, Surgery and Physical Therapies (2006) 10 copies
Vitamin E: Safe and Effective Self-Care for Younger Skin and Healthy Hair (Natural Care Library) (2000) 10 copies
Vitamin B: Safe and Effective Self-Care for Improving Metabolism and Immunity (Natural Care Library) (2000) 10 copies
Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Life (DK Smithsonian: Ultimate Sticker Activity Collection) (2013) 10 copies
Our World in Numbers Dinosaurs & Other Prehistoric Life: An Encyclopedia of Fantastic Facts (DK Oour World in Numbers) (2024) 10 copies
Journey (DK Definitive Visual Histories) 10 copies
Through the Night Sky: A collection of amazing adventures under the stars (Snap Facts) (2020) 10 copies
The World Encyclopedia of Wild Flowers & Flora: A Reference and Identification Guide to 1730 of the World's Most Significant Wild Plants (2020) 9 copies
Star Wars The Rise of Skywalker Amazing Sticker Adventures (Ultimate Sticker Collection) (2019) 9 copies
Animal Behavior: Stories of Instinct, Intelligence, and Adaptation (DK Definitive Visual Encyclopedias) (2025) 9 copies
The Food Book: The Stories, Science, and History of What We Eat, New Edition (DK Nature Books) 9 copies
The Screen Traveler's Guide: Real-life Locations Behind Your Favorite Movies and TV Shows (2023) 9 copies
Behind the Scenes at the Space Stations: Your All Access Guide to the World's Most Amazing Space Station (DK Behind the Scenes) (2022) 9 copies
Nba's Greatest 8 copies
Ramen Noodle Cookbook: 40 Traditional Recipes and Modern Makeovers of the Classic Japanese Broth Soup (2015) 8 copies
Into The Night 8 copies
Cushions, Curtains and Blinds Step by Step: 25 Soft-Furnishing Projects for the Home (2017) 8 copies
The Nervous Dragon: A Story About Overcoming Back-to-School Worries (First Seasonal Stories) (2024) 8 copies
The tree book 8 copies
DK SUPER Where Words Come From: Guide to Morphology with Prefixes, Suffixes, and Root Words (2025) 8 copies
English for Everyone Practice Book Level 1 Beginner: A Complete Self-Study Program (DK English for Everyone) (2024) 8 copies
The modern world 8 copies
Scientists: Inspiring Tales of the World's Brightest Scientific Minds (DK Explorers) (2021) 7 copies
The LEGO Halloween Games Book: Ideas for 50 Games, Challenges, Puzzles, and Activities (2024) 7 copies
Pillows, Curtains, and Shades Step by Step: 25 Soft-Furnishing Projects for the Home (2017) 7 copies
Masters of War: A Visual History of Military Personnel from Commanders to Frontline Fighters (2021) 7 copies
German - English Illustrated Dictionary: A Bilingual Visual Guide to Over 10,000 German Words and Phrases (2023) 7 copies
Te echaré de menos (Lost in the Clouds): Un cuento para recordar a los que ya no están (Spanish Edition) (2021) 7 copies
How to Be Good at English Language Arts: The Simplest-ever Visual Guide (DK How to Be Good at) (2022) 7 copies
The LEGO® BATMAN MOVIE The Essential Collection: Includes 2 books, 150 stickers and exclusive Minifigure (2017) 7 copies
English for Everyone Course Book Level 2 Beginner: A Complete Self-Study Program (DK English for Everyone) (2024) 7 copies
The World War II Book (DK Big Ideas) 7 copies
Horses & Ponies: Everything You Need to Know, From Bridles and Breeds to Jodhpurs and Jumping! (2021) 6 copies
Ultimate Sticker Collection: THE LEGO® NINJAGO® MOVIE (Ultimate Sticker Collections) (2017) 6 copies
Forest Life and Woodland Creatures: Full of Fun Facts and Activities (Practical Facts) (2017) 6 copies
Signos y símbolos (Signs and Symbols): Guía ilustrada de su origen y significado (DK Compact Culture Guides) (Spanish Edition) (2020) 6 copies
The Science Museum A Brief History of Stuff: The Extraordinary Stories of Ordinary Objects (2024) 6 copies
The Complete Baking Air Fryer Cookbook: 75 Baking Recipes Perfect for Your Air Fryer (2025) 6 copies
The Architecture Book (DK Big Ideas) 6 copies
Military History: The Definitive Visual Guide to the Objects of Warfare (DK Definitive Visual Histories) (2012) 6 copies
