Designing for People

Henry Dreyfuss

The first book on industrial design.

The Library at Night

Alberto Manguel

A series of meandering essays on the subject of the library.

King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking

King Arthur Flour

A wonderfully written primer on cooking with whole grains, with excellent recipes as well as guidance on equipment and techniques.

A History of Reading

Alberto Manguel

Manguel’s lifelong dedication to reading plays itself out in a work that follows reading from clay tablets to present day.

Collected Fictions

Jorge Luis Borges

Short, surreal little tales that experiment with the form of the story and often take the library as their subject.

The Creative Habit

Twyla Tharp

Tharp’s treatise on creativity applies as well to writing or design as it does to dance.

While You’re Reading

Gerard Unger

Directed at the layman instead of the serious typographer, Unger’s book is a breezy overview of the science of reading.

Omnivore’s Dilemma

Michael Pollan

Worth the hype, not because of the widely-hailed subject matter but because of the extraordinary writing.

Against the Grain

Richard Manning

A revisionist history that argues that we traded away much of our humanity in exchange for the little bit of security that agriculture promised.

How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read

Pierre Bayard

The title belies the real subject, which is an argument against reading and for writing. The book that convinced me to launch this site.

Fateless

Imre Kertész

An autobiographical novel, in which Kertész addresses his childhood in Auschwitz and Buchenwald.

The Elements of Typographic Style

Robert Bringhurst

The typographer’s bible; a book that is never too far from reach.

Slow Learner

Thomas Pynchon

Pynchon’s early stories are facile at best, but the introduction to the collection—in which Pynchon addresses his readers and talks about his writing—is invaluable.

Modern Typography

Robin Kinross

A rare object—a book on typography that is as beautifully written as it is designed.