I would argue that there isn't a surface out there that wouldn't be elevated by the addition of a gorgeous stack of books. I don't believe in someone having "too many books", it's just not possible.
Today, I'm sharing a list with some of the coffee table books I have throughout my own home and a couple on my wish list. Whether you're interested in starting your own collection, looking to purchase a gift for someone or just curious to read my list of favourites - enjoy my top 25 listed below.
Photo via Henry Reynolds Design & Co
It's no secret I'm a big book lover - for so many reasons.
I love the insight they can provide - I really enjoy seeing what kinds of books people keep throughout their homes. It's a great way to share what your interests and priorities are. Books are sophisticated, often beautifully weathered and full of inspiration.
Finally, I really love the smell, is that weird? I worked at a publishing company for 10 years so perhaps the smell of ink and printers just grew on me..
Either way, my addiction is very real and here are some of my go-to coffee table book recommendations.
Featuring inspiring women and their beautifully unique homes. Pacific Natural At Home offers a window into each woman’s personalized approach to designing with all facets of life in mind. Broken up into four distinct landscapes—canyon, ocean, desert, city—each section aims to capture the essence of west coast interiors.
No matter your location, your style, or your budget, beautiful design should be available to all. As a pioneer in the digital magazine industry, Rue has inspired thousands since establishing their business in 2010. Now Rue’s editorial director, Kelli Lamb, has created this incredible collection to carry their style and advice into book form.
As a professional home organizer with clients ranging from students to multi-millionaires, Shira Gill observed that clutter is a universal stress trigger. Over the years she created a signature decluttering and organization process that promotes sustainability, achieves lasting results, and can be applied to anyone, regardless of their space or lifestyle. Rather than imposing strict rules and limitations, Shira redefines minimalism as having the perfect amount of everything—for you—based on your personal values and the limitations of your space.
Axel Vervoordt’s intense curiosity has fueled his work as an interior designer, spurring him to explore and draw inspiration from cultures around the globe. He was first exposed to Eastern art and philosophy years ago, but today it has become the guiding principle in his work, particularly the concept of Wabi. Developed in the twelfth century, Wabi advocates simplicity and humility, the rejection of all that is superfluous or artificial. Through extraordinary photographs from Japan and Korea to Belgium and Switzerland, Vervoordt invites us to explore the elements that inspire him: natural materials and time-worn objects that evoke the essence of Wabi.
Architectural Digest at 100 celebrates the best from the pages of the international design authority. The editors have delved into the archives and culled years of rich material covering a range of subjects. Ranging freely between present and past, the book features the personal spaces of dozens of private celebrities like Barack and Michelle Obama, David Bowie, Truman Capote, David Hockney, Michael Kors, and Diana Vreeland, and includes the work of top designers and architects like Frank Gehry, David Hicks, India Mahdavi, Peter Marino, John Fowler, Renzo Mongiardino, Oscar Niemeyer, Axel Vervoordt, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Elsie de Wolfe.
This is the long-awaited monograph on the homes of Delphine and Reed Krakoff, unique voices in contemporary American design. Passion and obsession has driven the creation of their homes, each a master class in combining a grand space with world-class furnishings and artworks, with a savoir faire that only an American fashion designer (Reed) and a Paris-trained interior decorator (Delphine) can possess.
Inspired by the stylish, intimate, and laid-back vibes of La Buvette—a tiny wine shop that doubles as a bar and café—in Paris’s 11th Arrondissement, this guide to wine, food, and Parisian lifestyle unlocks the secrets to achieving that coveted je ne sais quoi style of entertaining, along with revealing the best of the City of Light.
The mother-and-son founders of powerhouse interior design firm Clements Design have mastered interiors of a spare yet sumptuous sophistication mixed with California ease that are highly sought after by a star-studded clientele, including Ellen DeGeneres, Adam Levine, Bruno Mars, Kendall Jenner, and Jennifer Lawrence.
The quintessential style, cooking, and home interior book from Soho House, the world's leading members club.
Since the first Soho House opened its doors over 25 years ago, we've learnt a bit about what works. Contemporary, global yet with something quintessentially English and homely at its heart, this is Soho House style explained by its experts.
Art historian and critic Morgan Falconer presents an extensively researched piece of writing that explains why painting has surged in popularity since Jackson Pollock and the Abstract Expressionists began painting in the late 1940s-early 1950s.
Drawing on both original sources and contemporary scholarship, this bold and richly designed book lavishly illustrates the most important works made beginning in the Post War era. In addition to well-known artists such as Willem de Kooning, Agnes Martin and Brice Marden, Falconer explores the work of contemporary stars such as Cecily Brown, Mark Grotjahn, Elizabeth Peyton and Mark Bradford.
