The Last Bohemia

The Last Bohemia
Author: Robert Anasi
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2012-08-07
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0374533318

A former resident describes the transformation of Williamsburg, Brooklyn which went from a gritty industrial district, to an artist's colony, to housing members of the dot-com boom, to an area now known for hipster culture and real-estate development.

Spaceman of Bohemia

Spaceman of Bohemia
Author: Jaroslav Kalfar
Publisher: Little, Brown
Total Pages: 261
Release: 2017-03-07
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0316273406

An intergalactic odyssey of love, ambition, and self-discovery. Orphaned as a boy, raised in the Czech countryside by his doting grandparents, Jakub Prochv°zka has risen from small-time scientist to become the country's first astronaut. When a dangerous solo mission to Venus offers him both the chance at heroism he's dreamt of, and a way to atone for his father's sins as a Communist informer, he ventures boldly into the vast unknown. But in so doing, he leaves behind his devoted wife, Lenka, whose love, he realizes too late, he has sacrificed on the altar of his ambitions. Alone in Deep Space, Jakub discovers a possibly imaginary giant alien spider, who becomes his unlikely companion. Over philosophical conversations about the nature of love, life and death, and the deliciousness of bacon, the pair form an intense and emotional bond. Will it be enough to see Jakub through a clash with secret Russian rivals and return him safely to Earth for a second chance with Lenka? Rich with warmth and suspense and surprise, Spaceman of Bohemia is an exuberant delight from start to finish. Very seldom has a novel this profound taken readers on a journey of such boundless entertainment and sheer fun. "A frenetically imaginative first effort, booming with vitality and originality . . . Kalfar's voice is distinct enough to leave tread marks."-Jennifer Senior, New York Times

Ibiza Bohemia

Ibiza Bohemia
Author: Renu Kashyap
Publisher: Assouline Publishing
Total Pages: 6
Release: 2017-06-01
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 1614285918

From roaring nightlife to peaceful yoga retreats, Ibiza’s hippie-chic atmosphere is its hallmark. This quintessential Mediterranean hot spot has served as an escape for artists, creatives, and musicians alike for decades. It is a place to reinvent oneself, to walk the fine line between civilization and wilderness, and to discover bliss. Ibiza Bohemia explores the island’s scenic Balearic cliffs, its legendary cast of characters, and the archetypal interiors that define its signature style.

Hamptons Bohemia

Hamptons Bohemia
Author: Helen Harrison
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Total Pages: 188
Release: 2002-04
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9780811833769

Richly illustrated with archival photos and reproductions of the artists' work, "Hamptons Bohemia" chronicles the evolution of a community and the colorful characters who have inhabited it, from Winslow Homer to George Plimpton. 176 full-color and halftone images.

The Last Bohemia

The Last Bohemia
Author: Robert Anasi
Publisher: FSG Originals
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2012-08-07
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1466802553

A firsthand account of the swift transformation of Williamsburg, from factory backwater to artists' district to trendy hub and high-rise colony Williamsburg, Brooklyn, is now so synonymous with hipster culture and the very idea of urban revitalization—so well-known from Chicago to Cambodia as the playground for the game of ironized status-seeking and lifestyle one-upmanship—that it's easy to forget how just a few years ago it was a very different neighborhood: a spread of factories, mean streets and ratty apartments that the rest of New York City feared and everyone but artists with nowhere else to go left alone. Robert Anasi hasn't forgotten. He moved to a $300-a-month apartment in Williamsburg in 1994, and watched as the area went through a series of surreal transformations: the warehouses became lofts, secret cocaine bars became sylized absinthe parlors, barrooms became stage sets for inde-rock careers and rents rose and rose—until the local artists found that their ideal of personal creativity had served the aims of global commerce, and that their neighborhood now belonged to someone else. Tight, passionate, and provocative, The Last Bohemia is at once a celebration of the fever dream of bohemia, a lament for what Williamsburg has become and a cautionary tale about the lurching transformations of city neighborhoods throughout the United States.

