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.

title a–z

all genres

covers

view as:
covers
list

2000 books

Life with Picasso Françoise Gilot On Tod Williams’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Life? or Theatre? (Leben? oder Theater?) Charlotte Salomon On George Tscherny’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Light & Shadow Daido Moriyama On Reed Krakoff’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Light in August William Faulkner On Peter Eisenman’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Light is the Theme Louis Kahn On Ian Ritchie’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Lina Bo Bardi Instituto Lina Bo e P.M. Bardi On Jeanne Gang’s Book List On Nathalie de Vries’s Book List On Jens Holm’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Lincoln at Gettysburg Garry Wills On Alexander Cooper’s Book List On Jaquelin Robertson’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Line and Form Walter Crane On Eva Zeisel’s Book List Add to My Reading List
L’intraitable beauté du monde Edouard Glissant et al. On Pierre Bernard’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Little Golden Book of Words Selma Lola Chambers On Debbie Millman’s Book List Add to My Reading List	A Little History of the World Ernst (E. H.) Gombrich On Tom Coward’s Book List On Daisy Froud’s Book List On Vincent Lacovara’s Book List On Geoff Shearcroft’s Book List On Ken Carbone’s Book List On Michael Manfredi’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Little Novels of Sicily Giovanni Verga On Michael Maharam’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince) Antoine de Saint-Exupéry On Alberto Alessi’s Book List On Marco Romanelli’s Book List On David Kelley’s Book List On Hartmut Esslinger’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Lives of the Artists Giorgio Vasari On Alexa Hampton’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Lives of the Artists Calvin Tomkins On Cynthia Rowley’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Lives of the Great Composers Harold C. Schonberg On Alexander Cooper’s Book List Add to My Reading List
Lives of the Great Twentieth Century Artists Edward Lucie-Smith On Seymour Chwast’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Living Annie Dillard On Tod Williams’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Living Museum Samuel Cauman On Richard Meier’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Living Room Nick Waplington et al. On Todd Oldham’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Living Well Is the Best Revenge Calvin Tomkins On George Lois’s Book List On Cynthia Rowley’s Book List On David Easton’s Current Reading list Add to My Reading List	Lo Studio Boggeri 1933–1981 Bruno Monguzzi On Carin Goldberg’s Book List On Angus Hyland’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Location and Space Economy Walter Isard On Denise Scott Brown’s Book List On Robert Venturi’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Lolita Vladimir Nabokov On Richard Meier’s Book List On Michael Sorkin’s Book List On Massimo Vignelli’s Book List On Chip Kidd’s Book List On Peter Mendelsund’s Book List On Inga Sempé’s Book List On Michael Rock’s Book List Add to My Reading List
London Fields Martin Amis On David Weeks’s Book List Add to My Reading List	London Orbital Iain Sinclair On Jonathan Barnbrook’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Londongrad Mark Hollingsworth et al. On Carl Magnusson’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Long Ago in France M. F. K. Fisher On Billie Tsien’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Long Walk to Freedom Nelson Mandela On Richard Meier’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Long Slow March Clifton Meador On Warren Lehrer’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Longing for Darkness: Kamante’s Tales from Out of Africa Kamante et al. On Warren Lehrer’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Longitude Dava Sobel On Bruce Hannah’s Book List Add to My Reading List
Look at the Land Alex MacLean et al. On Denise Scott Brown’s Book List On Robert Venturi’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Look Homeward, Angel Thomas Wolfe On Eric Owen Moss’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Lord Byron’s Doctor Paul West On Greg Lynn’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Lord Peter Dorothy Sayers On Margaret McCurry’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies Reyner Banham On Norman Foster’s Book List On Nathalie de Vries’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Lothar Meggendorfers Spielwelt Hildegard Krahe On Seymour Chwast’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Lotus and the Robot Arthur Koestler On Craig Hodgetts’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Louis Kahn: Conversations with Students Louis I. Kahn On Peter Bohlin’s Book List Add to My Reading List

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Order the book.