Superman The Ultimate Guide The Man of Steel New Edition (Superman the Ultimate Guidedc Superman) (2025) 6 copies
Baby Touch and Feel: First Words 6 copies
The Science Book (DK Big Ideas) 6 copies
Watercolour Techniques for Artists and Illustrators: Discover how to paint landscapes, people, still lifes, and more. (2020) 6 copies
Guía Visual Gran Bretaña: Las guías que enseñan lo que otras solo cuentan (GUIAS VISUALES) (2019) 6 copies
Italian - English Illustrated Dictionary: A Bilingual Visual Guide to Over 10,000 Italian Words and Phrases (2023) 6 copies
My First ABC 5 copies
My Encyclopedia of Very Important Myths and Legends: For Little Learners Who Love Fantastic Stories (My Very Important Encyclopedias) (2024) 5 copies
The Lonely Otter: A Heart-warming Story About Love and Friendship (First Seasonal Stories) (2023) 5 copies, 3 reviews
The Poetry Book (DK Big Ideas) 5 copies
El mundo en imágenes (Our World in Pictures) (DK Our World in Pictures) (Spanish Edition) (2023) 5 copies
The Complete Instant Pot Cookbook: Innovative Recipes to Slow Cook, Bake, Air Fry and Pressure Cook (2023) 5 copies
Did You Know? Earth: Amazing Answers to More than 200 Awesome Questions! (Why? Series) (2022) 5 copies
Bugs 5 copies
Associated Works
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Dorling Kindersley
- Legal name
- Dorling Kindersley Limited
- Other names
- DK
- Gender
- n/a
- Nationality
- UK
- Birthplace
- London, England, UK
- Map Location
- England, UK
- Disambiguation notice
- Please do not combine this page for the publishing firm with page for any individual author. Thank you.
The packaging and publishing firm was founded by Christopher Dorling and Peter Kindersley.
Members
Reviews
What can you say for a book that, right at the beginning, has chapters titled:
* Pre-1900
* The 19th Century
You're telling me NOT ONE editor or author at DK knows that the 19th century is the 1800s, so the first chapter should be titled "Pre-1800"? Not one?
It does not bode well for the book...
It is a pretty, amuse-bouche of a book, suitable for a quick recap of many "banned" books.
But, it has it's problems.
First, there is a tendency among leftist/liberals to equate BANNING a book, to wit: a show more government shutting down publication, stopping distribution, and punishing readers and authors, and CURATION, to wit: parents of young children who do not want certain books to be freely available to their children without parental supervision and/or permission. Crazy parents may want to keep books with, say, sexual content out of a middle school library (paid for with THEIR tax dollars) and not want to ban other people, adults, from buying a certain book. There is a difference, but that is often lost on people, on purpose.
Second, there is a tendency by the authors to be dismissive and haughty when religious and/or conservative parents may challenge a book about homosexuality or with sex scenes or the like, but very quickly they gloss over liberal/leftist/wokesters "banning" books for wrongthink or wrongspeech. For instance, it's not conservatives trying to ban Twain's Huckleberry Finn (see p. 42) or Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird (see p. 102). On To Kill a Mockingbird from p. 102:
"There are frequent calls, sometimes successful, for its removal from the curriculum for a variety of reasons: the sexual assault; the implication that women lie about being raped, the racist language, including use of the N-word; and its treatment of racism. In recent years, the book has been criticized for its 'White savior' complex, as the plot revolves around a white lawyer helping a Black man. This reason was cited by an Edinburgh school that removed it from its curriculum in 2021. Some critics argue that the book, which is by a white author, should be removed in order to make space for more works by Black writers."
