Invited designers and commentators have chosen these as the books that inspire them and that have shaped their worldview or their ideas about design.
covers
375 books
The Affluent Society
John Kenneth Galbraith
On Carl Magnusson’s Book List
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After Method
John Law
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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Against Interpretation
Susan Sontag
On Deborah Berke’s Book List
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Against Method
Paul Feyerabend
On Jens Martin Skibsted’s Book List
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The Age of Missing Information
Bill McKibben
On Susan S. Szenasy’s Book List
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Agnes’s Jacket
Gail A. Hornstein
On Jessica Helfand’s Book List
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Agricola and Germania
Cornelius Tacitus et al.
On Diana Balmori’s Book List
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Alongshore
John R. Stilgoe
On Paul Marantz’s Book List
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American Sphinx
Joseph Ellis
On Tom Geismar’s Book List
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Amusing Ourselves to Death
Neil Postman
On Susan S. Szenasy’s Book List
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And the Sea Is Never Full
Elie Wiesel
On Richard Meier’s Book List
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Animals in Translation
Temple Grandin et al.
On Alexander Cooper’s Book List
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Animals Make Us Human
Temple Grandin
On Craig Dykers’s Book List
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Applied Grammatology
Gregory Ulmer
On Abbott Miller’s Book List
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The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen
Jacques Pépin
On Zuzana Licko’s Book List
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The Armada
Garrett Mattingly
On Jaquelin Robertson’s Book List
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The Art of Eating
M. F. K. Fisher
On Billie Tsien’s Book List
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The Art of Fiction
David Lodge
On Ellen Lupton’s Book List
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The Art of Travel
Alain de Botton
On Karim Rashid’s Book List
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The Ascent of Money
Niall Ferguson
On Galia Solomonoff’s Book List
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Au Revoir to All That
Michael Sternberger
On Penny Drue Baird’s Book List
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Autobiography of a Yogi
Parmahansa Yogananda
On Shashi Caan’s Book List
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The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas
Gertrude Stein
On Carin Goldberg’s Book List
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The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin
On Jeanne Gang’s Book List
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The Autobiography of General Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant
On George Lois’s Book List
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Avision
Anthony Lunt
On Harry Pearce’s Book List
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Baedeker’s Rome and Central Italy
Karl Baedeker
On James Biber’s Book List
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Bag of Toys
David France
On Jonathan Adler’s Book List
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Balfour: The Last Grandee
R.J.Q. Adams
On David Easton’s Book List
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Ball Four
Jim Bouton
On Michael Bierut’s Book List
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Basin and Range
John McPhee
On Antoine Predock’s Book List
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The Battle for God
Karen Armstrong
On Alan Balfour’s Book List
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Beautiful People
Simon Doonan
On Jonathan Adler’s Book List
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Being Wrong
Kathryn Schulz
On Milton Glaser’s Book List
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Better
Atul Gawande
On John Maeda’s Book List
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Beyond Geography
Frederick Turner
On Margie Ruddick’s Book List
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Beyond Good and Evil
Friedrich Nietzsche
On Alberto Alessi’s Book List
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Beyond Tragedy
Reinhold Niebuhr
On Eric Owen Moss’s Book List
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Bird by Bird
Ann Lamott
On Gail Anderson’s Book List
On Lisa Jenks’s Current Reading list
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Black Elk Speaks
John Neihardt
On Harry Pearce’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

Michael Maharam
Writer; Executive; United States
Fritz Frenkler
Product/Industrial Designer; Germany
Marion Fasel
Curator; Writer; Editor; Lecturer; United States
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Newly Chosen Books

A Book of Spoons
Jasper Morrison
Hidden Forms
Franco Clivio
Traditional Jewelry of India
Oppi Untracht
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20 Books on Textile Design

British Textiles: 1700 to the Present
Linda Parry
Katsuji Wakisaka: Japanese Textile Designer
Katsuji Wakisaka
Textile Arts of India
Kokyo Hatanaka
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Recent Books by Our Contributors

Diller, Scofidio + Renfro: Lincoln Center Inside Out
Elizabeth Diller, Ricardo Scofidio, and Charles Renfro
Stephen Burrows: When Fashion Danced
Stephen Burrows
Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec: Drawing
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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