CTB Interior and Architecture

Architectural Digest at 100: A Century of Style
1 review

A rich visual history of Architectural Digest, published for the magazine’s 100th anniversary Architectural Digest at 100 celebrates the best from the pages of the international design authority. The editors have delved into the archives and culled years of rich material covering a range of subjects. Ranging freely between present and past, the book features the personal spaces of dozens of private celebrities like Barack and Michelle Obama, David Bowie, Truman Capote, David Hockney, Michael Kors, and Diana Vreeland, and includes the work of top designers and architects like Frank Gehry, David Hicks, India Mahdavi, Peter Marino, John Fowler, Renzo Mongiardino, Oscar Niemeyer, Axel Vervoordt, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Elsie de Wolfe. Also included are stunning images from the magazine’s history by photographers such as Bill Cunningham, Horst P. Horst, Simon Upton, Francois Dischinger, Francois Halard, Julius Shulman, and Oberto Gili.

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Architectural Digest

R 2,985.00
Architecture

See more than 350 of the world's greatest buildings come to life in the most spectacular way! A world of beauty and genius is unveiled in this comprehensive architecture book. Discover the world's most incredible buildings, from the ancient world to the present day.From the Louvre and the Colosseum to the Sydney Opera House and the Gherkin, this book offers a truly visual worldwide survey of global architecture. Bursting with breathtaking photography and informative entries on more than 350 of the world's most famous buildings, Architecture: A Visual History gives you an unspoilt view of their fascinating features. This accessible reference book will transport you to the most impressive and iconic buildings on earth: - 500 photographs and 13 CGI artworks that dissect magnificent buildings around the world- Clear explanations and cross-sections of each building, along with exquisite photography of specific details- Close-up, detailed photographic reference to the architectural "vocabulary" of the period Explore the Architectural Wonders of the WorldPage after page is dedicated to significant architectural movements, biographies of famous architects and in-depth examinations of their masterpieces. See how and why certain features were common during specific time periods and how these amazing buildings have stood the test of time. Unique specially-commissioned CGI artworks throughout the book showcase more than 10 specific buildings, including The Pantheon and the White House.This stunning guide gives you a closer look at contemporary global architecture as well as sustainable green buildings. It's the perfect gift for architecture students, practising architects, or anyone with an interest in architecture, design, engineering, or art.

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Jonathan Glancey

R 784.00
Kinfolk Home

Interest in home design has been on the rise for some time, but Kinfolk's focus on slowing down and creating a more intentional, beautiful home is where the attention is shifting. Through luscious photographs and insightful interviews, the author takes us into 40 homes around the world, from the Americas to Europe, Asia to Africa, ending in Australia. The homes range from an old cabin in the woods to clean-lined modern apartments, from singles living in small spaces to sprawling, multi-generational houses in the country. Each will feel unmistakably Kinfolk.

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Nathan Williams

R 1,030.00
Live Beautiful

Beautiful design isn’t just pleasant to look at; it improves the quality of our lives. It helps foster the traditions, rituals, and ceremonies we create in our homes. In Live Beautiful, the highly anticipated design book by Athena Calderone, the EyeSwoon creator taps into her network of interior decorators, fashion designers, and tastemakers to reveal how carefully crafted interiors come together. She also opens the doors to two of her own residences.With each homeowner, Calderone explores the initial spark of inspiration that incited the design journey and the deeply personal objects, stories, and references that accompanied it. She then breaks down the details of the rooms—like layered textures and patterns, collected pieces, and customized vignettes—and offers helpful tips and advice on how to bring these elevated elements into your own space. Filled with gorgeous photography by Nicole Franzen, Live Beautiful is both a showpiece of exquisite design and a guide to creating a home that’s unique and thoughtfully put together.

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Athena Calderone

R 1,170.00
Style: The Art of Creating a Beautiful Home

Style: The Art of Creating a Beautiful Home is a timeless interiors book that shows you how to transform your living spaces using what you own and love. While designing can be a big investment, styling allows you to elevate your spaces with what you’ve already got.This book is at once beautiful and practical, demystifying the creative process of styling so that you can create a beautiful home with confidence. Based on more than a decade of industry experience and teaching, this book will show you how to connect with your own personal style and enjoy inspiring, welcoming and authentic interiors. Styling is both an art and a science – and you can learn both.The inviting chapters explore identifying your style; design principles; transforming spaces; visual storytelling; and nurturing your craft. As well, author and renowned interior stylist Natalie Walton steps through significant rooms in the house to provide expert insider insights on how you can create magical styling moments in your home.The book is beautifully shot by photographer Chris Warnes, who has collaborated with Natalie on her previous books, This is Home: The Art of Simple Living and Still: The Slow Home.

