Books on subjects devoted to hearth and garden make a thoughtful gift with a long-lasting ripple effect. Such a book keeps on giving for years to come, with the added benefit of broadening our horizons.
Whether interests lie in design, antiques and collectibles, holiday decorating, period furniture, folk art, gardening or a hundred other possible facets of our home lives, this season’s crop of books offers something for every personal passion.
Following are a few top picks from the Home&Garden staff for educating any eye and enhancing one’s taste in the years ahead:
In the beginning, human beings lived close to nature. Our evolutionary ancestors were tree-dwellers before they began walking upright on the savanna. No wonder then that one-of-a-kind furniture made from natural logs, roots, twigs, bark, antlers, horn and cow feet strikes a chord in our subconscious. The interest in rustic furniture has flourished during the past decade, even as technology threatens to overwhelm our lives.
Ralph Kylloe, a dealer in rustic furniture, documents both in text and lavish photography the history and present growth of this folk art in “Rustic Artistry for the Home” (Gibbs Smith, $60; 256 pages). This coffee-table book is a magnificent visual tribute to the rustic artists of past and present who dedicate themselves to creating beautiful objects that are so close to the natural. The photographs by the author are stunning and provide page after page of amazement. Most incredible are the railing systems, staircases and columns made of twisted juniper, which resemble pulled taffy gone monstrous. For the collector on your Christmas list, this page-turner could be a vade mecum on a fascinating folk form.
Smaller at 160 pages than the book on “Rustic Artistry,” but complementary to it, “Cowboy Chic, Western Style Comes Home” by Chase Reynolds Ewald (Gibbs Smith, $39.95) focuses on an updated ranch or western style in the interiors of contemporary mountainside homes, creek-size cabins and getaway ranches.
While there are some oddities here–old sheepherder wagons being pressed into service as guest rooms and fishing shacks–most of the interiors and exteriors presented would be acceptable to anyone with mainstream values in decorating. Quite a fewcontemporary hand-carved wood pieces are featured, such as “Spirits Untamed,” a juniper and mahogany bed hand-carved with rearing stallions by Montana artist Amber Jean. The bed captured both the Best Western Spirit and People’s Choice Awards at the 1999 Western Design Conference.
To a dedicated angler, the catch of the day might not only be a trout or a bass, but also a vintage rod, some packaged fly hooks or an old decoy. The avid fishermen of stream, lake or shore, not only are passionate about their sport in stream, but about making a giant creel of their homes, where they cram every nook and cranny with their collections of all things piscatorial.
“The Angler’s Life, Collecting and Traditions,” text by Laurence Sheehan, photographs by William Stites, with Carol Sama Sheehan and Kathryn George Precourt (Clarkson Potter, $50; 240 pages), offers a broad spectrum of information on angling for the real thing with scales as well as for fish-themed memorabilia. The appeal of collecting fly reels, bobbers, plastic bait, and fishing licenses, might seem a tad mysterious to the non-angler, but anyone can relate to the scenic photos of lakes and rivers, which are dreamy. This book is well-written, with a humorous tow to the text, but it is obviously for a very targeted audience.
Dale Chihuly, the most famous artist working in glass today, has been well-known to collectors and connoisseurs for more than three decades. His smaller pieces resembling giant flowers from an alien planet are displayed in something like 180 museums and countless private collections around the world. Nothing, however, can match the stunning drama of his recent mammoth-scale installations, the focus of the heavily illustrated volume, “Chihuly Projects,” by Dale Chihuly, with essays by Barbara Rose and Dale M. Lanzone (Harry N. Abrams, Inc., $75; pages).
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This is a rare opportunity to view his installations in posh private residences, as well as many of his monumental public works. Those pictured include: the overhead sculpture made of 2,000 hand-blown forms in the lobby of the Bellagio Resort in Las Vegas, the outsize chandelier/sculptures in the Temples of the Sun and Moon at the Atlantis resort in Paradise Island, Bahamas, and the cobalt blue chandelier in Tacoma’s Union Station. Could there be a more perfect gift for the lover of art glass?
For 200 years the White House has served as the residence of our nation’s president (when we can decide who it is) and his family. Its other role is as the nation’s showcase home, where state ceremony and entertaining constantly take place. Heavily illustrated with photography and graphics, “The White House, Its Historic Furnishings and First Families” by Betty C. Monkman, (Abbeville Press, $60; 320pages), is a coffee-table book by the current White House curator.
