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The Telling Image: Shapes of Changing Times
Next Generation Indie Book Awards, Best Non Fiction 2019
National Indie Excellence Award Winner
Nautilus Book Awards, Gold
#1 Amazon Best Seller in Architecture History & Periods
Amazon Best Seller in Art Subjects & Themes Seeing the World Through Shape
How do humans make sense of the world? In answer to this timeless question, award winning documentary filmmaker, Lois Farfel Stark, takes the reader on a remarkable journey from tribal ceremonies in Liberia and the pyramids in Egypt, to the gravity-defying architecture of modern China. Drawing on her experience as a global explorer, Stark unveils a crucial, hidden key to understanding the Shape itself.
The Telling Image is a stunning synthesis of civilization's changing mindsets, a brilliantly original perspective urging you to re-envision history not as a story of kings and wars but through the lens of shape. In this sweeping tour through time, Stark takes us from migratory humans, who imitated a web in round-thatched huts and stone circles, to the urban ladder of pyramids and skyscrapers, organized by hierarchy and measurements, to today's world of interconnected networks .
In The Telling Image Stark reveals how buildings, behaviors, and beliefs reflect humans' search for pattern and meaning. We can read the past and glimpse the future by watching when shapes shift. Stark's beautifully illustrated book asks of all its See what you think.
National Indie Excellence Award Winner
Nautilus Book Awards, Gold
#1 Amazon Best Seller in Architecture History & Periods
Amazon Best Seller in Art Subjects & Themes Seeing the World Through Shape
How do humans make sense of the world? In answer to this timeless question, award winning documentary filmmaker, Lois Farfel Stark, takes the reader on a remarkable journey from tribal ceremonies in Liberia and the pyramids in Egypt, to the gravity-defying architecture of modern China. Drawing on her experience as a global explorer, Stark unveils a crucial, hidden key to understanding the Shape itself.
The Telling Image is a stunning synthesis of civilization's changing mindsets, a brilliantly original perspective urging you to re-envision history not as a story of kings and wars but through the lens of shape. In this sweeping tour through time, Stark takes us from migratory humans, who imitated a web in round-thatched huts and stone circles, to the urban ladder of pyramids and skyscrapers, organized by hierarchy and measurements, to today's world of interconnected networks .
In The Telling Image Stark reveals how buildings, behaviors, and beliefs reflect humans' search for pattern and meaning. We can read the past and glimpse the future by watching when shapes shift. Stark's beautifully illustrated book asks of all its See what you think.
200 pages, Hardcover
Published February 6, 2018
21 people are currently reading
817 people want to read
About the author
Lois Farfel Stark
1 book21 followersLois Farfel Stark is an Emmy Award-winning producer, documentary filmmaker, and author. During her distinguished career she produced and wrote over forty documentaries on architecture, medical research, wilderness protection, artists, and social issues. With NBC News, she covered Abu Dhabi’s catapult to the 20th century, the British withdrawal from the Persian Gulf, Cuba ten years after their revolution, the Israeli Air Force in the Six Day War, Northern Ireland during its time of religious conflict, and Liberia’s social split.
Along with an Emmy, Lois is also the recipient of two CINE Gold awards, two Gold Awards from the International Film Festival of the Americas, the Matrix Award from Women In Communications, the American Bar Association Silver Gavel Award, and the Silver Award from the Texas Broadcasting Association.
In civic life she has served as trustee or director of Sarah Lawrence College, the Alley Theatre, Texas Children’s Hospital, St. John’s School, the Harry Ransom Center, Federal Reserve Board of Dallas Small Business Committee, Texas Commission on the Arts, Humanities Texas, the Joseph Campbell Foundation, and Harvard Kennedy School Women’s Leadership Board. She was elected to the American Leadership Forum, the Center for Houston’s Future, and the Philosophical Society of Texas. She graduated Sarah Lawrence College and has two Master of Art degrees, in Education and Communication.
Her years of film-making stimulated her interest in how what we see shapes what we think. We are accustomed to history being told as a story of kings and wars. It can also be seen by looking at the shape of shelters, social systems, and sacred sites.
Along with an Emmy, Lois is also the recipient of two CINE Gold awards, two Gold Awards from the International Film Festival of the Americas, the Matrix Award from Women In Communications, the American Bar Association Silver Gavel Award, and the Silver Award from the Texas Broadcasting Association.
