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Lois Farfel Stark
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The Telling Image: Shapes of Changing Times Hardcover – February 6, 2018

by Lois Farfel Stark (Author)
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 64 ratings
See all formats and editions
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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 universe: 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 readers: See what you think.

Previous page
  1. Print length
    200 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Greenleaf Book Group Press
  4. Publication date
    February 6, 2018
  5. Dimensions
    8.9 x 0.8 x 10.1 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    162634471X
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1626344716
  8. See all details
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The Amazon Book Review
The Amazon Book Review
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.

From the Publisher

We shape our world, and then it shapes us.

The Web

The web was the mental map of humans living in migratory times. They understood reality as a repeating circle, from the daily sunrise to the annual changing of seasons. The web’s hub mirrored the common identity felt within a clan. Like interwoven threads, what happened to one impacted all within the tribe.

The Ladder

A ladder has power at the top. Each rung is either higher or lower than another. Its straight lines offer only one route to the peak-no byways or alternatives. Decisions move downward from the top. The ladder mindset tells history as a story of progress, not a recurring cycle. It values goals and efficiency.

The Helix

But as we evolve, we need a perspective that offers multiple angles. The curved helix reminds us there are no straight lines in nature. We learn to see in three dimensions, with many lenses, and we expect surprises. The helix blends all that has come before and holds the possibility of not just one but many different outcomes.

The Network

Networks are wild with interconnections and possibilities. They support linkages and relationships like the web, but the web was flat. Power is contained in its many hubs, not the concentrated authority at the top of a ladder. Networks are dynamic like a helix, yet they explode into uneven, irregular shapes and unexpected links.

Editorial Reviews

Review

''Lois Stark is an imaginative thinker an insightful artist who takes the particular and makes it universal. She is an inspiring guide who discerns patterns and tells a compelling human story.''
--Edward Hirsch, poet, president, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation

''Lois Stark's committed intelligence brings pictures and stories to life and enables people to see and interpret the world with an enlightened perspective that is increasingly rare in this fragmented and scattered society. Watching her 'connect the dots' is a great learning experience. Stark brings words and pictures full of common sense but confronting the most complex challenges. She presents ideas of extraordinary value to artists, businessmen, and scientists.''
--Barry Munitz, former president and CEO, The J. Paul Getty Trust

''Stark allows images to form their own story. This book will be a lot of fun. It will start conversations. It will delight both the eye and the mind.''
--John H Lienhard, commentator, National Public Radio; author, Engines of Our Ingenuity and Inventing Modern

''One of the ways to imagine the potential and scope of this project is to think of Lois Stark as a 'Female Joseph Campbell.' A book of great depth and originality.''
--Eli N. Evans, president emeritus, Charles H. Revson Foundation; steward and funder of PBS Projects

''Lois Stark has the skill to find order in the vast chaos of our collective history. This book is like donning an old pair of glasses to better see history unfolding before our eyes. It shows us the seeds of change now taking hold and critical clues marking civilization's next step forward.''
--George Kaufman, vice-chairman, Omega Institute

''The physical contours of technology, architecture, and settlement intertwine with humanity's understanding of society and the universe, according to this debut photo essay.''
--Kirkus Review

''The Telling Image is an all-encompassing vision of the world and meaning making; it is engrossing and inescapable.''
--Foreword Reviews

''Lavishly illustrated and thought-provoking, The Telling Image should appeal to anyone interested in the world of ideas and the shapes that reflect them.''
--Blue Ink Review

''In considering how innovations have helped humans see how the world is changing and how they can build new social structures, Lois Farfel Stark reveals that many clues about that decision-making lie in images and architecture.''
--Midwest Book Review, Donovan's Literary Services

''It is human nature to look for and recognize patterns and shapes in our environment; it is what helps us learn about and categorize our surroundings. In The Telling Image, Lois Farfel Stark explores the shapes that define humanity through photography, illustration, and words in a unique and beautifully structured book.''
--San Francisco Book Review

''There is real worth in another facet of thinking, another way to view things and the people who engender them.''
--Tulsa Book Review

''Author and photographer, Stark has put together an astonishing book that shows her vision of the world as it has been and is today and what the world might be come in the future.''
--Seattle Book Review

''Stark explains all of this using photographs and images to prove her point. You can clearly see what she is saying: 'We are what we build.'''
--Manhattan Book Review

''The physical contours of technology, architecture, and settlement intertwine with humanity's understanding of society and the universe, according to this debut photo essay.''
--Kirkus Review

''The Telling Image is an all-encompassing vision of the world and meaning making; it is engrossing and inescapable.''
--Foreword Reviews

''Lavishly illustrated and thought-provoking, The Telling Image should appeal to anyone interested in the world of ideas and the shapes that reflect them.''
--Blue Ink Review

''In considering how innovations have helped humans see how the world is changing and how they can build new social structures, Lois Farfel Stark reveals that many clues about that decision-making lie in images and architecture.''
--Midwest Book Review, Donovan's Literary Services

