reading LIST

Celebrate the festive season with our picks of the best art and design books, worthy of a spot beneath your tree

- Catherine Coyle

1 Creating a New Home in Mallorca

Artists, like interior designers, treat their homes differently to regular Joes. Their eye is keener, their vision is deeper and they have an ability to look beyond simply ‘dressing’ a space. That is certainly the case for Malene Birger; the Danish artist and fashion designer's Mallorcan retreat was an abandoned wreck when she first found it, and she had to push past decades of neglect to uncover the beauty she knew lay beneath the rubble. This book shows its transformation, such as the restored gilded staircase and impressive repurposed hexagonal floor, all wonderfully photographed by Jean Marie Del Moral, with before-and-afters that reveal the scale of the work.

£75, teNeues

2 Everybody Loves Stripes