Third, poor DK doesn't realize that it's part of the problem it only obliquely references in the introduction, "Just as insidiously, authors and publishers sometimes censor themselves by not creating or publishing work that might give offense" (p. 7). If you look at the back of the book you see the authors, editors, designers, etc., and this set of folks: "Authenticity Readers." These "authenticity readers" combed the text to remove anything THEY might think is offensive in their wokester brains. Thus the neologism "enslaved person" for "slavery," the fact that offensive words are left unprinted in a book about censorship/banning. Et cetera. Do they not see the ironic hypocrisy?
It reminds me of Bradbury's bit from the coda to Fahrenheit 451: "Fire-Captain Beatty, in my novel Fahrenheit 451, described how the books were burned first by minorities, each ripping a page or a paragraph from this book, then that, until the day came when the books were empty and the minds shut and the libraries closed forever."
I am sure it was these "authenticity readers" who managed this in the section on Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses: "They were also offended by Rushdie's revival of a discredited tale from early Islamic history..." (p. 144). WHAT? First, Rushdie didn't "revive" anything, it's always been around. Second, "a discredited tale"? Discredited by whom? It is still debated by scholars, with many not discrediting it or calling it a "tale" (in the mocking sense of "fable"). Must not cause offense....
Poor DK, poor mangling of what could have been a good book. show less
* Pre-1900
* The 19th Century
You're telling me NOT ONE editor or author at DK knows that the 19th century is the 1800s, so the first chapter should be titled "Pre-1800"? Not one?
It does not bode well for the book...
It is a pretty, amuse-bouche of a book, suitable for a quick recap of many "banned" books.
But, it has it's problems.
First, there is a tendency among leftist/liberals to equate BANNING a book, to wit: a show more government shutting down publication, stopping distribution, and punishing readers and authors, and CURATION, to wit: parents of young children who do not want certain books to be freely available to their children without parental supervision and/or permission. Crazy parents may want to keep books with, say, sexual content out of a middle school library (paid for with THEIR tax dollars) and not want to ban other people, adults, from buying a certain book. There is a difference, but that is often lost on people, on purpose.
Second, there is a tendency by the authors to be dismissive and haughty when religious and/or conservative parents may challenge a book about homosexuality or with sex scenes or the like, but very quickly they gloss over liberal/leftist/wokesters "banning" books for wrongthink or wrongspeech. For instance, it's not conservatives trying to ban Twain's Huckleberry Finn (see p. 42) or Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird (see p. 102). On To Kill a Mockingbird from p. 102:
"There are frequent calls, sometimes successful, for its removal from the curriculum for a variety of reasons: the sexual assault; the implication that women lie about being raped, the racist language, including use of the N-word; and its treatment of racism. In recent years, the book has been criticized for its 'White savior' complex, as the plot revolves around a white lawyer helping a Black man. This reason was cited by an Edinburgh school that removed it from its curriculum in 2021. Some critics argue that the book, which is by a white author, should be removed in order to make space for more works by Black writers."
Third, poor DK doesn't realize that it's part of the problem it only obliquely references in the introduction, "Just as insidiously, authors and publishers sometimes censor themselves by not creating or publishing work that might give offense" (p. 7). If you look at the back of the book you see the authors, editors, designers, etc., and this set of folks: "Authenticity Readers." These "authenticity readers" combed the text to remove anything THEY might think is offensive in their wokester brains. Thus the neologism "enslaved person" for "slavery," the fact that offensive words are left unprinted in a book about censorship/banning. Et cetera. Do they not see the ironic hypocrisy?
