Anyone who follows me here knows that an addiction to large, gorgeous coffee table books is alive and well, and I have a new favorite…
View More Presidential Residences in FranceCategory: Books
I simply cannot imagine my life without books! The fact I was accused of always having “my nose in a book” as a child was a sign of things to come for sure.
The claim is still true and I am thrilled I’ve created a platform for myself that allows me to use books as windows into time and on the world. I never know when a title is going to jump out at me, and it’s not simply literary titles. I get just as excited over big, beautiful design books that capture my aesthetic imagination, as the ones that did in my diary entry Narratives that Illuminate Design.
It was the fact that Antony Clayton did such a bang-up job of presenting the gestalt of fin-de-siècle London in his book Decadent London that inspired me to build a post around it. I’ve long held a fascination for Aubrey Beardsley, whose comment to Ezra Pound, Beauty is Difficult, sent me on an aesthetical whirlwind of a study at New York University when I was attending graduate school there.
Design writer Carmen Natschke inspired a great post in which I presented her summer reading list. It’s one for the ages, especially given she keeps herself on a stringent learning curve that has her reading constantly. I read a great deal and there is no way I can keep up! In my diary entry The Difficult of Writing Well, I share a bit of dissing that went on between Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein that gave me jaw-dropping pause. I knew the two could get sideways but the snark I discovered while going through Edmund Wilson’s papers at Beinecke made me laugh aloud!
The Hotel de la Marine Restored
In his foreword to The French Royal Wardrobe: The Hotel de la Marine Restored, Philippe Bélaval, the President of the Centre des Monuments Nationaux, illustrates how painstaking…
View More The Hotel de la Marine RestoredSeasons at Highclere
Movie sets that have inflamed the imagination with fairy-tale encounters taking place during the great eras in which luxury ruled are plentiful. But most of…
View More Seasons at HighclereAn Invitation to Vaux-le-Vicomte
In 1641, the 26-year old parliamentarian Nicolas Fouquet, who was then the Master of Requests at the Parlement of Paris, acquired the viscounty of Vaux…
View More An Invitation to Vaux-le-VicomteTreasures According to Petrarch
This essay defining what Petrarch saw as treasures is included in my most recent book The Modern Salonnière. The 34 other essays in the book feature…
View More Treasures According to PetrarchBookstores
I’ve had a long and passionate love affair with bookstores since I can remember. Some of my finest hours have been spent perusing shelves to…
View More BookstoresTatty Wreckage in Buenos Aires
This essay about my frame of mind in Buenos Aires is included in my most recent book The Modern Salonnière. The 34 other essays in…
View More Tatty Wreckage in Buenos AiresLeigh Hunt Avid Decorator
This essay about the decorating exploits of Leigh Hunt is included in my most recent book The Modern Salonnière. The 34 other essays in the…
View More Leigh Hunt Avid DecoratorJim Morrison Irreverent Scribe
This essay exploring Arthur Rimbaud’s influence on Jim Morrison is included in my most recent book The Modern Salonnière. The 34 other essays in the book…
View More Jim Morrison Irreverent ScribeDylan Thomas in America
This essay exploring the downward spiral of Dylan Thomas during tours of America is included in my most recent book The Modern Salonnière. The 34 other…
View More Dylan Thomas in America