My fascination with Andy Warhol began in junior high, in the early/mid-1980s. There was, of course, no Internet, so the only place to see his work was in a gallery or in books. The gallery option was not an option, at least not in my pop art deprived hometown where bronze cowboy sculptures reigned. Thankfully, this has changed and it’s now we have had Warhols exhibited locally. But back then? No chance.

So I was stuck with books. This wasn’t a problem, and I signed out every copy of every Warhol book the public library had. But it wasn’t enough. I wanted my own.

The mall bookstores were small in those days and big-box bookshops didn’t exist. If I wanted a Warhol book to call my own I’d have to go downtown, to the fancy upscale bookshop. It was intimidating and terrifyingly quiet. All the shelves were dark, polished wood. I can’t remember its name.

I didn’t dare ask the smartly-dressed man working where the Warhol book was. I walked the short aisles with what I hope came off as purpose, pausing every few feet to examine the books, hoping the book store man didn’t notice my scuffy black boots or think I was wearing too much black eyeliner (which I was) — or think I was a shoplifter. My face was hot and red.

The art section was big for a small store, and there were a few Warhol books to choose from. I couldn’t afford them all, so I picked the one with Marilyn on the cover, which seemed like a perfectly reasonable decision, though I was hyper-aware that I was indeed, judging — and choosing — a book based on its cover. I looked at the other ones, too, even after I had made my decision. I wouldn’t want anyone — anyone being the one man who was working in the book store — to think I make hasty choices, that I wasn’t serious about art or that I bought books strictly based on cover art.

When I got to the till and pulled out the cash to pay, the book store man smiled and started talking to me about the Warhol book. He said it was good, and asked me if I was doing a school project. I said no, and he smiled some more. It was just for me, I told him, because I loved Warhol’s work. He said he did, too. And then we talked about Warhol for half-an-hour.

Okay, so it’s not the flashiest or fashionable of fashion books, but the Complete Fashion Sourcebook has become something of a modern classic, if only for it’s sheer functionality. Bottom line: it’s a great, quick resource for any fashion-history buff or design aficionado. It’s laid out logically — by decade and then year within that — starting with the 1920s and up through the end of the 1980s. Simple illustrations show off all the popular design shapes and trends of the day, from day wear to evening wear, sportswear and even accessories and underwear. All details are plainly described and at the back you’ll find brief biographies of notable designers, again organized by decade, making it an all-in-one reference that eschews flowery prose and styled photos and gets back to no-nonsense fashion basics.

The first thing you learn when opening the covers of Tipsy in Madras: A Complete Guide to Preppy Drinking, is that according to the authors actually preppies no longer exist. Whether you agree with their statement or not, it sets the tone for this fun, tongue-in-cheek book that walks readers though ’80s preppy-style drinking with nostalgia and flair. And along the way, you take in a surprising amount of information about preppy culture, beyond what we already know from Lisa Birnbach’s ’80s classic, The Preppy Handbook.

For those of us who grew up in the 1980s, the many music and film references that provide colour to many of the book’s sections are easy to understand, but may frustrate younger readers who won’t necessarily get all the pop culture name-dropping. To me, the light and conversational tone mixed with cultural history drinking-related tidbits (I had no idea that the popular ’80s diet soft drink TaB, was named such by the Coca-Cola Company in the 1960s because “Americans had begun to keep ‘tabs’ on their weight,” for instance) makes zipping through the pages of Tipsy in Madras a breeze.

There are plenty of recipes here, too, from traditional favourites like the Bloody Mary, dry Martini and Gimlet to the more exotic and tropical Scorpion Bowl and Singapore Sling. Beer, wine — and even the ever-awful wine coolers — are also addressed, but it’s the mixed drinks that drive the content, and are sure to inspire a trip to the liquor store and a viewing of the movie, Cocktail.

It’s no secret that I love vintage graphic design books an annuals from the 1980s. And every once in a while I come across one that’s super-specific and chock full of the illustration style and images I love most. Menu Design is one of those books, a favourite find, published in 1985, which means the graphics are all of the decade’s first half (the half I prefer, design-wise). Full-colour throughout and printed on heavy, glossy stock, it couldn’t be more fun browsing the menu design of well-known chains like TGI Fridays, airline menus of the era and small, specialty eateries neither you nor I have ever heard of. For any ’80s design fetishist Menu Design it a total treat.

