Love Style
By Juliet Love
New Holland, hardback, rrp $40
Love Style, which shares its name with its author's interior design business, is a step-by-step guide to beautifying your home.
Stylist, designer and television host Juliet Love begins her book with a quote from Elsie de Wolfe, interior decorating's first lady: "I am going to make everything around me beautiful. That will be my life." It's a sentiment that
Love herself clearly takes to heart, and is keen to share with readers via bright and glossy photography and easy-to-follow directions.
The book covers everything from finding inspiration and defining one's own tastes to working on a budget and selecting the perfect window treatments.
Every room in the house is discussed with consideration to its history and purpose, and Love explains various designing the perfect concepts such as the psychology of colour and spatial awareness in a no-nonsense manner that will appeal to the everyday reader who just wants to spruce up his or her living space.
Seaside Living: 50 Remarkable Houses
The Images Publishing Group, hardback, rrp $59.95
Despite being land mammals, humans have always been drawn to the sea. As architectural photographer Russell Abraham points out in his introduction to this compendium of waterfront homes, these days about 80 per cent of the world's population lives within 100 kilometres of an ocean.
For architects, designing homes that sit by the sea is simultaneously a thrill and a challenge, offering the opportunity to be creative but also posing environmental limits.
Fifty results from around the world that stood up to this task fill the pages of Seaside Living.
There are designs ranging from the traditional to the innovative, from shores in Japan, the United States and Norway and those much closer to home.
As it's published by The Images Publishing Group, it is unsurprising that this tome is primarily a photo album of beach house designs and the rugged landscapes they sit upon, but each entry is accompanied by several paragraphs providing context and background.
The Maker
By Tamara Maynes
Murdoch Books, hardback, rrp $59.99
Local designer, maker, stylist and creative director Tamara Maynes is a mover and shaker on the burgeoning Aussie craft scene, and her DIY projects have been splashed across various interiors magazines.
The Maker is her first book and self-described "magnum opus", a guide to inspire other aspiring or established artisans to get crafty at home.
The book has an undeniably personal flair, covering Maynes' own history, love of craft and the psychology of fellow makers in a warm, chatty tone. It's neatly split into 10 chapters, and after an intro and background it dives into projects for the reader to try at home, organised into categories such as wall art, textiles, ceramics and furniture.
There's a handy illustrated guide to the tools in a maker's arsenal at the back, as well as a comprehensive list of creative sorts to follow online for inspiration. Eve Wilson's accompanying photography throughout is elegant and beautifully styled.
All In Good Taste
Kate Spade New York
Abrams, hardback, rrp $35
For those who want a 21st-century spin on Miss Manners, All In Good Taste comes from the New York-based fashion and design house Kate Spade. Presented as a comprehensive guide to hosting in the modern age, the book's chapters are somewhat loosely categorised into the subjects of entertaining, wining and dining, manners and style, though there's fluidity to its approach.
Recipes are offered alongside personal essays and stories, and blank pages at the end of each section allow readers to make their own notes re party plans.
There are step-by-step suggestions for decorating and encouraging witty repartee among dinner and party guests, and tips for all-ages entertaining and parlour games.
Unsurprisingly, the tone is very New York (keep an eye out for the section on boozy brunches - something Australians really should embrace more enthusiastically), making this a suitable volume for Manhattan-philes and Sex and the City fans.