Kelly Wearstler shares her imaginative world of interiors in her highly-anticipated fifth book, Evocative Style (Rizzoli New York). The volume profiles in beautiful photography and striking detail the designer’s inventive new works and the refined evolution of her multi-sensory and ever-captivating aesthetic. With personal anecdotes and creative design process at the heart of the storytelling, this book is an engaging and celebratory look at Wearstler’s exceptional universe. A definitive source of inspiration for all lovers of design.
Wabi-Sabi Welcome is sharing a pot of tea with friends. It is preparing delicious food to nourish, not to show off. It’s keeping a basket of cozy slippers at the door for guests. It is well-worn linens, bouquets of foraged branches, mismatched silverware, and heirloom bowls infused with the spirit of meals served with love.
A modernist take on Mediterranean aesthetics, a new movement in interior design embraces sumptuous minimalism through warm, earthy tones, and natural materials. In southern locations such as Australia, California, and Brazil, but also in places like New York and Copenhagen-the Mediterranean sensibility echoes itself in these locales through a variety of reasons, be it former colonial influences, a similar sunny climate, or simply an appreciation for the Mediterranean way of life.
Beautiful design isn’t just pleasant to look at; it improves the quality of our lives. In Live Beautiful, the highly anticipated design book by Athena Calderone, the EyeSwoon creator taps into her international network of interior decorators, fashion designers, and tastemakers to reveal how carefully crafted interiors come together. She also opens the doors to two of her own residences.
With her dinner series Sunday Suppers, Karen Mordechai celebrates the magic of gathering, bringing together friends and strangers to connect over the acts of cooking and sharing meals. For those who yearn to connect around the table, Karen’s simple, seasonally driven recipes, evocative photography, and understated styling form a road map to creating community in their own kitchens and in offbeat locations. This collection of gatherings will inspire a sense of adventure and community for both the novice and experienced cook alike.
"Alexandra and Michael Misczynski, the wife-and-husband team behind the Los Angeles-based AD100 design firm Atelier AM, are standard-bearers for the...concepts of quality and connoisseurship. In an image-driven culture, where novelty and extravagance so often masquerade as virtues, the Misczynskis remain steadfast in their belief that true style can emerge only from substance." --Architectural Digest
Still is an interiors book that invites readers to take on the philosophy of the SLOW movement. Living Sustainably; Local; Organic; and Whole. It talks not just to the question of the physical structures we choose, but also the surrounding environment, and what effect that can have on general happiness and wellbeing. Still includes about a dozen case studies featuring escape homes and owners who live according to these aforementioned principles, enlightening readers as to why they chose this path and how it has benefitted their lives.
Informed by her parallel paths as an artist and a photographer, Brigitte Niedermair expands the conventions and biases of the fashion image system. Her work focuses on representations of women’s bodies in art and culture, with deeply constructed images and striking compositions that make for a distinctive style.
Headed by principals Krista Schrock and David John Dick, DISC Interiors is an interior and furniture design firm based in Silver Lake, Los Angeles. DISC Interiors strives to create homes of calibrated simplicity that balance the push and pull of modern life, address a sense of place and persons rather than any particular period or style, and balance the traditional with the modern and aesthetics with function.
Vogue: Postcards from Home is a beautiful and unforgettable collection of self-rendered images from a bevy of celebrities, photographers, filmmakers, actors, creative directors, performance artists, fashion designers, and models. Kendall Jenner, Virgil Abloh, Tom Ford, Marc Jacobs, Karen Elson, Florence Pugh, Maurizio Cattelan, Billy Porter,
Donatella Versace, Gisele Bündchen, Cindy Sherman, Tracee Ellis Ross, and Kim Kardashian West are among those who share a glimpse of their lives under lockdown.
As an architecture photographer, Nicole England found that the shoots she enjoyed the most were the ones where dogs were present – nothing lightens the mood like a nonchalant pup. However imposing the architecture, some doggy hijinks can immediately bring an element of sociability and fun. With this in mind, Nicole set about setting up her instagram, Resident Dog, and now this book, Resident Dog Around the World, which showcases over 25 of the world's most amazing houses, and the dogs that live there.
Since 2002 (the year it appeared on export markets) Japanese whisky has been consistently winning major international spirits awards. As export production increases and export markets - the USA and France in particular - open up to embrace the quality of these fine malt whiskies, all eyes are on Japan.
In Nomad at Home, compulsive wanderer Hilary Robertson showcases 10 unique locations and tells the stories of different nomadic tribes: the Adopters, who have left home forever and made a life elsewhere, as well as the Escapists, always on the move, with a base in two, three, or maybe even four locations.
These next 2 will be released in 2023 and they are absolutely both "add to cart" quality
New York–based stylist Colin King shares his wisdom and insights for cultivating beauty in our everyday surroundings—composing objects into simple, sophisticated vignettes that enrich our homes and our lives.
Coming March 14th 2023
A gorgeous photography collection, featuring home interiors and profiles of the people who have transformed these spaces into sanctuaries, calling you to create your own sacred space
Coming April 18th 2023
HAPPY BOOK SOURCING !
Photo via Henry Reynolds Design & Co
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