Shelf Life

David Macaulay's rendering of a French Gothic cathedral. (''Cathedral'')

Inner workings
David Macaulay's oversized illustrated books demystify all manner of machines and monumental buildings. Thirty-five years after his first book, "Cathedral," was published, he tackles the human body in his new one, "The Way We Work" (Houghton Mifflin).

Along the way, Macaulay himself has become a subject of interest for his skill as an explainer. A new exhibit at the Rhode Island School of Design's Museum of Art, in Providence, demonstrates how he works. Models and drawings he created for his books are on display, though the highlight is a video featuring the unassuming British-born Macaulay, who lives in Norwich, Vt. He studied architecture at RISD but decided he did not want to be an architect. He worked as an interior designer and a teacher before becoming an artist and writer, pursuing his childhood fascination with how things work.

The exhibit closes Feb. 1 and opens March 7 at the Currier Museum of Art, in Manchester, N.H.

A voice recalled
In the early 1990s, David Foster Wallace participated in a panel discussion at the Arlington Center for the Arts on the outlook for fiction. He appeared with close friend Jonathan Franzen before either had published the book that would bring him fame. (For Franzen, it was "The Corrections," in 2001; for Wallace, it was "Infinite Jest," in 1996. The following year the MacArthur Foundation awarded Wallace, who died in September, a "genius grant.")

The hosts of that long-ago discussion, Sven Birkerts and Elizabeth Searle, will be among the writers reading favorite passages from Wallace's work at 2 p.m. Dec. 14 at Newtonville Books, in Newton. PEN/New England is sponsoring the tribute.

Canon fodder
Debuting in 1952, the 54-volume "Great Books of the Western World" was such an ambitious undertaking that indexing the 443 works almost bankrupted the project. Over the years, the merits of the writings - all by dead white males - have been a matter of debate.

Regardless, the joint effort by Encyclopedia Britannica and the University of Chicago stands as a triumph of marketing, according to the colorful new history "A Great Idea at the Time: The Rise, Fall, and Curious Afterlife of the Great Books" (PublicAffairs), by Globe columnist Alex Beam. Door-to-door salesmen took aim at the intellectual insecurities of postwar Americans. Though tiny type and dense language rendered the books virtually unreadable, 1 million sets were sold for several hundred dollars apiece.

Today, classic works are being embraced in some corners once again. Earlier this year 100 customers vied to sign up at RJ Booksellers, in Madison, Conn., for the first of 12 Great Books seminars taught by Yale professors. Most of the seminars (at $50 each) are sold out, but there are a few spots left to study René Descartes, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Hannah Arendt, the political philosopher who didn't make the cut for the Great Books set.

Coming out