It reminds me of Bradbury's bit from the coda to Fahrenheit 451: "Fire-Captain Beatty, in my novel Fahrenheit 451, described how the books were burned first by minorities, each ripping a page or a paragraph from this book, then that, until the day came when the books were empty and the minds shut and the libraries closed forever."
I am sure it was these "authenticity readers" who managed this in the section on Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses: "They were also offended by Rushdie's revival of a discredited tale from early Islamic history..." (p. 144). WHAT? First, Rushdie didn't "revive" anything, it's always been around. Second, "a discredited tale"? Discredited by whom? It is still debated by scholars, with many not discrediting it or calling it a "tale" (in the mocking sense of "fable"). Must not cause offense....
Poor DK, poor mangling of what could have been a good book. show less
Dorling Kindersley has produced a useful introductory and chronological account of humanity's engagement with the horrible or terrible unknown and its expression in art and culture. It also includes nods to psychology although not enough to tell us much of depth.
The great virtue of the book is that it brings matters right up to date (2026) even if this means that some judgements may not stand the test of time. It also provides some access, otherwise not easily available, to horror from show more non-Western sources, notably Latin America.
It is a popular book covering a vast period of time with something of a concentration on relatively recent cinema and (much less so) literature so the coverage is fairly shallow if well illustrated. Its best use is as a check-list for the younger newcomer or as something to up date the old-timer.
A far more useful tool for the reasonably educated reader is probably Luckhurst's 2022 illustrated history of the Gothic (reviewed elsewhere by me) which, although it misses early periods and the breadth of the DK compendium, is more fundamentally educative if a little 'woke' in places.
There are important gaps in the DK text and some repetitions as well as some over-estimations of value for what must be 'politically correct' reasons but it would be churlish to go too far down that route. A text that does not mention Thomas Ligotti is by definition relatively superficial.
Still, it has value although that value will drift with time if it is not constantly updated and revised. It also, to its credit, refuses to bowdlerise its subject matter so that we have short chapters on the French Extremity and Torture Porn movements in cinema.
It raised some questions for me about how the sentiments of horror, terror, fear and unease have become increasingly performative. Extremity is now more inclined to evoke disgust and so becomes no better than putting your hand into faeces as the public gets immured within its artistic myths.
Psychologically the real question for our time is why our culture seems to want to wallow in disgust (and the horror at of things rather than the terror of those things) and to have lost its sense of the uneasy and the uncanny except as formulaic ghost stories for Christmas.
We watch Universal and Hammer monsters in a state of happy nostalgia, often repeatedly, and, even if we do not, we believe we know them inside out. Folk horror, zombie and vampire films are now exercises in mythic repetition, sometimes precisely so in Eggers' recent 'Nosferatu'.
The book indicates just how much something that one once found at the margins of one's existence occasionally and so struck a chord has become normalised to the point where (as I found a couple of times recently) you end up actually chuckling at a filmmaker's attempts to evoke primal feeling.
The idea of horror as comedy too has shifted from the attempt to relax the nerves from real fears via Abbott and Costello to even more performative entertainment that (as in the brilliant 'Ready or Not' (2019)) is much closer to the complexity of the cosy crime novel but with added gore.
Sometimes, as in Jordan Peele's much over-praised 'Get Out' (which is just a weak version of 'The Stepford Wives'), there is really just one idea being worked out - a didactic point of view designed to incur knowing approval at the 'message'. Horror is not really about too obvious social messaging.
Gore and elaborate deaths have replaced thought in many cases, often rather brilliantly and amusingly, as with the 'Final Destination' run of movies which are unaccountably absent from the book. Again, the emotion is amused disgust in a safe space rather than true horror.
Minus the gore we have, of course, vampires as children's entertainment (as in 'Count Duckula') and Tim Burton taking the horrors of Poe and early nineteenth century romanticism and turning them into delightful if sometimes twee animated entertainments.