Okay, so there are a few words in this giant coffee table book — but very few and they are only credits. It is exactly the way a book reflecting on the distinct advertising images created by Richard Avedon for Gianni Versace. Covering his work in the early 1980s through his supermodel early-’90s heyday, up until his death in 1997, the book is a silent salute to the designer’s shiny, super-sexy clothes, which in the hands of a lesser photographer could have easily teetered on vulgar. But Avedon always kept it classy.

Here’s a brief look at some of the ’80s images included in the book:

A teen in the 1980s, the 1990s were all about being in my twenties. This blog is almost exclusively dedicated to my angsty, fashion-filled ‘80s, but today I thought it would be fun to fast-forward a decade to my angsty, fashion-filled twenties after dusting off my copy of The London Fashion Book.

Published in 1998, it is without a doubt, a book of its time, documenting the London fashion scene as it was, at that moment. Books of this nature are typically at once fascinating and dated. Depending on your experience of that particular moment in fashion-time, The London Fashion Book will either appeal to your nostalgic side or — if you weren’t a fashion-obsessed ‘90s gal-about-town — make you wonder who half these designers author Andrew Tucker is talking about are.

Naturally, the book kicks off with names we all know: Westwood, Galliano, McQueen. This is great, of course, with nice big pictures, behind-the-scenes snaps and analyses of their late-‘90s collections.

It’s when we wade further into the book that things get a little murky. Sectioned into seven main parts (The Greatest, Modern Classic, New Savile Row, Cutting Edge, The Thoroughbreds, Haute Hippie and The New Generation), all the big British names of the decade are here, including Stella McCartney, Matthew Williamson, Hussein Chalayan, Paul Smith, Patrick Cox, et al., but it’s profiles of lesser-known designers that really fill out the bulk of the book.

This can be interesting in the sense that a name you haven’t heard in a while makes you smile and sparks a memory. It can also provide an introduction to designers whose work you may not have known at the time. And while this is well and good for the true student of fashion, as a general guide to the London fashion scene, it’s too dated and specific. If ‘90s fashion is your thing, The London Fashion Book will be a welcome addition to your library. but if it’s just stories about the big names you’re looking for, you’re best to give this one a pass.

If there’s one thing I love almost as much as my stash of 1980s fashion magazines, it’s my collection of graphic arts annuals from the same era. Photographis 85 is a great example of why these trade books are always worth picking up at book sales, thrift shops and on local buy-sell websites like Craigslist and Kijiji (I can’t tell you how many ads I’ve come across posted by retired art directors and graphic artists getting rid of their whole reference libraries for bargain prices). The variety of images is of course fantastic and the quality — both of the images and the book itself — is high, but what I love the most is that the content is culled internationally and includes brochure and trade images the general public would never likely see. So today, I offer a brief taste of what’s in the pages of Photographis 85 as an illustration of why every obsessive ’80s fashion and design freak should be hunting these annuals down to add to their library.

Danskin, Dance magazine. Photograph by Richard Avedon.

Kenzo. Photograph by Hans Feurer.

Catena. Photograph by P.A. Nicole.

Champion paper. Photograph by Al Newman.

Italian Vogue. Photograph by Albert Watson.

Italian Vogue. Photograph by Steven Meisel.

Arnold Scaasi, Connoisseur magazine. Photograph by Alen McWeeney.

Hostmann-Steinberg Printing Inks poster calendar. Photograph by Klappert/Eisermann.

Let’s think back — way back to the 1980s — when MTV first launched and actually played music videos 24/7. Before it was a haven for reality trash and the occasional pleasant surprise (like this year’s teen drama Finding Carter), MTV, as its acronymic name implies, was all about music.

As an ’80s teen in Canada, MTV was something else, too: exotic. We had the Toronto-based channel, MuchMusic, which as it turned out, pioneered the street-level studio concept that shows from NBC’s Today to MTV’s Total Request Live later adopted. At the time that didn’t matter. We wanted our MTV.

It was the first channel I’d turn to when on vacation with my parents in the States. Hair bands, new wave, top 40 — it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that it was MTV and I was watching it. I was a complete sucker for the brand. MTV was cool.

The story of those early years are well documented in Tom McGrath’s MTV: The Making of a Revolution. It’s about the behind-the-scenes machinations of both the business and the videos themselves throughout the 1980s and into the early 1990s. But anyone looking for a glossy picture book will be disappointed. In fact, my only quibble with the book is the physical book itself. Unless it’s primarily visual in content, I can’t stand landscape-oriented books. They’re hard to read and almost impossible to balance when reading in bed. And for what is ultimately a business book, it was really unnecessary to design it this way. But then again, it was published in 1996 when there was a lot of unnecessary design going on.