Focusing on our nation’s most important heirlooms, this is the gift of choice for anyone interested in the decorative arts as they relate to American history.
The armchair traveler
By Karen Klages, Tribune Staff Writer.
I figure myself a paid voyeur. I make a living poking in and around people’s homes. So when I’m settling in with a good design book (there is never too much looking as far as I’m concerned), nothing catches my fancy more than one that transports me to a world where my car and my street guide cannot get me.
Like: Italy.
Fans of author Frances Mayes will want to grab a demitasse of cappuccino and head for the closest curl-up chair with her latest book, “In Tuscany” (Broadway Books, $35; 272 pages).
This, Mayes’ third book on her beloved Tuscany, puts faces and pictures (care of photographer Bob Krist) to the people and places she describes in her previous memoirs, “Under the Tuscan Sun” (Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group) and “Bella Tuscany” (Random House).
Writing in an essay style that is at once homey and informed, Mayes takes us from La Piazza, the center of Italian village life, to La Cucina, the kitchen, and many magical places and events in between. And throughout, she sprinkles in 25 authentic Tuscan recipes from her friends there.
Like Mayes, author Bruno Racine, who professes a 35-year love affair with Italy’s capital, gives us an insider’s tour in “Living in Rome” (Flammarion, $50; 224 pages).
Racine, who is director of the French Academy in Rome, and photographer Alain Fleischer lead us to places outside the realm of the standard guidebook–most notably, private homes. Stately Roman apartments in grand historic mansions. Elegant apartments occupying the upper floors of centuries-old palaces. Modern artists’ studios on the fringe of the old city. Majestic country villas.
And then there are new books that take us to fantastic places, metaphorically speaking.
“Style by Saladino” (The Monacelli Press, $55; 208 pages) is one of this year’s best. New York interior/furniture designer John Saladino, who is one of this country’s best design treasures and who should have published years ago, delivers a tome of his knowledge and his best work, from a Pacific retreat to a New York pied-a-terre.
Using straightforward text and glorious photographs (with captions that actually explain what we should notice in a particular room and why), Saladino takes us to the height of good, Classic Modern taste. We feel more refined, more dignified, more able to take on our own humble digs, by osmosis.
And finally, there is “Meditations on Design” (Conari Press, $24.95; 128 pages). San Francisco designer John Wheatman, who has been doing design work for more than 30 years, penned this understated little book about “reinventing your home.” Wheatman writes about the here and now–the home you have now, the rooms you have now–and shows how to make it all look (and feel) better–with ease. That’s key. In doing so, he takes us to a state of hope.
Planting new ideas
By Dennis Rodkin. Special to the Tribune.
For the gardener, a book is an ideal Christmas gift. Deep in December, when the past gardening season is becoming a distant memory and the one to come is still far out of sight, is an ideal time to read, learn and dream. (There won’t be time for any of that come June, when there are plants to plant, beds to fill and lawns to nurture.)
Gardeners who are relatively new to the obsession will learn mountains of important stuff from the “American Horticultural Society Gardening Manual” (Dorling Kindersley, $39.95; 420 pages). A pretty and scrupulously organized book, it details everything from the care and feeding of lawns to the finer points of pruning shrubs and arranging container gardening. No matter what their level of expertise, virtually all gardeners will find something they didn’t know, or didn’t know how to do, explained in patient detail here–whether dividing and propagating plants, supporting a wall-climbing vine, or composting with worms.
Some gardeners are content to roll up the hose and take all of winter off, dedicating the time they used to spend gardening to other pursuits–like maybe getting to know the family again. For those who just can’t get enough, though, there’s “Winter Gardening” by Steven Bradley (Time-Life Books, $19.94; 199 pages), a book that will keep them as busy as they like during the cold months.
Bradley leads winter gardeners through necessary off-season chores like cleaning beds and pots, but he also explores more fascinating winter projects. They range from familiar tasks like enhancing the wildlife appeal of the garden to something as esoteric as cleaning off the pale and cracked outermost bark of some birches and maples to reveal more visually appealing layers beneath. Bradley also shows a large number of plants with strong winter interest.
