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.

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2000 books

100 Years of Western Wear Tyler Beard On Kit Hinrichs’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The 100 Mile City Deyan Sudjic On Norman Foster’s Book List Add to My Reading List	One Special Summer Jacqueline Bouvier et al. On Todd Oldham’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	One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel García Márquez On Mels Crouwel’s Book List Add to My Reading List	101 Best Australian Beaches Andy Short et al. On Alexander Haldemann’s Book List Add to My Reading List	100 Best Bikes Zahid Sardar On Jens Martin Skibsted’s Book List Add to My Reading List	One Gear Matteo Cossu On Craig Dykers’s Current Reading list Add to My Reading List
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest Ken Kesey On Tom Kundig’s Book List Add to My Reading List	One-Dimensional Man Herbert Marcuse On Ian Ritchie’s Book List Add to My Reading List	One Arm Tennessee Williams On Ralph Rucci’s Book List Add to My Reading List	On Weathering Mohsen Mostafavi et al. On Barry Bergdoll’s Book List On list of Books by Mohsen Mostafavi Add to My Reading List	On the Road Jack Kerouac On Michael Sorkin’s Book List On Rudy VanderLans’s Book List Add to My Reading List	On the Nature of Things (De Rerum Natura) Titus Lucretius On Emilio Ambasz’s Book List On Temple St. Clair’s Book List Add to My Reading List	On the Art of Building in Ten Books Leon Battista Alberti On Daniel Libeskind’s Book List Add to My Reading List	On Photography Susan Sontag On Jennifer Morla’s Book List On Véronique Vienne’s Book List On Ian Ritchie’s Book List Add to My Reading List
On Nature Heraclitus On Daniel Libeskind’s Book List Add to My Reading List	On Intelligence Jeff Hawkins On Tim Brown’s Book List Add to My Reading List	On Growth and Form D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson On Antoine Predock’s Book List On Stanley Abercrombie’s Book List On Jeanne Gang’s Book List On James Biber’s Book List Add to My Reading List	On Grief and Reason Joseph Brodsky On Juhani Pallasmaa’s Book List Add to My Reading List	On Food and Cooking Harold McGee On Tim Brown’s Book List On Dan Formosa’s Book List Add to My Reading List	On Being Blue William Gass On Deborah Berke’s Book List Add to My Reading List	On Being and Essence Thomas Aquinas On Ralph Rucci’s Book List Add to My Reading List	On Beauty Zadie Smith On Stefan Sagmeister’s Book List Add to My Reading List
On Adam’s House in Paradise Joseph Rykwert On Stanley Tigerman’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Omnivore’s Dilemma Michael Pollan On Elizabeth Diller’s Book List On Ricardo Scofidio’s Book List On Penny Drue Baird’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Old Yeller Fred Gipson On Michael Sorkin’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Office Robert Propst On Carola Zwick’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Of Grammatology Jacques Derrida On Peter Eisenman’s Book List On Ellen Lupton’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Oeuvres completes, vol. 1 Georges Bataille et al. On Alberto Alessi’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Odyssey Homer On Eric Owen Moss’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	Obras Completas: Meditaciones y ensayos espirituales Miguel de Unamuno On Enrique Norten’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Obras Completas (Complete Works) Jorges Luis Borges On Enrique Norten’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Oblomov Ivan Goncharov On Alexander Cooper’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	Obedience to Authority Stanley Milgram On Chip Kidd’s Book List Add to My Reading List	O-Kee-Pa George Catlin On George Lois’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death Corinne May Botz On James Biber’s Book List Add to My Reading List

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.”

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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.

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