André Leon Talley

Critic; Curator; Writer; Editor; Lecturer; Executive / Fashion Design / United States / Numéro Russia; Vogue

Books Are a Man’s Best Friend

I remember the first book I read and loved as a child: Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert. Then I read Germinal. I was around ten years old. Of course by the time I was in my early teens I was more fascinated by reading articles in magazines and newspapers like Vogue and the New York Times, which I did every Sunday afternoon.

I don’t have any critera for selecting reading matter. I learned early that to read is to be illuminated. To read is to be empowered. Knowledge is power. Therefore I will choose any book on any subject (except perhaps natural sciences, chemistry, or psychology)—history, biographies, novels, great authors—it does not matter.

In high school I would walk the stalls of the library and read the titles on the book spines. What struck my eye is what I selected. Today, I’ll make a spontaneous selection at a bookstore or if I read an article by Michiko Kakutani of the New York Times—I run to buy anything she reviews. I never read on an electronic device; I tried a Kindle—it just didn't make it for me. I need to crack open a book and turn a page.

To borrow from “Diamonds are a girl's best friend,” books are a man’s best friend.

Nonfiction, Product/Industrial Design

title a–z

0 books

No books meet the selected criteria

comments powered by Disqus

Announcements

Between Memory and Invention: My Journey in Architecture by Robert A.M. Stern

Between Memory and Invention: My Journey in Architecture

By Robert A.M. Stern
Publisher: The Monacelli Press
Published: March 2022

Architect, historian, and educator Robert A. M. Stern presents a personal and candid assessment of contemporary architecture and his fifty years of practice.

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.

Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World’s Most Creative People by Debbie Millman

Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World's Most Creative People

By Debbie Millman
Publisher: Harper Design
Published: February 22, 2022

Debbie Millman—author, educator, brand consultant, and host of the widely successful and award-winning podcast “Design Matters”—showcases dozens of her most exciting interviews, bringing together insights and reflections from today’s leading creative minds from across diverse fields.

Order the book.

Growing Up Underground: A Memoir of Counterculture New York by Steven Heller

Growing Up Underground: A Memoir of Counterculture New York

By Steven Heller
Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press
Published: October 2022

An entertaining coming-of-age memoir from Steven Heller, award-winning designer, writer, and former senior art director at the New York Times, that takes readers on a visually inspired look back at being at the center of New York’s youth culture in the 1960s and ’70s.

Pre-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.

Buildings in Print: 100 Influential and Inspiring Illustrated Architecture Books by John Hill

Buildings in Print: 100 Influential and Inspiring Illustrated Architecture Books

By John Hill
Publisher: Prestel Publishing
Published: June 2021

This unique volume by the founder of the hugely influential architecture blog A Daily Dose of Architecture showcases the best illustrated architecture books ever published with an informed, personal, and engaging take on what makes the title unique and indispensable.

Order the book.