an AESTHETE'S LAMENT a "well read" portrait

What Books are on your Summer reading list?

A great design scholar examines every object in his home, from its provenance to the details of its acquisition, and ends up creating a moving portrait of his life.

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Conversation Pieces by Sacheverell Sitwell. I love portraits and this particular genre, portraits composed of two or more family members, doubles, triples, and quadruples the pleasure.

the Sitwells by Sargent

Ex-libris for Sacheverell Sitwell (1897- 1988)by John Piper, based on a monogram of Sitwell’s grandfather.

Valentina by Kohle Yohannan. A fashion designer who still remains a mystery.

Nana by Emile Zola. So salacious and hermetic and lots of descriptions of truly vulgar interiors.

"Perfection is such a nuisance that I often regret having cured myself of using tobacco." zola

Zola by Manet

E M Delafield's A Provincial Lady series of novels. Beaucoup de charme!

E M Delafield

& Far too many plant and seed catalogues! I read and dream more than I actually order.

Is there one book you honestly don’t expect to get to? Why?

I have never and will never manage to do more than dip a toe into Proust. Which is why I never put it on any must-read list anymore! It’s so dense and so rich that I get bogged down after only a few chapters and have to clear my mental palate with a dose of Nancy Mitford.

"I have only ever read one book in my life, and that is White Fang. It's so frightfully good I've never bothered to read another." NM

Where do you read and when? Does the genre you are reading dictate the place you read?- in other words do you take just any old book to bed?

I read all the time and can be found dragging a book or magazine to the breakfast table, to my spouse’s everlasting chagrin. I tend to read gardening books when I’m in the country, those as well as country-house decorating books. But when I head to bed, I bring biographies for some reason.

What does your nightstand look like? Or your side of the bed, floor, chair!

At present it is a small, round Syrian table piled high with books and topped with reading glasses. More books and magazines are deposited on the floor in some measure of disorder. I really should have something better than this.

(My own thoughts on a new look for the AESTHETE)

giotto

What is your all time Favorite Book for its sense of place?

Nothing beats Flaubert's “Madame Bovary” for atmosphere. You can practically hear the leaves in the trees rustling and see the dust churned up by carriages and wagons.

"And what is there to beat sitting by the fire of an evening with a book, when the lamp is lit and the wind beating against the window?... You forget everything... the hours slip by. Sitting still in your arm-chair, you can wander in strange places and make believe they are there before your eyes. Your thoughts become entwined in the story, dwelling on the details, or eagerly following the course of the adventure. You imagine you are the characters, and it seems to be 'your' heart that is throbbing beneath their raiment." - Gustave Flaubert, from Madame Bovary

What is your Security Blanket Book?

It’s the one book I take to bed whenever I am laid up with a cold or other illness.

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less." "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things." "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master - - that's all." from ALICE

THE PERFECT AESTHETE"S PERFECT ALICE
Annie Leibovitz for Vogue

What is your favorite Genre? Why? What is your most recent purchase in this category?

Biographies and more biographies. I cannot get enough of reading about other people’s lives, loves, houses, dreams, hopes, and private torments. Most recently I received a copy of Francine du Plessix Gray’s biography of Madame de Staël, the great French intellectual and salon hostess, and I rushed straight through it, much faster than I had hoped. So I intend to start it over and try to savor rather than gulp. I also devour crime novels, especially the works of Henning Mankell. Oh, he’s good.

"Genius is essentially creative; it bears the stamp of the individual who possesses it."
Madame de Stael

Francine du Plessix Gray as a young woman

What about Books you are reading for a second or third time? Why? Any disappointments on second reading?

I read everything multiple times, pulling out especial favourites when the weather is bad (rainy days in particular). If a book is good, it’s always good, so no disappointments here. Well, except the novels of Taylor Caldwell. I used to race through them in high school and now they seem so labored, creaky, and pretentious.

What is the seminal book in your field or your passion that you would recommend to young would be(s) of the same?

It never, ever fails to inspire- See HERE.

"The best decoration in the world is a roomful of books."BB

Latest Obsession Author, Designer, Photographer writer?

Swedish crime novelist Henning Mankell. He can’t write enough books fast enough for me. I have half a mind to write and tell him so.

Henning Mankell on reading:

"It is a disgrace for the whole world that we in the year 2008 have yet to eradicate illiteracy on our planet. Still millions of children are forced to enter life without knowing how to read and write. Being a writer myself I know that there is only one symbolic book which truly matters: the ABC-book."

Book covers can be art- Do you have a favorite cover in your stacks?

The English slip jacket of the collected letters of Deborah Devonshire and Patrick Leigh-Fermor, read about In Tearing Haste here. Very graphic, rather naïve, and just the sort of cover that would never be sold on an American book. It’s too eccentric and at the same time too subtle.

Going out on a limb here –define LIBRARY in the nontraditional sense?

Any collection of books that contributes to the broadening of your viewpoint.

Image-Architectural Digest, December'79, photograph by Derry Moore.

WELL SAID AESTHETE.
As I have mentioned in several posts- reading the AESTHETE's lament was a catalyst for my own decision to start Little Augury. I want to personally thank You for that and to ask that you please seriously consider hesitating before posting anymore Must Read Books for awhile- I can't keep up.

Dear READER, do you think the AESTHETE has read SISTER, The Life of Legendary American Interior Decorator Mrs. Henry Parish II. Of Course! I do too- but have You? I can't wait to read it- and it can be yours to read too- I'll send it your way.