Japanese and French extremity and torture porn (following some visceral late twentieth century extremities in art) tried to push the boundaries only to see these also turned into long-running franchises that have become cinematic safe spaces - as slasher movies have done before them.
The oddity in all this (or perhaps it is connected) is that visual media and reporting have brought real viscerality (possibly starting with Vietnam but more likely with footage of Nazi horrors) into the home and perhaps we see similar desensitisation with only a minority truly engaged in the horror.
Even looking away would be a reaction but I would guess that most watchers of TV footage of buildings being blown up and people digging in the rubble simply look with minimal emotion beyond their making a performative comment or adopting a more intellectual position that takes sides.
Maybe this is where we are as a culture - performative engagement and position-taking in everything. The posturing around Gaza as if the posturing changed anything. The two hours watching a slasher that turns the tables and meets feminist or ethnic political demands. So that's alright then.
Meanwhile the world trundles on - most people facing normal horrors like accidents and disease or seeing glitches in their brain matrix out of the corners of their eyes. In certain places and times there are monstrous deeds by monstrous people that we really do not want to face except ritualistically.
As you go through the book, you see a major shift from 'true belief' in things of horror (ancestors, demonic forces), with associated fear and unease, being displaced by a collapse of such belief and its replacement by the desire to be shaken into feeling by formulae that follow certain patterns.
The feelings must not be omnipresent in the dark but must be contained within texts and time-slots and both be referential backwards yet also novel - new black horror, eco-horror, feminist horror, LGBTQ+ horror or whatever - asserting something in the world rather than facing the world.
There are important exceptions that existentially draw us back towards ourselves and allow us to look at how we relate to the world in terms of such sentiments (we think of 'Under The Skin') but a lot of 'horror' today is manufactured to manage sentiments so that we should only think what we are told.
Since extremity (which probably emerged with 'Night of the Living Dead', the innovative slashers of the 1970s and Barker's 'Books of Blood') has probably exhausted itself (at least within the bounds of the law), where do we go from here since De Sade probably said all that needed to be said?
'Night of the Living Dead' is a good example. When I saw it as a student in a cinema in the late 1970s, I was truly horrified by the scene of a zombie eating the intestines of another human being. It was a unique moment, like my first sight much younger of the exposed brain of a Nazi experimental subject.
Now, such shocks are normalised and seen by younger and younger people who know all about F/X and prosthetics and who have been culturally trained to see 'horror' as just another cultural artefact that has no connection to the 'possible real' but only the 'formulaic imagined'.
It is a parallel development to comedy where we find little broadcast even fifty years ago to be funny (Spike Milligan's racism now look obscene) and older generations find younger 'comedians' to be little more than snide political ranters filled with cocky self importance.
We can always go back to Shelley, Poe, Stoker, Mr James, Henry James, Lovecraft and a few other masters of the past because they created the mythos in which Mike Flanagan and Guillermo del Toro flourish where others produce mere formulae. But surely these are now becoming exhausted.
Barker, Macarthy, Kiernan, Campbell, Ligotti and Vandermeer perhaps should be the masters of the next phase instead of mere extremity but none are well served visually. Their literary efforts rely on the imagined. Horror, terror, fear and unease, it seems, are always best imagined and not shown.
We sit there now, almost able to predict the next cinematic 'jump scare', amused and admiring when there is a new trivial twist on the 'final girl', knowing as the zombies are placed in another apparently unusual setting. 'Found footage' is my personal bugbear of total laziness.
So, what next? This book will not give you the answer to that question as producers now trawl the catalogue for franchise reboots (some actually very good), create new twists and variations on well worn themes and look constantly backwards to feed dedicated streaming channels. show less
The great virtue of the book is that it brings matters right up to date (2026) even if this means that some judgements may not stand the test of time. It also provides some access, otherwise not easily available, to horror from show more non-Western sources, notably Latin America.