In civic life she has served as trustee or director of Sarah Lawrence College, the Alley Theatre, Texas Children’s Hospital, St. John’s School, the Harry Ransom Center, Federal Reserve Board of Dallas Small Business Committee, Texas Commission on the Arts, Humanities Texas, the Joseph Campbell Foundation, and Harvard Kennedy School Women’s Leadership Board. She was elected to the American Leadership Forum, the Center for Houston’s Future, and the Philosophical Society of Texas. She graduated Sarah Lawrence College and has two Master of Art degrees, in Education and Communication.
Her years of film-making stimulated her interest in how what we see shapes what we think. We are accustomed to history being told as a story of kings and wars. It can also be seen by looking at the shape of shelters, social systems, and sacred sites.
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
February 26, 2018
This is a picture book that wants to be more than that.
The first part reads like Intro to Human Anthropology. There’s an intriguing observation about shapes, the round and the square in Liberia shown as examples. One gorgeous photo brought good memories of Stonehenge, before it was fenced off. The Big Dipper-Great Bear-laptop thing was a bit forced, though that was quickly overshadowed by the most beautiful shot of a spiderweb ever.
This is definitely not something you should read in one sitting, with numerous philosophical discussions that will make you pause to think. This isn’t a coffeetable book that gets opened to look at pretty pictures; the photos here serve to highlight the text.
3.5 pushed up to 4/5
The first part reads like Intro to Human Anthropology. There’s an intriguing observation about shapes, the round and the square in Liberia shown as examples. One gorgeous photo brought good memories of Stonehenge, before it was fenced off. The Big Dipper-Great Bear-laptop thing was a bit forced, though that was quickly overshadowed by the most beautiful shot of a spiderweb ever.
This is definitely not something you should read in one sitting, with numerous philosophical discussions that will make you pause to think. This isn’t a coffeetable book that gets opened to look at pretty pictures; the photos here serve to highlight the text.
3.5 pushed up to 4/5
February 6, 2018
A stunning visual book that transcends genre. Blending philosophy, memoir, personal essay, history, photography, and art, The Telling Image will change how you think. It's not often that a coffee table book contains this much substance and tackles the big ideas in the world.
February 8, 2018
This is a fascinating must-read book for anyone who longs to understand a little bit more the world and our place in it. Through a collection of stunning, curated photographs, Lois Stark, a former documentary film maker, takes the reader on a fascinating journey through time. Starting with migratory humans and going all the way to today, Stark showcases the shapes through which humans have seen their world and how these shapes influenced everything around them. She explains how and why these shapes have changed over time and, in the process, she draws thought-provoking connections between micro and macro worlds. After reading this book, you will start seeing shapes, connections, and the "telling image" wherever you go.
January 16, 2021
Lovely and thought-provoking book... that happens to be nearly impossible to read in its Kindle format. (The rating is weighted a bit to acknowledge that.) I appreciate the effort to preserve the print layout and formatting, but it would have made more sense to reimagine the layout and formatting of this book for Kindle. As it was, using the gesture that would normally be used for "paging" was here used for moving from copy block to copy block, which was tedious and frustrating. But what I got from the book was wonderful — it just made me wish I had a print copy.
April 5, 2022
I received this book as a Kindle Edition as part of Goodreads Giveaways.
This was a pretty book with interesting pictures. The authors storytelling with the connections to shapes wove throughout the book in a compelling way.
It was not my particular favorite, and I think this is in large part because the book can not be adequately enjoyed as an e-book. I am not even sure it should have been published as such. The book is a solid 4; the kindle edition is only a 2 - hence the rating of three.
This was a pretty book with interesting pictures. The authors storytelling with the connections to shapes wove throughout the book in a compelling way.
It was not my particular favorite, and I think this is in large part because the book can not be adequately enjoyed as an e-book. I am not even sure it should have been published as such. The book is a solid 4; the kindle edition is only a 2 - hence the rating of three.
July 6, 2018
OUTSTANDING!!!
April 23, 2018
I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
This is not an easy book to review because it is not an easy book to put in a category - and our brains tend to like thinking in boxes and categorizing things. And actually, this book is someone's thoughts, simply put together and trying to make sense of things and the concepts presented in the book, influenced by her experiences as a documentary filmmaker, that took the author all over the world and shaped her thoughts and ideas.
