Invited designers and commentators have chosen these as the books that inspire them and that have shaped their worldview or their ideas about design.
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272 books
The Royal Game
Stefan Zweig
On Jean-Marie Massaud’s Book List
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Germinal
Emile Zola
On Sagi Haviv’s Book List
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Nana
Emile Zola
On Norman Foster’s Book List
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The Belly of Paris
Emile Zola
On Norman Foster’s Book List
On Tod Williams’s Current Reading list
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Memoirs of Hadrian
Marguerite Yourcenar
On Isaac Mizrahi’s Book List
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The Dream of the Red Chamber
Cao Xueqin
On Aric Chen’s Book List
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To the Lighthouse
Virginia Woolf
On Billie Tsien’s Book List
On Diana Balmori’s Book List
On Peter Mendelsund’s Book List
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Orlando
Virginia Woolf
On Jennifer Morla’s Book List
On Antoine Predock’s Book List
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Mrs. Dalloway
Virginia Woolf
On Diana Balmori’s Book List
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A Room of One’s Own
Virginia Woolf
On Diana Balmori’s Book List
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Look Homeward, Angel
Thomas Wolfe
On Eric Owen Moss’s Book List
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You Can’t Go Home Again
Thomas Wolfe
On Eric Owen Moss’s Book List
On Tom Geismar’s Book List
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One Arm
Tennessee Williams
On Ralph Rucci’s Book List
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The Picture of Dorian Gray
Oscar Wilde
On Alexa Hampton’s Book List
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John Dollar
Marianne Wiggins
On Lisa Jenks’s Book List
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A Beggar in Jerusalem
Elie Wiesel
On Richard Meier’s Book List
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The Mother’s Recompense
Edith Wharton
On Billie Tsien’s Book List
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The Age of Innocence
Edith Wharton
On Paul Goldberger’s Book List
On Dominique Browning’s Book List
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All the King’s Men
Robert Penn Warren
On Jaquelin Robertson’s Book List
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The Tanners
Robert Walser
On Maira Kalman’s Book List
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Slaughterhouse-Five
Kurt Vonnegut
On Ellen Lupton’s Book List
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Little Novels of Sicily
Giovanni Verga
On Michael Maharam’s Book List
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Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter
Mario Vargas Llosa
On Alexander Cooper’s Book List
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Exodus
Leon Uris
On Margaret McCurry’s Book List
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Smoke
Ivan Turgenev
On Jaquelin Robertson’s Book List
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Vendredi ou les Limbes du Pacifique (Friday)
Michel Tournier
On Christian Lacroix’s Book List
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Anna Karenina
Leo Tolstoy
On Eric Owen Moss’s Book List
On Jaquelin Robertson’s Book List
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War and Peace
Leo Tolstoy
On Jaquelin Robertson’s Book List
On Massimo Vignelli’s Book List
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Vanity Fair
William Makepeace Thackeray
On Isaac Mizrahi’s Book List
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Selected Short Stories
Rabindranath Tagore
On Shashi Caan’s Book List
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Gulliver’s Travels
Jonathan Swift
On Tom Coward’s Book List
On Daisy Froud’s Book List
On Vincent Lacovara’s Book List
On Geoff Shearcroft’s Book List
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Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
Patrick Suskind
On Craig Dykers’s Book List
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Tristram Shandy
Lawrence Sterne
On Michael Sorkin’s Book List
On Jürgen Mayer H.’s Book List
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Snow Crash
Neal Stephenson
On Elizabeth Diller’s Book List
On Ricardo Scofidio’s Book List
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The Charterhouse of Parma
Stendhal
On Eric Owen Moss’s Book List
On Jaquelin Robertson’s Book List
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The Red and the Black
Stendhal
On Eric Owen Moss’s Book List
On Jaquelin Robertson’s Book List
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East of Eden
John Steinbeck
On Galia Solomonoff’s Book List
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The Grapes of Wrath
John Steinbeck
On Margaret McCurry’s Book List
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Angle of Repose
Wallace Stegner
On Margie Ruddick’s Book List
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On Beauty
Zadie Smith
On Stefan Sagmeister’s Book List
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Best-Selling Design Books at Van Alen Books, New York

1
Building Seagram
Phyllis Lambert
2
Clog 6: Brutalism
Kyle May et al., eds.
3
Project Journal Issue 1
Project
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Newest Designers and Commentators

Matteo Thun
Architect, Interior Designer, Product/Industrial Designer, Lighting Designer; Italy
Michael Maharam
Writer; Executive; United States
Fritz Frenkler
Product/Industrial Designer; Germany
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Katsuji Wakisaka
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Recent Books by Our Contributors

Diller, Scofidio + Renfro: Lincoln Center Inside Out
Elizabeth Diller, Ricardo Scofidio, and Charles Renfro
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Stephen Burrows
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Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec
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Contributors Who Chose...

Delirious New York
Rem Koolhaas
On 8 lists
Jeanne Gang
Architect; United States
Mohsen Mostafavi
Designer; Educator; United States
Galia Solomonoff
Architect; United States
Adam Tihany
Architect, Interior Designer, Product/Industrial Designer; United States
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