Home & Garden
American Roots
By Nick McCullough
Home gardeners will find so much to love in this beautiful new book, which profiles 20 gardens (and the people who designed them) across America. From those on vast amounts of land to those in small spaces, each modern home garden in the book is thoughtfully designed and tended to, whether filled with flowers, vegetables, potted plants, or any number of combinations. I found so many ideas and much inspiration (especially from the profile of Keith Robinson’s garden), but also just truly enjoyed reading about people who love gardening as much as I do. —S.B.
Patina Modern
By Chris Mitchell & Pilar Guzman
Power couple Chris Mitchell and Pilar Guzman make home design look effortless and inviting by mixing modern design with timeworn materials, while keeping practicality a nonnegotiable. Not only are the ideas contained in Patina Modern beautiful and inspiring; the book itself is a design lover’s dream, with incredible photography and clean white space that draws your eye to read on. A directory in the back lists the pair’s favorite designers and their iconic pieces, spanning decades and continents. Truly a cover-to-cover experience in modern design. —Jenny
Marie Kondo's Kurashi at Home: How to Organize Your Space and Achieve Your Ideal Life
By Marie Kondo
Fellow Marie Kondo fans will be as excited as I am to hear that, in her new book, Kondo takes us inside her very own home! Here we are promised a look at her real-life routines and rituals with her husband and three children, delivered with her signature gentle humor and pragmatic wisdom, alongside breathtakingly lovely photo spreads of home life, food, and family. —Yves
Beyond the Garden
By Dana Davidsen
Written by a Bay Area landscape designer, this gorgeous guide to innovative and ecologically friendly gardens is great for anyone interested in green spaces—from home gardeners to landscape architects. Reinforcing the belief that thoughtful design and awareness of ecosystems lead to beautiful and sustainable gardens, the 20 featured projects utilize techniques like stormwater conservation, using no-mow ground cover, and planning for resilience, all without sacrificing beauty. Visually stunning and highly informative.—S.B.
Living in the Forest
By Phaidon Editors
A home in the woods might bring to mind a dark log cabin with smoke coming from the chimney, but this book showcases a different design aesthetic: contemporary houses. Among the 50 stunning properties (“built to frame the forest, built in harmony with the forest, or to become the forest”) are a small, light-filled home on Whidbey Island in the Pacific Northwest, an A-frame house nestled on a nature reserve in a second-growth forest in Brazil, and a solar-powered home in Tulum, Mexico. Woodland living never looked so gorgeous. —S.B.
Plant Coach: The Beginner's Guide to Caring for Plants and the Planet
By Nick Cutsumpas
“They will not look perfect 100 percent all the time…. Yellow leaves happen.” The perfectionist in me appreciates Nick Cutsumpas’s reassuring words in his debut plant guide, Plant Coach. This book is more than just “how to keep your plants alive, one method fits all”; it is filled with the kind of encouragement that all plant parents need. Part guide, part ode to sustainability, and an excellent part of any plant lover’s library.
—Kristina
Remodelista: The Low-Impact Home
By Margot Guralnick & Fan Winston
Can style and sustainability coexist? Guralnick, editor of Remodelista, and Winston, founding editor of the Organized Home, combine their talents to answer, emphatically, yes. Their new book is filled with strategies to steal (like composting lint from your dryer), low-impact rules (“fix it first”), and easy habit shifts (rags instead of paper towels). They follow up their practical advice with profiles of 12 stylish, eco-conscious homes around the world, including a hemp compound in England, a cohousing commune in Oakland, and a net-zero house in Australia. Beautiful and inspiring! —S.B.
Bloom: Flowering Plants for Indoors and Balconies
By Lauren Camilleri & Sophia Kaplan
You don’t need a yard to have an inspired collection of blooming plants; just look to Lauren Camilleri and Sophia Kaplan, the creative plant geniuses behind the interior design nursery Leaf Supply. Bloom is their beautifully styled plant guide, celebrating flowering plants that grow happily indoors and on small balconies. The tips and tricks on growing and the styling ideas will inspire even the most novice green thumb. —Kristina