Collection: Collector’s Library

Art, Design and Interiors Books

A shelf of coffee table books on interiors, art, fashion and the good life, chosen because they are worth reading as well as leaving out. Most fall between thirty and fifty dollars, with the largest volumes at the top of the range.

The interiors titles are the strongest group. De Gournay is the most popular book in the collection by a distance: a large volume on the hand-painted wallpaper house, and the kind of book that gets bought as a present for someone who already has everything. The Frick Collection Interiors covers one of the great New York houses room by room. English Country House Style, Vogue Living and Architectural Digest at 100 do the same job for their subjects, and The Glamorous House takes the more maximalist end.

Beyond the English-speaking houses, A Place in Scotland and Romantic Irish Homes move the same idea to different landscapes. Bunny Williams and Martha Stewart's Gardening Handbook sit on the garden side, and Moments at Home comes back to the everyday.

The fashion and art volumes are the other half, and they pair naturally with the cocktail books. Ralph Lauren: In His Own Fashion covers the designer's own collection and career. There are books on interiors and architecture from Abrams, Chronicle and Penguin Random House, which between them account for most of the shelf.

These work as gifts because they solve a specific problem. A coffee table book costs about the same as a candle, looks considered on a table, and lasts rather than being used up. If you are buying for a client, a host or someone whose taste you know but whose wishlist you do not, a large-format interiors book is the safer choice than almost anything else.

If you are not sure which one, the useful question is what the person is interested in rather than what their house looks like. Interiors, gardens, fashion and art are four different books, and all four are on this page.

We keep the range in stock, and new titles arrive as they are published. If there is a particular book or subject you are looking for that you are not able to find on the website, reach out to us and we will be glad to help.