Richard Sachs
Richard Sachs’s Book List
These are my books. I’ve had some for a very long time; others are recent acquisitions. Quite a few were gifted to me by their authors. I don’t really have any particular favorites from the pile, but the books about D’Aquisto and Nakashima are the ones I've turned to more often, and over a longer time, than any of the others.
The thread that runs through most of the books shown here is one of focus. They’re about someone, or a staff of someones, or a family business with a long line of someones, all paying attention to detail. All the someones have their heads down trying to understand and tame the material, while simultaneously have their heads up thinking about ways to drive their past into a future. Many of the items written about here may seem like vestiges from another era, but I view them more as designs, crafted goods, and business models that are timeless. In the case of the titles that are not about making things, the same is true—the stories and their authors are beautiful to me.
I haven’t read any of the books on my list. But I have opened them hundreds, maybe thousands of times looking for inspiration or an answer. Each is like a friend, or a therapist, or even just good medicine that I turned to when I needed direction. And I think that fact is reflected in the work I do at my bench. It’s been said that I have built the same bicycle for decades, inferring that I am stuck in time. I don’t think I have ever built the same bicycle twice. I am not sure I’d ever want to build the same bicycle twice.
The pages in these books have been my safe haven. With an attention span that measures on the far left hand side of the meter, I don’t know if I’ll ever have the tools to read (read, as in finish) any of them. I’d love to know what I am missing. In the meantime, I’ll take my small doses since they have served me well. And every time I come back for visit, the results are different. No two alike.
all genres
- filter by:
- all genres (0)
One of my earliest inspirations was Jimmy D’Aquisto. I saw a film about his work on PBS that aired from a local affiliate. More than any other maker whose works I’ve become aware of, I always come back to a fantasy that includes making my bicycles with the skill and humility with which D’Aquisto made his guitars. This book chronicles the lives of Jimmy and his mentor, John D’Angelico.
A gift from one of the authors. In the 1990s, I made several bicycles for Ansel Adams’s business manager, William Turnage. The 15 or so years that our paths overlapped were a gift back to me. The man had a more profound influence on my development than almost anyone else. This was Adams’s last book project, and was printed several years after his death.
One of those titles I bought because of the subject. The contents are too cerebral for me but the story line remains the same: there are some geniuses out there, and there’s a reason folks line up at their doors.
I haven’t read this book end to end, but have opened it and read pages, and looked at illustrations, and then closed it. The point? My spirit and enthusiasm are always renewed when I take note of the lives of craftsmen who have made a mark on their trade. There’s no doubt Strads have a following, whether real or assigned to them through the years by zealots.
This is a very heavy and expensive book that was produced in conjunction with an exhibition called “Archtop Guitars: The Journey from Cremona to New York.” For once, I wanted words, but this one is all about images. It’s too late to ask for a refund!
I bought this book as an extension of my interest in handmade things, fine guitars among them. Scott Chinery commissioned a handful of luthiers to make their own version of a D’Aquisto guitar that Jimmy made for him (Scott) years earlier. The book is a bit too commercial for me. I wanted to know more about the makers, and their thoughts, rather than about the man paying them for the work.
I went through a long period during which I saw analogies between the bespoke shotgun trade and the one I am part of—making racing bicycles by hand. I liked this book for the history it lays out for the reader, but it was a bit too general for me. The book about James Purdey & Sons (see Purdey’s) is the better of the two, in my opinion.
A gift from the author. Allen St. John spends a year and then some watching famed guitar maker Wayne Henderson build a guitar for Eric Clapton. As with some of the other titles, I find many parallels with Henderson’s life, his daily interaction with his material, and how it all fits into the commercial world we inhabit.
Someone gave me this book assuming I could relate. When I have the time, and develop an attention span, I plan to relate.
I was a few years too late to be part of the early Dylan era but have made up for it ever since. He may have taken many cues from folks who preceded him, but the man/artist certainly rearranged it all on his own terms. I respect that.
This is a book produced in Japan and shows the daily lives of two great watchmakers, Daniel Roth and Philippe Dufour. As is the case with other titles listed here, I own this book for the inspiration I get when I see these men at work, at their respective benches, making art that also tells us time.
I met Michael Maharam in 2009 when his firm underwrote an exhibition I was part of at the Museum of Arts and Design in Manhattan. From the first e-mail a year prior to the show’s opening, I felt a kindred spirit in this man. We’ve been friends ever since. When the book came out, I had to own it. It’s like having Michael on my coffee table, but I can pick him up and put him down at my whim!
This was a book I picked up at an antiques store in Gloucester, Massachusetts and hoped I would open it someday. It’s a beautiful book. But I’m still waiting for that day!
A gift from the author, who is a friend as well as longtime client. I also idolize Douglas as a person, a scholar, and a mentor.
This is a book about the origins and history of James Purdey & Sons, a famed family of gunsmiths. I am fascinated by these products, their market, and how—in my era—items such as these comprise the luxury brands that command beyond-high prices and in whose queues folks wait forever before taking delivery. Now that’s a gig.
This is a typical book that made my radar during the 1990s. I thought reading about tailoring on London’s famed street would help me find my way as a bicycle maker. I found it, but this book was never the part of the equation I expected it to be.
