February 16, 2008

The Winner...and the Book Thing Bonanza

The winner of the I Coloniali soap is Julie, aka Kitchenography! This worked out perfectly, since she and I were getting together to make a trip to the Book Thing. She really scored there, too. She found a biography of Diana Vreeland, with a photo of the famous red room on the back cover. How I managed to miss that is beyond me. I think that I've convinced her to let me read it when she's finished. I did get one very interesting book... it's called Elements of Interior Decoration, by Sherill Whiton, the first director of the New York School of Interior Design. This is the second printing of this book, originally published in 1937. There have been at three more printings and revisions of this book and the title has changed slightly. Here's some information about the fifth and current printing.

Alumni of the School include Mariette Himes Gomez; Mica Ertegun and best-selling author and designer Alexandra Stoddard among others. The school also publishes design and other books, including Albert Hadley: Drawings and the Design Process.
One of the charming features of the book is a page right at the beginning which has 16 small swatches of "typical background colours", ranging from French Gray to Cucumber. The book is illustrated by hundreds of line drawings, as well as loads of black and white photographs. I think that it will be a hugely useful reference book. Another good day at the Book Thing!

5 comments:

  1. Score on the DV book! I have the Whiton book and it's pretty interesting. Good photos towards the back too!

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  2. The I Coloniali soap is beautiful! I'm spending my time inhaling it, and thinking that it's just too nice to use for every day bathing. I need an I Coloniali-worthy occasion.

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  3. The Whiton book was our textbook for Interior Design at Arizona State in the 70's. Makes me look really, really old! I still have mine.

    I'm trying to find a Book Thing around these parts. No luck so far (like I need more books). Wish I could get to Baltimore to eat some mussels at Bertha's.

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  4. Decorina... I think that Book Thing is a one off! We're super lucky to have it here in Baltimore. I just had mussels and oysters for lunch yesterday! YUMMMMM!

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