The narration flies from an idea to another, however it stays on the same main topic, and while this way of sharing information might not be everyone's cup of tea, it is definitely mine - because this is how I think (sometimes how I write or even talk with people). It is not hard to follow either, although I do recommend taking your time with the book and thinking everything over.
The subjects vary from architecture to agriculture, from the Giza pyramids to the Large Hadron Collider. But the book is about shape, and not just the architectural shapes of a building or the complex mathematical shapes we can find in nature, even though it talks about these things. The main subject is the metaphor of shape - I am using the words of a friend, she said them when I was telling her about the book. It is about shapes and patterns, how they evolve and how they change, and how we change alongside them.
As I said, it is not easy to talk about this book, but here are some quotes:
“How we describe the world inscribes our thinking. We can be liberated or locked by how we connect the dots.”
“We are not always conscious of how much the shapes we live in become the shapes we think in. We create an order to help us function and become so familiar with that way of perceiving and operating that we are no longer alert to alternatives.”
“Shape is a vehicle to to understand worldviews of the past and to help us notice emerging ones. We stay locked in a useful mental map until new technology, historic or natural events force us to reframe our version and view.”
“We were nature-centered, then human-centered, and now we become planet-centered.” I really hope so.
“We live within the maps we create. Changing the mental map will change who we are.”
This is not an easy book to review because it is not an easy book to put in a category - and our brains tend to like thinking in boxes and categorizing things. And actually, this book is someone's thoughts, simply put together and trying to make sense of things and the concepts presented in the book, influenced by her experiences as a documentary filmmaker, that took the author all over the world and shaped her thoughts and ideas.
The narration flies from an idea to another, however it stays on the same main topic, and while this way of sharing information might not be everyone's cup of tea, it is definitely mine - because this is how I think (sometimes how I write or even talk with people). It is not hard to follow either, although I do recommend taking your time with the book and thinking everything over.
The subjects vary from architecture to agriculture, from the Giza pyramids to the Large Hadron Collider. But the book is about shape, and not just the architectural shapes of a building or the complex mathematical shapes we can find in nature, even though it talks about these things. The main subject is the metaphor of shape - I am using the words of a friend, she said them when I was telling her about the book. It is about shapes and patterns, how they evolve and how they change, and how we change alongside them.
As I said, it is not easy to talk about this book, but here are some quotes:
“How we describe the world inscribes our thinking. We can be liberated or locked by how we connect the dots.”
“We are not always conscious of how much the shapes we live in become the shapes we think in. We create an order to help us function and become so familiar with that way of perceiving and operating that we are no longer alert to alternatives.”
“Shape is a vehicle to to understand worldviews of the past and to help us notice emerging ones. We stay locked in a useful mental map until new technology, historic or natural events force us to reframe our version and view.”
“We were nature-centered, then human-centered, and now we become planet-centered.” I really hope so.
“We live within the maps we create. Changing the mental map will change who we are.”
September 30, 2020
A visually stimulating book which explores the history of humanity through the shapes, both man-made and natural, which civilizations have used to define them. However, while there are some interesting observations made, the text generally fails in its attempts at profundity, and a lot of the sections, especially the latter chapters, seem as though they have cribbed lines directly from motivational office posters and corporatespeak seminars (lots of "be the change" and "outside of the box thinking"). It's leaves you feeling that the book could have had so much more impact if it had been less cliched, and if its central theme had been more effectively explored. Would work better as a coffee-table offering in an ad agency office than as something meant to be read all the way through.
May 23, 2022
This would be an amazing book, but just not in electronic format. I read it on a 10 inch tablet. It was a frustrating experience. This is a book that must be looked at and read in a physical form. A tablet doesn’t do the gorgeous photos justice.
I won this Amazon Kindle book in Goodreads Giveaways. I received no renumeration for writing this review.
I won this Amazon Kindle book in Goodreads Giveaways. I received no renumeration for writing this review.
September 3, 2020
Looking forward in patterns
An outstanding look at the patterns humans have seen and used all of humanity's existence, with a well thought out look into what is next and why. Well worth the money.
An outstanding look at the patterns humans have seen and used all of humanity's existence, with a well thought out look into what is next and why. Well worth the money.
May 6, 2023
Fascinating book. Extremely interesting and informative. Thank you goodreads for winning this book.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews