Interior Design Books

Interior Design Magazine and McGraw Hill Publishing teamed up to produce an essential handbook for the interior design profession. For the first time there is a handbook that covers essential issues from sustainability to legal issues, team dynamics to strategic and global practices. This is not just a book for the interior design professional library, but one for students and for practitioners of related fields--including architecture, business, and project management. Editor-in-Chief Cindy Coleman is a well-regarded journalist and designer who has assembled a remarkable group of top-notch minds--the best and the brightest in the evolving field of interior design who have contributed to a handsome book. This handbook will be a "must-have" for all practioners. Kudos to Interior Design magazine for developing this authoritative volume. Includes a list of contributors with biographies that are stellar!

Interior Design Handbook of Professional Practice. Edited by Cindy Coleman; Published by McGraw-Hill and Interior Design Magazine. This book presents sensible new information and is indispensable to the libraries of all design firms. You'll especially enjoy the chapters on "Growing A Profession," Intelligent Interiors" and "Information Technology." This is more than a reference book-it's an inspriation.

As a university Professor, I highly recommend this book. It covers all the fundamentals of Design, from historical background to all interior design mchanics. This is it!

If you are an Interior Design student or professor, you will enjoy reading this book, I highly recommend it. Mr. Pile is an authority in this subject, I have been teaching and reading his books for over 3 decades.

I give high rating, enjoy learning.

Michele Beatriz

John Pile's this book and his other book on color are absolutely the best books I have ever laid my hands on. These books are what every magazine article is about; most books on interiors have about a 1/10 of what is in these two books. REcommended for serious homeowners and professionals.

I read and re-read this book so much I had to buy a 2nd copy. Lots of gorgeous pictures of unusual interiors!

One of my all time favorite books on interior design.
I have bought this book a number of times to give as gifts.
Great photos & great selection of homes shown.
I've never tired of flipping through this book.

I really enjoyed "International Country"! Not only are the photos breathtaking, the book gives us a broader sense of country style. It infuses primitive with rural...& takes us to Spain, Italy, etc. This is by far the best book I've seen on country decor!

If you like the informality, ease and practicality of country style decorating but find you branch out a bit, adding new ideas to your old favorites, you'll love this book. Amazingly, diverse treatments from far flung areas as Britain and France prove that they can blend with traditional American country styles. The 400 full-color photos in the book offer inspiration for those who prefer to get their ideas from pictures or demonstrations and there is also detailed information on how to achieve each style - from wall treatments to furniture and accessories.

If you like Neoclassic furniture, this is the one and only book you should have. It profiles all of the best Neoclassic furniture (in my opinion); that made in Italy.

Besides offering a lavish production so that each piece is really viewable, this book compiles virtually every piece of the style. It's an amazing but delicious encyclopedia.

This is a necessity for anyone who loves the style or needs authoritative information on it.

This is a fantastic sourcebook for collectors and dealers, and, I imagine, students. Fascinating text; high quality production (you get what you pay for) that makes it a lifelong reference and a handsome addition to one's library; fine photography of an amazing array of the best furniture from this time; and tastful, classic design. The representation surpassed my expectations--this book is the definitive, the one and only, the first thing to go to when researching a piece. I am most surprised by the historical overviews as they read extremely well. Not every piece is covered in extreme detail, but everything I've thought to look up has been there with a useful passage of at least a few paragraphs. The book is quite large and covers all the essentials and more.

I bought this book after reading John Roderick's book 'Minka' which came out in September this year. 'Minka' is all about the loving restoration of a 200 year old Japanese farmhouse. Having been fortunate enough to live in Japan for 3 years from 1997 til 2,000 and having visited several minka while there,I loved this book for its inspirational delivery. That book then lead me to this next book 'Japanese Country Style' because it is written by the Japanese architect/art dealer who was responsible for moving the original minka in the first book. It shows all the minka he has been responsible for lovingly rescuing, restoring and adapting to modern day living requirements. I am planning a trip to Japan specifically to visit some of these wonderful buildings. They have spirit and beauty.

Enjoyable reading. The author lovingly describes how he relocated and remodeled a selection of traditional Japanese farm houses that otherwise would have been destroyed. The descriptions of each house includes anectodal notes as well as beautiful photos of the houses interiors & exteriors. Thank goodness there are people who are interested in preserving a nation's cultural heritage.

Right from the start, this book is interesting. It aims to "build bridges between fields of study which used to be connected at the beginning of modern criticism but which the demands of specialization have increasingly separated" (p 8).

To give an example: under the section on Hellenism, Judaism and Christianity, there is an overview of the History of Religions theory, and the problems with it: "(mystery religions) were not so widespread as had been thought, and did not have the missionary character attributed to them. And most important of all, they did not reach the peak of their development until the 2nd century" (p 31).

There is an overview, also, of all current research into the Old Testament, including the most recent scholarship. The Qumran material is gone into, with explanations to why recent studies no longer emphasize sharp distinctions between normative, official, and marginal Judaism.

I was especially impressed with the section on books, oral transmission, and the ancient world. While the "codex became the best travelling companion for the missionary" (p 99) for the Christian, the roll was kept in Judaism. The bible was never meant to be read in private in a low voice, "but to be declaimed in a loud voice and even accompanied by psalmody in a liturgical assembly" (p 105). Oral transmission was paramount in the Torah. Even today, there are Jews who can recite the Torah from memory.

Also it's very helpful that after each section, such as hermeneutics, there is a list of the books for further study.

The research from so many different fields is included that I can hardly go into them all. Some issues discussed: the lectory didaskalos, who made sure the text was faithfully copied, Jerome, Augustine, the Gnostics, all the different varieties of the bible, from the old Syriac version to every other copy and the Vulgate, and odd bits of information such as the fact that Coptic did not become a written language until the need to translate the bible in 200 AD.

Anyone with any interest in biblical studies would find this book invaluable.

Condensed but Thorough:
In this bench marking reference on the subject of Biblical History, for which its translator W. Watson should be highly praised, and Brill Eerdmans is commented, is a rare reference in depth on the subject.
In five integral Chapters he takes you in a fast and masterful scholarly erudition from the Bible, an ancient world Book, to Modern Hermeneutics and Interpretation, in a logical and thoughtful order, not sacrificing the vivid details for the textual instructional target. Continuing in chapter II; in Collection of Biblical books, and their Canon, criteria of canonicity, it delves in chapter III, elaborating (100 pages), on the OT & NT Versions (Syriac Vetus Syra & Pesitta to Arabic & Slavonic), and their history. The author got time and space, to even include some Patristic quotations, and review the witness of some of the most ancient and trustworthy Alexandrian texts: Alexandrinus, Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, and last century great discoveries of oldest bible papyri, in Egypt.

Serious but Legible Book:
A criterion for deciding on such a scholarlya book, is to check few subject enteries to find answers for your queries.
Q: I was curious to see if any book of the genre ever mentioned the proto- Canaanite script.
A:The answer may be found on page 83: "The oldest alphabetic script, however was found in 24 inscriptions from the Sinai peninsula, and according to many scholars, can be dated around 1400 BCE, but which could well go back to 1800 more or less. These Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions were written in a consonantal alphabet derived from Egyptian hieroglyphic writing by the acrophonic system."
Now, you could ask your own questions and find out if you are satisfied with the answers!

Book for Scholars?
Barrera Hebrew bible scholarship speaks for its merits, and his editorial work in "Qumran Cave 4. IX: Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Kings," is a scholarly break-through.
Professor Barrera took a challenge of availing such biblical scholarship to all interested on a vital subject, lay and and scholars, and excelled. Although this encyclopedic, up to date, reference book on the subject that guides the specialized through, deserve praise, yet the hard back price is beyond the reach of the lay, even the paperback edition is relatively costly, as a text book

Barrera, Julio Trebolle:
Julio Trebolle Barrera, a member of the Dead Sea Scrolls International Editors, is a Spanish professor of Hebrew/Aramaic, who translated, authored and edited many books from Qumran and on Biblical and literary criticism to contemporary hermeneutics. His book "A 'Canon within a Canon': Two Series of Old Testament Books Differently Transmitted, Interpreted and Authorized," Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995, is a fine witness to this book.
His diversified though in depth expertise, that enriched his scholarly career, while his Biblical and other linguistic tools, supported by a wealth of unparalleled information, available to few of the Dead Sea Scrolls experts, grant him a unique authority in this field.

I went to the public library and looked through dozens of books on color in interior design before choosing three to buy, and this was one of the three. The author first discusses the history of color then makes presentations of varying length to showcase a number of historical (Georgian, Colonial, Rococo, Neoclassical, Victorian, Modernist and Post-Modern), national/regional (Tuscan, Mexican, Moroccan and Shaker) and predominant color (red, yellow, blue, green) schemes. Multiple examples are illustrated by sumptuous photographs, and palettes are included for each.

A concluding chapter on traditional sources of color is very interesting, and supplemental material includes a glossary; a directory to paint suppliers, places to visit, places to stay, and architects & designers; and an index.

(The other two books I chose at the library were J. Poore's Interior Color by Design and C. Barnes's Color for Your Home.)

This book looks at color in interior design from an entirely different perspective from most books on the subject. Each section outlines a different style of home, from historical to regional. It tells you the exact color palette for each style. Most of the book deals with historical styles, and I'm more interested in the regional syles than the historical ones, but it's still a fascinating subject. It's also very helpful when it comes to chosing a color palette for one's home.

I would most likely want to buy this book if it had some scholarly backing. It looks to have some rather exciting information within it, but since I find no scholar reviewing it, I am held back for the present time. As a scholar myself dealing with Ancient Nubia/Kush, I find this subject relative to my interests.

Well, you're not much of a scholar of this subject if you haven't heard of Laszlo Torok. He doesn't need scholarly backing, he IS scholarly backing.

I just bought this book from the National Kitchen and Bath Association website for $50 and the bookstore at my college sells it for $74. It is listed on Amazon for $121. Why the discrepancy in price?

Whoever would like to get this book: Be aware that this is
not a simple book. It is like a college textbook.It is very
technical. If you are building your own home and are not
knowledgable about kitchen details, and you are able to
have a professional kitchen designer design your kitchen,
by all means leave it up to them. But, if you are learning to
be an architect, or interior designer, or kitchen specialist,
or are simply fascinated by kitchen design, OR live outside
the U.S. when professional kitchen designers do not exist and
you want to be ABSOLUTELY SURE that the kitchen is properly
designed, this book is for you. It is the most comprehensive,
most wonderful book on the market (I must have bought half a
dozen other books) It's not enough to know about the kitchen triangle,
you have to know how long each leg has to be, how far a cooktop
must be from a window, how must space must be left on each
side of a stove top, sink, etc. (the only problem is, convincing your architect that you know what you're talking about).
In any case, good luck and enjoy the book.