Here’s our unscientific, highly opinionated guide to the best inspirational design books of the season:
Above: Interior Portraits: At Home with Cultural Pioneers and Creative Mavericks (Rizzoli), from much-admired Bay Area photographer Leslie Williamson, takes us on a tour of notable California homes, from Robinson Jeffers’s seaside cabin and cottage and tower in Carmel to architect Charles Moore’s iconic Sea Ranch house. (For more info, see our Required Reading post.) $34.43 from Amazon. Above: Vincent van Duysen Works 2009-2018 (Thames & Hudson) is a follow-up and companion to Vincent Van Duysen Works 1989–2009, presenting Belgian architect Van Duysen’s most recent works over the course of the past decade; $46.39 from Amazon. (Oh, and Van Duysen’s friend Julianne Moore, an accomplished designer in her own right, wrote the intro.) Above: In It’s Beautiful Here: Homes That Make Your Heart Skip a Beat (Thames & Hudson; $26.66 at Amazon), Megan Morton takes us on a tour of the “abodes of people who have by luck, chance, or determination nailed that ever elusive interiors je ne sais quoi. From Paris to New York and even Adelaide, we meet a motley crew of renters, Barbie Dreamhouse owners, and accidental interior heroes and learn that a beautiful home doesn’t rest on great design alone–it’s shaped by the people who live there.” Above: Chair: 500 Designs That Matter from Phaidon (Phaidon; $16.48 from Amazon) chronicles the evolution of the chair, from “early examples such as the Shaker rocking chair to more recent designs like the Saiba chair by Naoto Fukasawa.” Part of the appeal of this useful little volume is its compact size (it’s about the size of a bento box); $16.48 from Amazon.. Above: In This Is Home: The Art of Simple Living (Hardie Grant), Natalie Walton, an interiors stylist and writer based on the New South Wales central coast, visits eight houses in Australia, the US, and Europe, all “with a global and timeless feel that haven’t been renovated in the traditional sense but are true homes”; $36.70 from Amazon.
Above: In Alchemy of Things: Interiors Shaped by Curious Minds (Murdoch Books), Karen McCarty takes us on a tour of 18 houses around the world that are occupied by a “mix of artists, interior designers, architects, collectors, gallerists, stylists, furniture designers, and vintage retailers”; $22.92 from Amazon. Above: Perfect English Townhouse (Ryland Peters & Small; $26.33 from Amazon), by Ros Byam Shaw, features 14 distinctive townhouses full of charm, character, and style. Design writer and former World of Interiors features editor Ros Byam Shaw is the creator of the “Perfect” series of books: Perfect English made its debut in 2007, followed by Perfect English Cottage, Perfect English Farmhouse, and Perfect French Country (all highly recommended). Above: In American Originals (Vendome Press), veteran interiors photographer William Abranowicz takes us on a tour of the homes of painters, poets, rock stars, designers, tastemakers, politicians, and performers for whom “the house is the ultimate form of self-expression”; $46.38 from Amazon. Above: In Design by Nature: Creating Layered, Lived-In Spaces (with chapters titled “Wood,” “Water,” “Dirt,” “Weeds,” and “Decay,” and lovely photographs by Ngoc Minh Ngo), Bay Area designer Erica takes us on a tour of her creative process. “While I find inspiration everywhere,” Erica writes, “nature is my primary muse and the anchor for my creativity. I grew up in California, a place of extraordinary natural beauty, so nature has always been at the core of my inspiration and has influenced my aesthetic.” Design by Nature, by Erica Tanov, is $19.75 from Amazon. See our Required Reading post for more information.
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