Tales from the Colony Room

Tales from the Colony Room
Author: Darren Coffield
Publisher: Unbound Publishing
Total Pages: 405
Release: 2020-04-16
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1783528176

'Entertaining, shocking, uproarious, hilarious . . . like eavesdropping on a wake, as the mourners get gradually more drunk and tell ever more outrageous stories' Sunday Times This is the definitive history of London's most notorious drinking den, the Colony Room Club in Soho. It’s a hair-raising romp through the underbelly of the post-war scene: during its sixty-year history, more romances, more deaths, more horrors and more sex scandals took place in the Colony than anywhere else. Tales from the Colony Room is an oral biography, consisting of previously unpublished and long-lost interviews with the characters who were central to the scene, giving the reader a flavour of what it was like to frequent the Club. With a glass in hand you’ll move through the decades listening to personal reminiscences, opinions and vitriol, from the authentic voices of those who were actually there. On your voyage through Soho’s lost bohemia, you’ll be served a drink by James Bond, sip champagne with Francis Bacon, queue for the loo with Christine Keeler, go racing with Jeffrey Bernard, get laid with Lucian Freud, kill time with Doctor Who, pick a fight with Frank Norman and pass out with Peter Langan. All with a stellar supporting cast including Peter O’Toole, George Melly, Suggs, Lisa Stansfield, Dylan Thomas, Jay Landesman, Sarah Lucas, Damien Hirst and many, many more.

Weird Like Us

Weird Like Us
Author: Ann Powers
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 296
Release: 2000
Genre: Bohemianism
ISBN: 0684838087

Describes the various subcultures trying to reshape America today, and includes interviews with modern bohemians, who share their views on life.

Casanova in Bohemia

Casanova in Bohemia
Author: Andrei Codrescu
Publisher: Open Road Media
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2015-07-21
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1504015274

An erotic, comedic, and compulsively readable historical novel depicting the beguiling Giacomo Casanova as he looks back on a life of love and ribald adventure In Count Waldstein’s far-flung Bohemian castle, an aging Casanova spends his days as a librarian cataloging the count’s extensive collection of books. Or at least that’s what he’s supposed to be doing. Ever the storyteller, Casanova instead dedicates himself to his own writing, for which the young servant Laura Brock serves as an endlessly fascinated audience. He recounts to her his greatest escapades—from romances in a Venetian convent to the seduction of an entire harem to the triumphant amassing (and subsequent loss) of a fortune in Paris. Enlivened by the French Revolution and the liberating ideas of the Enlightenment, Casanova’s latest exploits prove he still possesses an intellectual vigor and insatiable curiosity. Even old age can’t keep this legendary libertine—who corresponded with Voltaire, discussed flight with Benjamin Franklin, and whose life and writings inspired artists as diverse as Mozart, Flaubert, Stendhal, and Hesse—from causing trouble. Rich with eighteenth-century European social, political, and religious history, Casanova in Bohemia is an energetic and erotic portrait of Western literature’s most beloved lothario, whose hedonism was matched by his creativity and wit.

Upper Bohemia

Upper Bohemia
Author: Hayden Herrera
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2021-06-22
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1982105283

"A coming-of-age memoir by the daughter of privileged, artistic, hard-drinking, bohemian parents, set against a backdrop of 1950s New York, Cape Cod, and Mexico"--

Hotel Chelsea

Hotel Chelsea
Author: Colin Miller
Publisher: The Monacelli Press, LLC
Total Pages: 512
Release: 2019-11-12
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1580935257

An immersive photographic tour of the legendary Hotel Chelsea, whose residents share their spaces, their stories, and a delirious collective history of this landmark. Jackson Pollock, Robert Mapplethorpe, Patti Smith, Dylan Thomas, Arthur Miller, Bob Dylan, Arthur C. Clarke, Andy Warhol, William S. Burroughs, Janis Joplin, Eugene O'Neill, Rufus Wainwright, Betsey Johnson, R. Crumb, Thomas Wolfe, Jasper Johns—these are just a few of the figures who at one time occupied one of the most alluring and storied residences ever: the Chelsea Hotel. Born during the Gilded Age and once the tallest building in New York, the twelve-story landmark has long been a magnet for artists, writers, musicians, and cultural provocateurs of all stripes. In this book, photographer Colin Miller and writer Ray Mock intimately portray the enduring bohemian spirit of the Chelsea Hotel through interviews with nearly two dozen current residents and richly detailed photographs of their unique spaces. As documented in Miller's abundant photographs, these apartments project the quirky decorating sensibilities of urban aesthetes who largely work in film, theater, and the visual arts, resulting in deliriously ornamental spaces with a kitschy edge. Weathering the overall homogenization of New York and the rapid transformation of the hotel itself—amid recent ownership changeovers and tenant lawsuits—residents remain in about seventy apartments while the rest of the units are converted to rentals (and revert to a hotel-stay basis, which had ceased in 2011). For the community of artists and intellectuals who remain, the uncertain status of the hotel is just another stage in a roller-coaster history. A fascinating portrait of a strand of resilient bohemian New Yorkers and their creative, deeply idiosyncratic homes, Hotel Chelsea is a rich visual and narrative document of a cultural destination as complicated as it is mythical.