''It is human nature to look for and recognize patterns and shapes in our environment; it is what helps us learn about and categorize our surroundings. In The Telling Image, Lois Farfel Stark explores the shapes that define humanity through photography, illustration, and words in a unique and beautifully structured book.''
--San Francisco Book Review

''There is real worth in another facet of thinking, another way to view things and the people who engender them.''
--Tulsa Book Review

''Author and photographer, Stark has put together an astonishing book that shows her vision of the world as it has been and is today and what the world might be come in the future.''
--Seattle Book Review

''Stark explains all of this using photographs and images to prove her point. You can clearly see what she is saying: 'We are what we build.'''
--Manhattan Book Review

About the Author

Lois Farfel Stark is an Emmy Award-winning producer, documentary filmmaker, and author. During her distinguished career she produced and wrote documentaries on architecture, medical research, globalization, 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.

Stark is the recipient of an Emmy, two CINE Gold awards, two Gold Awards from The International Film Festival of the Americas, and the American Bar Association Silver Gavel Award. She has served as a trustee for institutions in education, health, the arts, and public service, including Sarah Lawrence College, her alma mater.  She lives in Houston, Texas.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Greenleaf Book Group Press (February 6, 2018)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 200 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 162634471X
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1626344716
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.1 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.9 x 0.8 x 10.1 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 64 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Lois Farfel Stark

Lois Farfel Stark

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Lois Farfel Stark is an Emmy Award-winning producer, documentary filmmaker, and author. During her distinguished career she produced and wrote documentaries on architecture, medical research, globalization, 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.

Stark is the recipient of an Emmy, two CINE Gold awards, two Gold Awards from The International Film Festival of the Americas, and the American Bar Association Silver Gavel Award. She has served as a trustee for institutions in education, health, the arts, and public service, including Sarah Lawrence College, her alma mater. She lives in Houston, Texas.

Watch my TEDx talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPMJAWnxlW4

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
64 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Earl Douglass
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant and Entertaining
Reviewed in the United States on July 2, 2022
Verified Purchase
Lois Stark's Telling Image is brilliant, beautifully illustrated, and fun.
The book is original and provides a wonderful new perspective on
history, culture, and sociology. She's an original and wise thinker,
with huge experience in life, taking us on a grand tour of history
This book is on a rare level of the greatest bold thinkers of the 20th
century from Buckminster Fuller to Marshall McLuhan. I have bought
this book for friends and recommend it most highly.
2 people found this helpful
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Robert Shaver
5.0 out of 5 stars Our prism can become our prison - Author, page 14
Reviewed in the United States on November 7, 2019
Verified Purchase
The integration of photos and text reinforce the message superbly.

Food for thought from the book:
P. 13. We do not see things as they are, we see them as we are. Anais Nin, Author
P. 17. To think out of the box, we need to recognize the box we are in.
P. 147. There is only one way to see things, until someone shows us how to look a them with different eyes. Pablo Picasso, Artist.

This book will show you how recognize the box that you are in and several new ways to look at the world with different eyes.
9 people found this helpful
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JHL in Houston
5.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating journey through time!
Reviewed in the United States on February 8, 2018
Verified Purchase
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.
14 people found this helpful
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Eugene A. Shinn
5.0 out of 5 stars The Telling Image
Reviewed in the United States on October 15, 2019
Verified Purchase
This is not simply a book of excellent photographs and images. The book is a philosophical treatment concerning the development of humans over thousand of years up to the present. The writing, by a former news writer and documentary filmmaker with a world of experience in foreign lands uniquely demonstrates a broad range of scientific and archeological knowledge. The superb images support how humanity evolved from a hunter gather tribal world of circles, webs, ladders, and pyramids and finally the present world of high rises and the Internet. It also predicts the future of politics and humanity.
3 people found this helpful
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Elisabeth Gilliland
5.0 out of 5 stars Looking forward in patterns
Reviewed in the United States on September 3, 2020
Verified Purchase
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.
One person found this helpful
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars A Telling Story of The Patterns That Connect Humans
Reviewed in the United States on September 3, 2018
Verified Purchase
This is a fantastic book the chronicles the patterns of humankind throughout the history of time through vibrant photos, poetic phrasing, and all around good story telling. I’m a word that at times seems divided we are reminded of the simple social structure mechanisms that connect us all.
3 people found this helpful
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LGS
5.0 out of 5 stars A must read for history buffs and artists!
Reviewed in the United States on May 23, 2019
Verified Purchase
This book is a fascinating and provocative exploration of the relationships between shapes and human development. It will change the way you think about history, science, society, and art.
One person found this helpful
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Michael in Atl
1.0 out of 5 stars Would not play on my computer
Reviewed in the United States on October 5, 2020
Verified Purchase
Would not open on my Android Kindle
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