A pal of mine is an executive at Vacheron Constantin and gifted me this book. It’s beautiful, but the history and minutiae about watchmaking are a bit much for me. The pictures are killer, though!
I was two years behind Lee (Mindel) at The Peddie School. He has an established presence in the art and design world and I have tried to follow it through the various media outlets. When the book was announced, I was quick to pre-order it. The pages show his firm’s work, talk about its history, and each photo could be framed and mounted. If this book doesn’t inspire you, check your pulse.
A gift from the author. I worked with Julie during the exhibition “Bespoke: The Handbuilt Bicycle” at the Museum of Arts and Design (on view in 2010). We’ve been friends ever since. Julie did the book that accompanied the show, and after I read the chapter she wrote about me and my business, I decided that she got to know me better, and in a shorter period of time, than any journalist I have ever worked with.
I bought this book in the late 1980s when it first was published. I wanted more from my trade, and from the time spent at the bench, and found bicycles dull. When I started to cast a net out to try to catch inspiration—this book fell right in my lap, and has remained there ever since. Similar to what I write about Acquired of the Angels, the more I learned about Nakashima, the harder I tried to channel it into the work I was doing with metal.
A pal and industry colleague of mine, Grant Peterson, gave me this book 20 years ago. We were going through periods of introspection, each looking for more in our trade than the trade itself offered back. If I recall, Grant thought a book like this one could strengthen our resolve, and we’d both be better people and craftsmen for having read it.
A gift from the author. Bill chronicles a season on a bicycle, the racing he does, and how so much of it mirrors the lives we lead.
A gift from the artist with whom I share a last name. Beautiful. And heavy.
Ben is a journalist who has written about me and my business several times over the years. This book reminds us that everything (towns, too) gets a second chance.
It might be unfair to compare craftsmen at all, much less folks whose eras never overlapped. But Samuel Zygmuntowicz, in this book, is written about as the incarnate of the renowned violin makers of Cremona many centuries ago. It’s refreshing (to me) to read the maker’s thoughts about his studio work, minus all the lore that’s typically attached to a legend who has long since passed. The writer and the violin maker both talk about the craft and the business in very pragmatic terms. Of all my titles, I have spent the most time with this one, hoping to find parallels with the trade I am part of.
Announcements
Now is Better by Stefan Sagmeister
Now is Better
By Stefan Sagmeister
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: October 2023
Combining art, design, history, and quantitative analysis, transforms data sets into stunning artworks that underscore his positive view of human progress, inspiring us to think about the future with much-needed hope.
Design Emergency: Building a Better Future by Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Design Emergency: Building a Better Future
By Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: May 2022
Rawsthorn and Antonelli tell the stories of the remarkable designers, architects, engineers, artists, scientists, and activists who are at the forefront of positive change worldwide. Focusing on four themes—Technology, Society, Communication, and Ecology—the authors present a unique portrait of how our great creative minds are developing new design solutions to the major challenges of our time, while helping us to benefit from advances in science and technology.
.png)
Love Letter to a Garden by Debbie Millman
Love Letter to a Garden
By Debbie Millman
Contributions by Roxane Gay
Publisher: Timber Press
Published: April 15, 2025
From the award-winning artist, designer, and the host of the podcast Design Matters, Debbie Millman, this book tells the visual story of falling in love with gardening—and the philosophies that work conjures. Spread throughout are simple recipes using the garden’s ingredients from Millman’s wife, best-selling author Roxane Gay.
Milton Glaser: POP by Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber
Milton Glaser: POP
By Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber
Publisher: The Monacelli Press
Published: March 2023
This collection of work from graphci design legend Milton Glaser’s Pop period features hundreds of examples of the designer’s work that have not been seen since their original publication, demonstrating the graphic revolution that transformed design and popular culture.
.png)
Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall by Alexandra Lange
Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall
By Alexandra Lange
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: June 2022
Chronicles postwar architects’ and merchants’ invention of the shopping mall, revealing how the design of these marketplaces played an integral role in their cultural ascent. Publishers Weekly writes, “Contending that malls answer ‘the basic human need’ of bringing people together, influential design critic Lange advocates for retrofitting abandoned shopping centers into college campuses, senior housing, and ‘ethnocentric marketplaces’ catering to immigrant communities. Lucid and well researched, this is an insightful study of an overlooked and undervalued architectural form.”
Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition) by Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller
Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition)
By Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller
Publisher: Letterform Archives Books
Published: October 2023
This facsimile edition of Die Fläche, recreates every page of the formative design periodical in full color and at original size, accompanied by essays that contextualize the work, highlighting contributions by pathbreaking women, innovative lettering artists, and key practitioners of the new “surface art,” including Rudolf von Larisch, Alfred Roller, and Wiener Werkstätte founders Koloman Moser and Josef Hoffmann.
Popular NowWeekMonth
- Archigram: The Magazine
- The Book We Need Now: New from Stefan Sagmeister
- Quote of the Day: Witold Rybczynski & Paradise Planned
- Summer Reading for Design Lovers: The Story of Architecture
- One Book and Why: Design School Dean Frederick Steiner Recommends . . .
Recent Articles
