Monday, December 5, 2016

Books In My Library Now: A quick look with happy snaps, inspiration, favorite reading, new books…and my obsession with the new Cabana, issue 6

This week I’m taking you all on a quick voyage around a corner of my library with current favorites.

There’s the new ‘Capability Brown’ garden book from Rizzoli, which is fantastic. And the Metropolitan Museum’s magnum opus showing 5,000 years of art. I love the Ingres cover.

To discover are recent copies of Lodestar and Suitcase (check them out) and the new Chanel book from Flammarion.

Prominently displayed among favorite books old and new is my current obsession, Issue 6 of CABANA. It’s an interiors/style book/magazine published twice a year from London, masterminded by editor-in-chief Martina Mondadori Sartogo and her worldly team. Several versions of the newest issue (well, three versions) are propped up among my books. I was a little obsessed.






Issue 6 Cabana includes many pages of interiors (swoon) of the Tangier residences of the great and legendary London antiquaire/designer Chrissie Gibbs.

I was fortunate to stay at Chrissie's for a blissful week recently, pampered by two Moroccan sisters who are his housekeepers/cooks/and a lovely presence. I slept in an antique four-poster bed that Chrissie told me had previously been slept in by Mick Jagger and L'Wren Scott and Marianne Faithful, though not all at the same time. Vignettes of this upstairs bedroom are shown, and its view of the Straits of Gibraltar, and the curtained doorway, but not the bed, sorry. Sweet dreams. There’s a romantic and ethereal house in Umbria. Any interiors photos will billowing curtains, I admire.

More ‘World of Interiors’ than World of Interiors, Cabana has a quirky country house in Aberdeenshire, and Persian and Indian miniatures.

Turn a page and there are eccentric and thrilling interiors in Tbilisi…dachas galore, and fabric swatches, and fascinating people and places. Read it in bed.

An invitation to fly. THE EYE HAS TO TRAVEL.





I bought my three copies of the current Cabana (which has 8 different cover patterns by Schumacher) on 1stDibs. It’s available online at various prices. I propose: subscribe.






Also among my snaps is the ‘superluxe’ previous Cabana issue 5, sponsored by Gucci, with Gucci fabric on the cover. The box and the issue inside have serpents swirling and a shocking pink border. It’s a limited boxed edition with a special Rome interiors section added. Fantastic.

Last time I checked, the Rizzoli bookshop in New York (yes, my publisher) had a few boxed copies. Good luck. This new edition, like all previous ones, is a collector’s item. Essential for interior designers.

Thank you for joining me on this happy visit. 








See you next week with design and news and surprises. Happy Holidays and Happy Days.


CREDIT:
All images shot on December 2, 2016 in San Francisco by Diane Dorrans Saeks.

Hand-held…as you can see.


6 comments:

La Contessa said...

LOVE THE LIBRARY..............and have taken a few notes!

SALLY said...


I also take notes of your library shelves! So many scrumptious looking books...

Diane Dorrans Saeks said...

Hello, Contessa-


Lovely to hear from you. Yes...every book is selected and read and re-read and deliberately placed.Yes, you would enjoy them all.


happy holidays--DIANE

Diane Dorrans Saeks said...

Dear Sally--

wonderful to hear from you.

Yes...this is a selection. Happy you enjoyed.

Every year--or sometimes twice a year--I have a very focused and deliberate -re-edit of many books. I bag the 'good-bye' ones and drive them over to the South of Market headquarters of Friends of the San Francisco Public Library who sell them in their bookshop at Fort Mason.
But mostly...I buy and hold and read, and use for reference of all kinds, and enjoy and love to see. Many are written by or are about friends. many have associations with travel. Most are about design and style, architecture and authentic decor, art, history, travel. Biographies of course. And eccentric books. One-of-a-kind books. Best of their kind. Definitive books. Inspiration. And in focused topics--Lucian Freud, Balthus, designers' monographs, Venice, Rome, artists, museum collections. etc. Joyful.

very best and happy holidays--DIANE

SALLY said...


Diane,
Hello again! Just wanted to thank you for introducing me to Cabana magazine. I'm now an excited new subscriber! Hearing part of your library can be found at the bookshop at Fort Mason, inspires me to pay a visit, all the way from Texas!
Happy holidays and best wishes for peace of mind for all of us in the coming years,
Sally

Diane Dorrans Saeks said...

Hi Sally-


Yes..the bookshop at Fort Mason...funds go to the SF Public Library...is a very good source next time you are in the city...

also...my books are distributed among the libraries, so that is great.

i love living with a lifetime collection of books..including poetry and French books i was awarded in high school (in New Zealand) for poetry and French prizes...and books I collected in college later in London...all mostly about design and architecture and art...I do read some fiction sporadically.
happy this post has been of interest--happy days--DIANE