the washington post book world sunday, december 12, 2010 l l
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HOMEDESIGN BYJURAKONCIUS
A PERFECTLY KEPT HOUSE IS THE SIGN OF A MISSPENT LIFE By Mary Randolph Carter Rizzoli. $55
Carter has written about a refreshing
alternative to the over-decorated and obsessively arranged life: how to be comfortable with your collections, books, dog hair and the category known as junk. The simple beauty of a rum- pled, unmade bed in one of the photo- graphs is a powerful takeaway.
AT HOME A Style for Today with Things from the Past By Suzanne Rheinstein Rizzoli. $55
Gorgeous homes are the business of
Rheinstein, a designer who owns the Los Angeles style emporiumHollyhock. The jewel of this book is the chapter on her stunning redo of a 300-acre Virginia farm. The library, dressing table, pantry and even the laundry room are worth poring over.
AMERICANMODERN By Thomas O’Brien Abrams. $50
The beauty of American style is that
it takes a bit from the past and keeps re- fining and building. O’Brien, a noted NewYork interior and home furnish- ings designer, shows how he creates a polished, warm room mixing well-worn antiques with classics of today. The es- says on seven of the homes he’s de- signed, including two of his own, make good reading, and the photographs are inspiring.
LIFTING THE CURTAIN ON DESIGN By VicenteWolf Monacelli. $50
The beauty of this book lies inWolf’s thoughtful explanation of how an inte- rior designer gets inspiration, in his case through exotic travels.His photo- graphs of places such as the desert land- scape ofNamibia become linked to his current projects by his choices of colors, shapes and patterns.
WHAT’S A DISORGANIZED PERSON TO DO? By Stacey Platt Artisan; paperback, $16.95
A professional organizer’s viewof
home design arranged in 317 bite-size chunks of advice for making order in closets, desktops and under the kitchen sink, this handbook is a salve for the un- tidy mind. Platt’s work, packaged with theMary Randolph Carter book on beautiful living with stuff, mentioned above, might make a great gift for a cou- ple with clashing views on clutter.
konciusj@washpost.com
BEST O
1
2 Gift books 1
HOKUSAI By Matthi Forrer Prestel. $120
This splendid monograph on the
work of the great Japanese artist and printmaker comes from one of the world’s foremost experts on the subject, Matthi Forrer, curator for Japanese arts at theNationalMuseum of Ethnology in Leiden, Germany. And at an auspicious time: the 250th anniversary ofHoku- sai’s birth in Edo (present-day Tokyo). Hokusai began his artistic career as an apprentice woodblock cutter and by age 20 struck out on his own in the highly stratified realm of ukiyo-e, the Japanese term for genre prints. From early rendi- tions of kabuki theater actors to his iconic images of Mt. Fuji and perhaps his best-known work, “GreatWave,” Hokusai constantly reinvented himself and became the preeminent designer of commissioned prints and the most suc-
cessful illustrator of popular novels. The reproductions here are glorious, done on matte pages with the feel of rice paper, and bound so readers can open the broad pages to get the full ef- fect of a truly remarkable artist.
2
BESPOKE The Men’s Style of Savile Row By James Sherwood
Rizzoli. $65 The designer Tom Ford provides the
foreword to this illustrated history of bespoke tailoring, the handcrafting of a suit for a specific client. The craft can trace its origins to the wool equestrian clothing of the English country gentle- man, which the dandy Beau Brummel would elevate to an art form all its own. BeforeWorldWar I, handcrafted tailor- ing was practically a national industry in Britain, making it accessible to al-
most everyone. The war’s devastation, on both the princely houses of Europe and an entire generation of English- men, crippled the tailoring houses of Savile Row. But the industry and its tal- ented designers managed to weather another world war, a surge in ready-to- wear and a general laxness of formality. In addition to an insightful history of Savile Row’s ups and downs, this vol- ume offers “Gentlemen’s Requisites,” a guide to deciphering the language of be- spoke tailoring and a gazetteer to the Row’s best and brightest houses.
3
DOGS By Tim Flach Abrams. $50
These large-scale pictures of pooches
(funny, thoughtful, charming and play- ful) present a parade of different breeds, many created by human beings,
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