Richard Sachs

Bicycle Builder / United States / Richard Sachs Cycles

www.richardsachs.com / www.richardsachscyclocross.com

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.

Nonfiction, Textile Design

title a–z

2 books

Maharam Agenda

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Michael Maharam

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!

The Savile Row Story

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Richard Walker

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.

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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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