Book Brew

Jane Mount paints portraits of people through the spines of their favorite books. "We show off our books on shelves like merit badges, because we're proud of the ideas we've ingested to make us who we are, and we hope to connect with others," says the Atlanta-born, California-based artist, designer and entrepreneur. "I think this is endearing and charming." Her "Ideal Bookshelf" paintings showcase highly personal selections, with colorful, hand-lettered book spines -- the design of which she finds fascinating. "It's such a small place for a lot of information, with very little room for distinct characteristics," explains Mount, "even though it's exactly what you use to identify books first." Soon, she'll be able to paint the spine of a book devoted to the Ideal Bookshelf, out this fall from Little, Brown.

Do you love charts? Cody Westphal and Jason Oberholtzer do, and they blog about it on I Love Charts ("By people who love charts for people who love charts"). Next week, their Tumblr-to-tangible cycle will be complete with the publication of I Love Charts: The Book (Sourcebooks). So why pony up $10.99 for a paperback when you can get your chart fix online? The book not only includes never-before-seen charts dedicated to subjects such as technology, politics, love and the minutiae of everyday life but also a good deal of thoughtful writing. "The book has an arc, is occasionally recursive and occasionally non sequitur," promises Oberholtzer. "It's not just the blog put in a binder. It's a self-contained project we put a lot of thought into."

Advertising legend and self-described "cultural provocateur" George Lois has 120 life lessons for you, provided that you have talent -- and $9.95. That's the price of his new book, Damn Good Advice (For People with Talent!): How To Unleash Your Creative Potential, published this month by Phaidon. The bullet-pointed bible tackles everything from design dogma (#19: You can be cautious or you can be creative, but there's no such thing as a cautious creative.) and career tips (#29: Your portfolio should ignite, provoke, shock, kick ass.) to handy habits (we learn in #65 that Lois seeks inspiration in weekly trips to New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art) and personal anecotes that feature cameos by the likes of Bob Dylan and Muhammad Ali. Now get back to work! Warns Lois, now 81, "If you don't burn out at the end of each day, you're a bum!"

Remember Gooey Huey or Leaky Lindsay? Wondering what became of Sewer Sue or the elusive Adam Bomb? Reunite with these and 202 other disgusting old friends (they haven't aged a day!) in the pages of Garbage Pail Kids, out next month from Abrams ComicArts. The book celebrates the beloved sticker trading cards, produced by Topps in the 1980s with a creative team that included Art Spiegelman and John Pound, who have penned the introduction and afterword, respectively. Along with a trove of rare GPK images are four previously unreleased bonus stickers. Just keep them away from Up Chuck and Heather Shredder.

The eternal question: Frosted Flakes or Lucky Charms? One is grrrrreat, the other magically delicious, and both are sufficiently sugar-coated to get even the drowsiest morning off to a sweet, if slightly jittery, start. Celebrate this breakfast staple in all its forms with The Great American Cereal Book, out this month from Abrams Image. In words and a whopping 350 pictures, Marty Gitlin and Topher Ellis explore breakfast cereal history and lore, from Grape-Nuts (neither grape nor nut!) to Trix (definitely not just for kids). Design fans and cereal fiends alike will delight in the generous servings of vintage ads and historical packaging.

Designer Todd Oldham and writer Kiera Coffee have outdone themselves with their mega-monograph on Alexander Girard, new from Ammo Books. The product of nearly four years of research and, at 672 pages, an innovative scheme of printing and binding, this coffee table book is a must for any design lover. Oldham was granted exclusive permission to sift through the fastidiously kept archives of Girard (1907-1993), who is best known for his folk art-infused textiles for Herman Miller but also designed everything from buildings to typography. "I'd estimate that 90 percent of the work in the book hasn’t been seen before," Oldham told us recently. "Wait 'til you see the stuff from his early design career, in the '20s." And take a closer look at the image credits: Many of the archival photos were taken by frequent Girard collaborator Charles Eames.