If you’re a culturally curious sort who loves a good origin story with a business bent, it’s worth getting past the annoying landscape setup. But if you’re looking for lots of colour photos and ’80s visual fun, the book, Who’s Who in Rock Video: A Guide to Video Music Artists (which I wrote about here) is probably a better bet.

I’ve never been especially celebrity-obsessed, but that never stopped me from being a huge fan of someone who was. As a teenager, Andy Warhol topped the people-to-meet-one-day I had in my mind. When he died, suddenly, after gall bladder surgery in 1987, I was affected in a way I had never been before by the passing of someone I hadn’t even known. Sure, I was sad for his family and his friends, but in typical teenage fashion I was mostly sad for myself — I would never have the chance to meet him.

Two years later, my interest in Warhol hadn’t waned. If anything, it had grown. I read every book and article about him I could find, and when it was announced that The Andy Warhol Diaries would be published, I couldn’t wait.

I bought it as soon as it was released and it was the only book I hauled across the country late in the fall of 1989, when I moved across the country to Montreal. I had just turned 19 and living a bohemian lifestyle in the French-speaking, European-style city was most appealing. I lived in a share-house with a fashion designer friend, his boyfriend, his brother, a straight couple and for a short time, a girl called Angelina who was a university student majoring in women’s studies who worked nights as a stripper.

Everyone we knew was pursuing some sort of artistic dream (I wrote and worked as a fashion stylist for music videos), and The Andy Warhol Diaries was the perfect accompaniment for this period of my life.

It was not at all how I thought it would be the first time I read it. There was so much day-to-day, so much minutiae. It wasn’t all glamour and parties, though there was plenty of name-dropping and gossip. And then there was Warhol’s compulsive shopping, which seemed at odds with his notorious thriftiness. His diaries were both fantastic and somehow ordinary, and made me realize that Warhol, perhaps more than any other artist of his time, was as quirky, gossipy and celebrity-obsessed as anyone. Being famous and wealthy didn’t make him any more (or less) than a regular person, complete with neuroses and foibles.

When things got tough or depressing that deeply cold winter in Montreal, I’d often snuggle up in my bedroom or the room I’d converted into an office — this house was huge and had 17 rooms — and open The Andy Warhol Diaries to a random page and read, reminding myself that even the life of a world-renowned artist could be common, mundane, and that there is a certain charm in everyone’s everyday.

What comes around goes around is a main message in the early-’80s music book, The New Music. Kicking things off, the authors complain of a time in music — just before punk — when most of the music was put forward by the established record labels, the same old bands (or ones that sounded very similar to them), doing the same old thing. Music was over-produced. Rock stars became more concerned with their fashion style than the substance of their music. And worst of all, it was boring. Sound familiar? Much of the same complaints exist today. Perhaps we’re waiting on our own “new music” movement.

New music, according to authors Baker and Coupe, is basically music that doesn’t suck. It’s played with real instruments. It can be played live, and runs the gamut from Nina Hagen to The Jam; from Bruce Springsteen to transsexual performer Jayne County. There are plenty of acts you’ve heard of here, and many that you’ve haven’t. Both Australian music journalists, Baker and Coupe take their music as seriously as music journalists can, but without — thankfully — a lot of purple prose and breathless descriptions. Rather, they cut to the chase, jamming as much information on this then new music as possible amongst the full-colour photographs.

The two are clearly impassioned and are eager to spread the word about Devo, Blondie, Public Image Ltd. and The Cure. There are too many bands to list, but any ’80s music fan will delight in the vast territory this relatively slim book covers. But it’s not just about the bands. While much of the book is sectioned off by geography, Baker and Coupe pinpoint six major music trends as the sub-genres of the new music: powerpop, rockabilly/R&B, rock ‘n’ roll, heavy metal, synthesiser/electronic, ska/bluebeat and mod. They also dedicate a handful of pages to album cover art (I wish there were more, as these are great — not the same old LP covers you always see in ’80s compilations) and make the ballsy move of predicting who was poised for the big-time, a list that included Joan Jett and Canadian new wave band, Martha and the Muffins.

It’s fun for any ’80s music fan to go through The New Music mentally checking off albums and acts in their head. I had this record. I saw them live. It’s easy to feel a little smug. But what the book is a fantastic source for is finding those more obscure acts, the ones you haven’t heard of and give them a go. On the recommendation of Baker and Coupe, chances are you’ll be pleased with any of their New Music discoveries.