Books
New and Noteworthy: Eclectic Gift Books of December
No amount of mockery can make me not love coffee table books. If there really were a coffee table book that turned into a coffee table, I’d be sorely tempted. And if I jenga’d up all the illustrated tomes I possess, surely it would make a functional surface for serving beverages.
Illustrated books make good gifts. Super classy—always a consideration—and the choice of subject can be tailored to the interests of the recipient in a way that other gifts cannot. Perfect for the brother-in-law with an interest in 20th century photography or sailboats. (I have one of each.) Almost every interest has a chunky coffee-table book about it. (One year I got a child a photo catalog of every personal computer/gameboy/palm pilot ever, in an effort to stop him buying them on eBay.)
This month, with gift-giving in mind, we present a small collection of art books that will appeal to knitters, however tangentially. Some of them are new, but all of them are noteworthy.
Why art books for knitters? I’d be interested to know if other knitters feel the same, but looking at art, even if it’s not textile-related (but especially if it is), has a strong influence on what I choose to knit, and my enjoyment of knitting. For designers, this connection must be even stronger.
Here’s a short list of new books I’ve collected this season, and some I’ve got my eye on, waiting for the right recipient. (It could be me.) Please add your suggestions in the comments; time’s a-wasting!
Books About Art
Josef Albers in Mexico
I freely admit that I bought this book because of the cover (fuschia cloth + foil-stamped lettering + that J and that R = swoon), and because it’s about Josef Albers, who has been so influential on people who’ve been so influential on me. I had a good feeling about it, which was validated by the inside of the book, which documents and explores the connections between the artist’s many trips to Mexico with his wife Anni Albers, over the course of decades, and his work. Gorgeous reproductions of Albers’s own photographs of ancient archeological sites, collages and sketches, and paintings.
Anni Albers: Notebook 1970-1980
I love a facsimile book. The tactile realness is so compelling. (Favorite example in my collection: The Gorgeous Nothings: Emily Dickinson’s Envelope Poems.) I haven’t gotten my hands on this one yet (it’s newly published), but the blurb got me like whoa: “Beginning in 1970, Albers filled her graph-paper notebook regularly for ten years. This rare and previously unpublished document of her working process contains intricate drawings for her large body of graphic work, as well as studies for her late knot drawings. The notebook follows Albers’ deliberations and progression as a draftsman in their original form. It reveals the way she went about making complex patterns, exploring them piece by piece, line by line, in a visually dramatic and mysteriously beautiful series of geometric arrangements.”
In the Garden of My Dreams: The Art of Nathalie Lété
Another delicious cover, printed on padded shiny fabric. Inside: an explosion of whimsy, color and imagination. Lété’s work always reminds me of Alice in Wonderland. I find her work particularly inspiring for appliqué and needlepoint. (Please design needlepoint canvases, Mme. Lété!)
Fashion Books
Dries Van Noten 1-50
Dries Van Noten 51-100
If you co-blog with someone who is nuts about the legendary Belgian fashion designer Dries Van Noten, then you already know that 2017 marked his 100th fashion show. THIS IS A HUGE DEAL IN DRIES-LAND AKA ANN’S HOUSE. These books are beautiful. And comprehensive. Hopefully they will stop Ann buying up secondhand Dries on eBay. (There is also a deluxe box set. Dries have mercy!)
Georgia O’Keeffe: Living Modern
If you missed the exhibition of Georgia O’Keeffe’s clothes as it made its way around the United States this year, the book is a marvelous substitute. Combines photographs of O’Keeffe’s clothing (much of it handmade) with images of her paintings, essays, and objects.
Just Pretty
Ibiza Bohemia
I try not to fall for gorgeous books like this too often. Such idealized splendor, so over-the-top. But the cover got me. That, and memories of a trip to Ibiza in August 2015, when the heat was so stifling and the light so blinding that I felt like I was missing the specialness that clearly is there, if you can stop blinking long enough to see it. While I await a chance to visit again in the September-to-May window, I flip through stunning images of what I missed, in this book. Which is pink and red and looks great next to Josef Albers in Mexico.
Earth from Above
Overview: A New Perspective of Earth
We know that views of earth from high up can directly inspire knitwear design. But they are also stunning. These books are glorious and thought-provoking.
Actual Knitting Books
You’ve made it! There are a few new knitting books this month. These are the ones I know about so far, and can’t wait to see.
Plum Dandi Knits: Simple Designs For Luxury Yarns, by Alicia Plummer and Melissa Schaschwary
They had me at “luxury yarns.” These are good designers, and I like what I see popping up on my Instagram, already, from this book.
Thank you for this article and the recommendation for the lovely books that make my mouth water. Though just a quick reminder to say that Dries Van Noten is actually Belgian and not Dutch.
Love your articles, they always make my day, thanks!
O crap Ann is going to kill me! [runs off to edit the text]
Dries forgives all. Dries wants only for us to wear beautiful brocades and military-inspired jackets and prints with palm trees and sweaters with pearls and [runs off to book ticket to Antwerp, The Netherlands Or Wherever]
Flanders. Let’s go to Flanders.
Even more embarrassing than getting the designer’s nationality wrong is that I persist in thinking Antwerp is in the Netherlands. Thank you for the correction!
An error that takes us right back to M. Poirot from yesterday. ‘Excuse me Sir, I am not French…..’. Poor Belgians, always mistaken for someone else!
What was the David Bowie book?
It’s called David Bowie Is.
A wonderful book that is older than I’d realized; it’s the catalog for the Victoria & Albert Museum exhibition on him a few years ago.
I hesitate to add this book, but when it arrived in my mailbox this week I was swept away by its photography of textured surfaces, not to mention the design work and intention within. It certainly has reached the realm of coffee table book, as well as art book and knitting book. Let me add Bristol Ivy’s new Knitting Outside the Box to the list, published by Pompom Press.
I completely agree. The new Bristol Ivy book is amazing!!! I want to knit it all and the quality of the book itself is to die for. Even the cover is made to feel good in your hands.
Love Bristol’s designs. I hadn’t see this book…thanks for enabling!
….and Jen Geigley! ohhohhohh
Loved this round up! ( I am in deep on the coffee table book team). I love looking through them in bookstores when choosing gifts. There was an exhibit of Josef & Anni Albers in the Americas at Yale U Art Gallery earlier this year, if it reappears anywhere, don’t miss it. xox
Alexy Titarenko: The City is a Novel
(beautiful photographs of St. Petersburg, Venice, Havana and New York)
Does anyone remember the episode of Seinfeld that had Kramer creating a coffee table book that had little legs and turned into a coffee table…? A hoot of an episode if ever there was one!
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjehtzwpPPXAhUCQSYKHTWmCfIQtwIIKTAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DdE5ROl2YPbs&usg=AOvVaw0kRHAv5yUvem0kuD6oq2Ya
Thank you for linking to that June Julia Farwell-Clay post: what the heck was I doing that day that I missed it? Gah, gorgeous.
Good afternoon. I would love to but the Set of five bundled field guides Is it possible to buy them as a digital download. i live in Australia and found in the past that postage from America is really high. Jenny Hill
My good friend is a Thrift store fiend. Thursday she presented me with two books that are entitled Modern Daily knitting, and have all of these wonderful patterns and photos. They are big with colorful photos. I believe these must be from you all from some years ago??