It is a popular book covering a vast period of time with something of a concentration on relatively recent cinema and (much less so) literature so the coverage is fairly shallow if well illustrated. Its best use is as a check-list for the younger newcomer or as something to up date the old-timer.
A far more useful tool for the reasonably educated reader is probably Luckhurst's 2022 illustrated history of the Gothic (reviewed elsewhere by me) which, although it misses early periods and the breadth of the DK compendium, is more fundamentally educative if a little 'woke' in places.
There are important gaps in the DK text and some repetitions as well as some over-estimations of value for what must be 'politically correct' reasons but it would be churlish to go too far down that route. A text that does not mention Thomas Ligotti is by definition relatively superficial.
Still, it has value although that value will drift with time if it is not constantly updated and revised. It also, to its credit, refuses to bowdlerise its subject matter so that we have short chapters on the French Extremity and Torture Porn movements in cinema.
It raised some questions for me about how the sentiments of horror, terror, fear and unease have become increasingly performative. Extremity is now more inclined to evoke disgust and so becomes no better than putting your hand into faeces as the public gets immured within its artistic myths.
Psychologically the real question for our time is why our culture seems to want to wallow in disgust (and the horror at of things rather than the terror of those things) and to have lost its sense of the uneasy and the uncanny except as formulaic ghost stories for Christmas.
We watch Universal and Hammer monsters in a state of happy nostalgia, often repeatedly, and, even if we do not, we believe we know them inside out. Folk horror, zombie and vampire films are now exercises in mythic repetition, sometimes precisely so in Eggers' recent 'Nosferatu'.
The book indicates just how much something that one once found at the margins of one's existence occasionally and so struck a chord has become normalised to the point where (as I found a couple of times recently) you end up actually chuckling at a filmmaker's attempts to evoke primal feeling.
The idea of horror as comedy too has shifted from the attempt to relax the nerves from real fears via Abbott and Costello to even more performative entertainment that (as in the brilliant 'Ready or Not' (2019)) is much closer to the complexity of the cosy crime novel but with added gore.
Sometimes, as in Jordan Peele's much over-praised 'Get Out' (which is just a weak version of 'The Stepford Wives'), there is really just one idea being worked out - a didactic point of view designed to incur knowing approval at the 'message'. Horror is not really about too obvious social messaging.
Gore and elaborate deaths have replaced thought in many cases, often rather brilliantly and amusingly, as with the 'Final Destination' run of movies which are unaccountably absent from the book. Again, the emotion is amused disgust in a safe space rather than true horror.
Minus the gore we have, of course, vampires as children's entertainment (as in 'Count Duckula') and Tim Burton taking the horrors of Poe and early nineteenth century romanticism and turning them into delightful if sometimes twee animated entertainments.
Japanese and French extremity and torture porn (following some visceral late twentieth century extremities in art) tried to push the boundaries only to see these also turned into long-running franchises that have become cinematic safe spaces - as slasher movies have done before them.
The oddity in all this (or perhaps it is connected) is that visual media and reporting have brought real viscerality (possibly starting with Vietnam but more likely with footage of Nazi horrors) into the home and perhaps we see similar desensitisation with only a minority truly engaged in the horror.
Even looking away would be a reaction but I would guess that most watchers of TV footage of buildings being blown up and people digging in the rubble simply look with minimal emotion beyond their making a performative comment or adopting a more intellectual position that takes sides.
Maybe this is where we are as a culture - performative engagement and position-taking in everything. The posturing around Gaza as if the posturing changed anything. The two hours watching a slasher that turns the tables and meets feminist or ethnic political demands. So that's alright then.
Meanwhile the world trundles on - most people facing normal horrors like accidents and disease or seeing glitches in their brain matrix out of the corners of their eyes. In certain places and times there are monstrous deeds by monstrous people that we really do not want to face except ritualistically.
