Chosen Books

Invited designers and commentators have chosen these as the books that inspire them and that have shaped their worldview or their ideas about design.

title z–a

Nonfiction, Art and Cultural History

covers

view as:
covers
list

240 books

Shadow of the Silk Road Colin Thubron On Alan Balfour’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Sense of Order E. H. (Ernst) Gombrich On Calvin Tsao’s Book List On Ed Ng’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees Lawrence Weschler On Maya Lin’s Book List On Glenn Pushelberg’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Sculptures of Picasso Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler On George Lois’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Saul Steinberg Harold Rosenberg On Kit Hinrichs’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Russian Avant-Garde Book 1910–1934 Margit Rowell et al. On Paula Scher’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Ron Mueck: A Girl Ron Mueck On Aldo Bakker’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Rodchenko and the Arts of Revolutionary Russia David Elliott On Carin Goldberg’s Book List Add to My Reading List
Robert Smithson Eugenie Tsai On Paula Scher’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Richard Serra, Sculpture Kynaston McShine et al. On Juergen Riehm’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Relational Aesthetics Nicolas Bourriaud On David Adjaye’s Book List On Florian Idenburg’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Rediscovered Masterpieces of Mesoamerica Gerald Berjonneau et al. On Lisa Jenks’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Rachel Feinstein Bill Powers, ed. et al. On Cynthia Rowley’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Punk’s Dead Simon Barker et al. On Anna Sui’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Problem of Form in Painting and Sculpture Adolf von Hildebrand On Neil Denari’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Power of the Center Rudolf Arnheim On Milton Glaser’s Book List Add to My Reading List
Portraits: Talking with Artists at the Met, the Modern, the Louvre and Elsewhere Michael Kimmelman On Jennifer Morla’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Portrait of Picasso as a Young Man Norman Mailer On Richard Meier’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Popular Culture and High Culture Herbert J. Gans On Denise Scott Brown’s Book List On Robert Venturi’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Pomona Houses Marcia Hafif On Prem Krishnamurthy’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Place of Narrative Marilyn Aronberg Lavin On Denise Scott Brown’s Book List On Robert Venturi’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Pig 05049 Christien Meindertsma On Alice Rawsthorn’s Book List On James Biber’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Picabia Maria Lluisa Borras On Paula Scher’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (from A to B and Back Again) Andy Warhol On Carin Goldberg’s Book List On Karim Rashid’s Book List On Jonathan Adler’s Book List On Jonathan Barnbrook’s Book List On Victoria Meyers’s Book List Add to My Reading List
Pedagogical Sketchbook Paul Klee On Jürgen Mayer H.’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Passport Saul Steinberg On Tom Geismar’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Painting as a Pastime Winston Churchill On Ken Carbone’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy Michael Baxandall On Ralph Rucci’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Ornament Stuart Durant On Lisa Jenks’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths Rosalind Krauss On Abbott Miller’s Book List On Victoria Meyers’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Open Work (Opera aperta) Umberto Eco On Massimo Vignelli’s Book List On Marco Romanelli’s Book List Add to My Reading List	One Place after Another Miwon Kwon On Zoë Ryan’s Book List Add to My Reading List
On Being Blue William Gass On Deborah Berke’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Oceanic Art Anthony J. P. Meyer On Lisa Jenks’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Ocean Flowers Carol Armstrong et al. On Ken Carbone’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Object to Be Destroyed: The Work of Gordon Matta-Clark Pamela M. Lee On Christian Wassmann’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Nude Kenneth Clark On Chris Bangle’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Nothing if Not Critical Robert Hughes On Richard Meier’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Notebooks of Paul Klee, vol. 2: The Nature of Nature Jürg Spiller, ed. On Richard Saul Wurman’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Notebooks of Paul Klee, vol. 1: The Thinking Eye Jürg Spiller, ed. On Richard Saul Wurman’s Book List Add to My Reading List

comments powered by Disqus

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.

Order the book.

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.

Order the book.

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.

Order the book.

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.

Order the book.

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.”

Order the book.

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.

Order the book.