The idea of establishing a harmonious link between a home’s interior and its garden sounds good, but getting there isn’t always easy.
We have very different standards, hopes and budgets for the inside and the outside. But in “Inside Out: Relating Garden to House” (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, $35; 160 pages), Page Dickey shows how 13 gardens around the United States meld with the interiors of the homes they surround. Two should be of particular interest to Chicago gardeners: a prairie back yard in Lake Forest and a gloriously formal landscape, also in Lake Forest.
Not everything in the book is high-end, though; there are smaller and funkier places profiled too. Dickey explores how in each case the interior and exterior looks both proceeded one from the other, ending up with a unified living space that encompasses indoor rooms and outdoor settings.
Those who garden in their back yards and those who garden only in their imaginations will both enjoy Paul Bennett’s “The Garden Lover’s Guide to the Midwest” (Princeton Architectural Press, $21.95; 128 pages). Bennett gives lavish and insightful descriptions of dozens of public gardens, and some private ones, in a great swath of the continent from West Virginia to the Dakotas. Anyone who travels in the Midwest and enjoys taking a nice walk outdoors can make good use of the book.
Soul searching
By Pamela Sherrod, Tribune Staff Writer.
The house still isn’t quite right. What’s missing?
We try to figure it out and become more contemplative and more critical about the way things look in our home. The built-in bookcases we think we need may have something to do with the perfection we seek, but it’s usually only part of the picture.
The following books help us to look at the picture more clearly. They deal with designing the home and redesigning ourselves in the homes we live. You’ll find these wonderful companions on the journey to figuring out the desired layouts for both.
“Get in the corners. Get in the grooves. Get out the dirt. Get out the blues.”
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This was Gary Thorp’s personal mantra during a work period while he was at a Zen monastery in San Francisco.
At first glance, you may think you’ve got the blues because you have chores to do, but the plain or, rather, Zen truth is that things that are out of place physically in your home represent the things that are out of place emotionally within you.
Say what? Think about it.
And that’s what Thorp, author of “Sweeping Changes” (Walker Co., $19; 147 pages), asks readers to do as he weaves his stories throughout the six chapters of this pocket-size book.
If you’re serious about making changes in your life and your home, you’ll read this book, take in the stories and see how their applications can work for you. You’ll be pleasantly surprised at the little things that make a difference.
And what effect does one’s spiritual practice have on contemporary design?
The answer is found in the individual spiritual styles that are seen in the gardens, homes and art work.
In “In a Spiritual Style: The Home as Sanctuary” (Thames & Hudson Inc., $19.95; 285 pages), author Laura Cerwinske shows and tells readers how the things that you love can and do mirror your spiritual sensibilities.
The author walks you through places and spaces within the home that reflect the people who live there and their religious and spiritual beliefs. There are shrines and there are altars set up to celebrate special occasions and to be everyday reminders about beliefs that are important.
A favorite example is seen in the chapter titled “Rooms and Shrines.” The author’s Miami kitchen was in need of remodeling. She selected art that had special meaning and put it on the walls, transforming her outdated kitchen into a place of reflection as well as function. The ideas found in this book can be applied in any home.
In “Fusion Interiors: The International Design of Andrew Martin,” by Martin Waller and Dominic Bradbury (Watson-Guptill Publications, $35; 285 pages), you travel to one culture after another. But it’s not just the exotic places that you see but the souls of the people that make up their culture’s unique fabric.
By telling the story of Andrew Martin, Britain’s major fabric house, the book tells the story of fusion design and the nature of global design. It succeeds in translating the beauty, color and texture seen in various cultures–from the smallest villages in Asia to the chic urban environs of Manhattan.
You’ll feel like you’ve gone on an anthropological dig and surfaced with inspiring themes to apply in your home.
In “African Style: Down to the Details” by Sharne Algotsson (Clarkson Potter, $32.50; 167 pages), if you see something that you like you can make it your own.
This book is a beautiful page-turner and also a useful how-to guide. It shows how integrating African benches and stools, bead work, kente cloth and vibrant colors can put an African spin on the look that you already have. The difference is in the details. You’ll appreciate the practical advice, decorating tips and creative shortcuts that will help you add the colorful and textural themes of African beauty to your home.