As you go through the book, you see a major shift from 'true belief' in things of horror (ancestors, demonic forces), with associated fear and unease, being displaced by a collapse of such belief and its replacement by the desire to be shaken into feeling by formulae that follow certain patterns.
The feelings must not be omnipresent in the dark but must be contained within texts and time-slots and both be referential backwards yet also novel - new black horror, eco-horror, feminist horror, LGBTQ+ horror or whatever - asserting something in the world rather than facing the world.
There are important exceptions that existentially draw us back towards ourselves and allow us to look at how we relate to the world in terms of such sentiments (we think of 'Under The Skin') but a lot of 'horror' today is manufactured to manage sentiments so that we should only think what we are told.
Since extremity (which probably emerged with 'Night of the Living Dead', the innovative slashers of the 1970s and Barker's 'Books of Blood') has probably exhausted itself (at least within the bounds of the law), where do we go from here since De Sade probably said all that needed to be said?
'Night of the Living Dead' is a good example. When I saw it as a student in a cinema in the late 1970s, I was truly horrified by the scene of a zombie eating the intestines of another human being. It was a unique moment, like my first sight much younger of the exposed brain of a Nazi experimental subject.
Now, such shocks are normalised and seen by younger and younger people who know all about F/X and prosthetics and who have been culturally trained to see 'horror' as just another cultural artefact that has no connection to the 'possible real' but only the 'formulaic imagined'.
It is a parallel development to comedy where we find little broadcast even fifty years ago to be funny (Spike Milligan's racism now look obscene) and older generations find younger 'comedians' to be little more than snide political ranters filled with cocky self importance.
We can always go back to Shelley, Poe, Stoker, Mr James, Henry James, Lovecraft and a few other masters of the past because they created the mythos in which Mike Flanagan and Guillermo del Toro flourish where others produce mere formulae. But surely these are now becoming exhausted.
Barker, Macarthy, Kiernan, Campbell, Ligotti and Vandermeer perhaps should be the masters of the next phase instead of mere extremity but none are well served visually. Their literary efforts rely on the imagined. Horror, terror, fear and unease, it seems, are always best imagined and not shown.
We sit there now, almost able to predict the next cinematic 'jump scare', amused and admiring when there is a new trivial twist on the 'final girl', knowing as the zombies are placed in another apparently unusual setting. 'Found footage' is my personal bugbear of total laziness.
So, what next? This book will not give you the answer to that question as producers now trawl the catalogue for franchise reboots (some actually very good), create new twists and variations on well worn themes and look constantly backwards to feed dedicated streaming channels. show less
Your favorite civilian natural science book comes with prerequisites: vivid photos from altocumulous clouds to decomposition fungi, key hiding spots of small insects and charismatic critters, and nontechnical but curiosity-provoking descriptions of ecological concepts--all of which fill The Practical Naturalist. Edited by Chris Packham and written by a team of scientists, this book is detailed yet without intimidation for the potential nature hobbyist, young or mature--perhaps young and show more mature.
Having read many illustrated encyclopedia-esque publications as a kid, this update to the genre elicits nostalgia. It also demands a read to see how differently it looks from Gerald Durrell's well-known 1982 A Practical Guide for the Amateur Naturalist. How bizarre to see a smart phone on the page about the naturalist's tools of investigation! "Vivid" as I said before, is a docile term for how much photos have improved in clarity since Durrell's book. It's a shame we don't have more of this genre, perhaps even bioregion-specific ones so new naturalists can have the inspiration from these but the depth of an ecology book and the usefulness of a field guide.
Like similar reads, this one briefs through natural history concepts, a few pages of handy items like sound recorders and loupe lenses, how to stage sites like wildlife gardens to attract subjects, and mostly tidbit-oriented chapters on ecosystems like grasslands and tundra. An important note: the writer's assume you're from North American or the British Isles for locations like coasts and farm fields.
A perk to this book is the layout. Zoobooks, Eyewitness books, and other visual natural history publications in time gone all had two paged spreads where it's a mosaic of small paragraphs, photos, and diagrams. Sometimes those lay as if on a table with three dimensional specimens like shells or flowers. This theme continues but with more variety. There are photos linked across as a bar comparing habitats in one panorama like bushes, ditches, cactus hedges and stone walls. Some bars are meant to be turned around and read like a calendar--how else do you compare concepts and means of observing organisms existing in various tropical rain forest strata?
An invigorating read and bucket-list cataloging aside (can I visit all those places see all those species?), I do believe an incredible directions for this genre would be to offer more depth. Dedicate each book in a series to a biome or to major bioregions like the American eastern coniferous forest or British maritime. Perhaps they can take the habitat chapters in The Practical Naturalist and make each of those a book. There are a lot of hidden treasures and easy field techniques that are accessible to the amateur scientist that this book was too generalized to to cover.
I love it all the same: inspiration and the tools to carry that inspiration rarely weave into one tome. show less
Having read many illustrated encyclopedia-esque publications as a kid, this update to the genre elicits nostalgia. It also demands a read to see how differently it looks from Gerald Durrell's well-known 1982 A Practical Guide for the Amateur Naturalist. How bizarre to see a smart phone on the page about the naturalist's tools of investigation! "Vivid" as I said before, is a docile term for how much photos have improved in clarity since Durrell's book. It's a shame we don't have more of this genre, perhaps even bioregion-specific ones so new naturalists can have the inspiration from these but the depth of an ecology book and the usefulness of a field guide.
Like similar reads, this one briefs through natural history concepts, a few pages of handy items like sound recorders and loupe lenses, how to stage sites like wildlife gardens to attract subjects, and mostly tidbit-oriented chapters on ecosystems like grasslands and tundra. An important note: the writer's assume you're from North American or the British Isles for locations like coasts and farm fields.
A perk to this book is the layout. Zoobooks, Eyewitness books, and other visual natural history publications in time gone all had two paged spreads where it's a mosaic of small paragraphs, photos, and diagrams. Sometimes those lay as if on a table with three dimensional specimens like shells or flowers. This theme continues but with more variety. There are photos linked across as a bar comparing habitats in one panorama like bushes, ditches, cactus hedges and stone walls. Some bars are meant to be turned around and read like a calendar--how else do you compare concepts and means of observing organisms existing in various tropical rain forest strata?
An invigorating read and bucket-list cataloging aside (can I visit all those places see all those species?), I do believe an incredible directions for this genre would be to offer more depth. Dedicate each book in a series to a biome or to major bioregions like the American eastern coniferous forest or British maritime. Perhaps they can take the habitat chapters in The Practical Naturalist and make each of those a book. There are a lot of hidden treasures and easy field techniques that are accessible to the amateur scientist that this book was too generalized to to cover.
I love it all the same: inspiration and the tools to carry that inspiration rarely weave into one tome. show less
This book, if I study it diligently, will enable me to impress the menfolk in my family by knowing all the names of all the esoteric parts of a chainsaw, a bicycle, and an espresso maker. If I wanted to know about saddles and suitcases, it covers those too. I don't know who in this day and age needs to know what the escapement dog is and where it fits into a typewriter, but the sheer joy of strange and wonderful words makes me feel warm towards that peculiar object as well. In short, the show more book is fun and, like all the DK photographic guides, leaves the reader feeling better informed. show less
Lists
Sonlight Books (5)
Big History (1)
Read in 2019 (1)
Climate Change (1)
RAS (1)
Awards
Strange But True!: Our Weird, Wild, Wonderful World (Selection – Advanced Readers (Grades 5–6, Ages 10–12) – 2016)
Children's Illustrated Atlas (DK Smithsonian) (Children's Nonfiction Books about People and Places – 2023)
My book of cats and kittens : a fact-filled guide to your feline friends (Children's Nonfiction Books about Nature – 2023)
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