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Natalie Walton

R 765.00
Atlas of Interior Design

“Flipping through a few pages will transport you . . . Armchair travelers rejoice.” – AD PRO Explore interior-design masterpieces around the globe from the 1940s to today with this unique geographically arranged survey – discover iconic rooms in 9 continental regions in this ground-breaking survey spanning more than 50 countries This unparalleled global survey features more than 400 of the most inspirational residential rooms from the past eight decades. With the work of icons of interior design past and present, such as Kelly Behun, Stéphane Boudin, Jacques Grange, Peter Marino, Brigette Romanek, Studio KO, Faye Toogood, Axel Vervoordt, and Kelly Wearstler, the more than 400 interiors featured in this innovative book also include a selection of fascinating and virtually unknown interiors from Australia, Africa, Asia, and beyond. From classic to contemporary, minimal to maximal, the homes included, together with the author’s insightful commentary, illuminate the design tropes unique to their location’s context, while others confound preconceived ideas of vernacular design to spectacular effect.

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Dominic Bradbury

R 2,355.00
Design the Home You Love

Emily Motayed

R 732.00
Interiors

The ultimate global celebration of residential design and decorating With 400 rooms organized by designer from A-Z, this much-lauded book goes beyond decorators, designers, and architects to highlight exquisite interiors designed by fashion designers, artists, style icons, and film stars, each of whom has made a unique contribution to the world of interior design. Ranging from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present day, the book features everything from chateaux, town houses, and penthouses to desert ranches, beach houses, and tiny apartments in more than 25 countries. Featuring the ‘greats’ of interior design, such as Elsie de Wolfe, Billy Baldwin, and Colefax & Fowler, alongside contemporary stars such as Anouska Hempel, Kelly Hoppen, and Karim Rashid, Interiors is an elegant and beautiful object in its own right, now available with an exquisite and eye-popping pink velvet cover. This is the essential inspirational source book for design aficionados, anyone who is interested in beautiful rooms, and for everyone who cares about the spaces in which they live. Fashion designer’s homes featured include those of: Giorgio Armani, Gianni Versace, Yves Saint Laurent, Coco Chanel, Christian Dior, and Calvin Klein Artists’ and art collectors’ homes include those of: Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, Donald Judd, Georgia O’Keeffe, Cy Twombly, and Peggy Guggenheim Features stunning rooms designed or commissioned by: Jennifer Aniston, Meg Ryan, Anjelica Huston, Madonna, Gloria Vanderbilt, Nelson Rockefeller, and Jacqueline Kennedy

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Phaidon Editors

R 1,385.00
Light Space Life: Houses by SAOTA

A monograph on leading South African architecture studio SAOTA. Light Space Life is the first monograph from internationally recognised South African architecture studio SAOTA, known for crafting exceptional modern buildings that forge powerful connections to their extraordinary settings. Presenting memorable and distinctive residences selected from its wide-ranging global output, the book celebrates thirty-five years of innovative residential design from Lagos to Los Angeles, including houses from the dramatic South African coast where it all began. SAOTA is led by Stefan Antoni, Philip Olmesdahl, Greg Truen, Philippe Fouché, Mark Bullivant and Logen Gordon, and has designed luxury residential and commercial projects on six continents. With reference to South African Modernism, and a grounding in the International style, its projects take advantage of wildly beautiful settings, and are rooted in place by the relationship between the building and its site. The practice cites spirit of enquiry and close examination of function and form as hallmarks of its work, as well as the use of the most current technology, including virtual reality, in its design processes. This monograph features twenty-three recent residential projects from around the world, with a particular focus on Africa, illustrated with colour photography and including a foreword by SAOTA’s client Reni Folawiyo, founder of the West African fashion label, Alara.

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Reni Folawiyo, SAOTA

R 1,665.00

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Funny and Relatable

Hilarious! 😂 Marian Keyes' Grown Ups had me laughing out loud, and I loved seeing bits of myself in the diverse cast. The family tree at the start is a genius move, which is super helpful for keeping track of who's who! My one gripe is some storylines felt a bit... open-ended. Still, totally recommend for a laugh-out-loud, relatable read.

This is a book that I keep going back to!

One thing we can all agree on, is that the past two and a half years have not been a walk in the park. Not for most of us. Like a meme I saw on social media the other day which stated, “I am a little tired of living through historic events”. Another thing that we can also be sure of, is that this will be our way of life for goodness knows how long. I’d also like to believe that we are more aware of our mental health, more than we’ve ever been. And one thing we do know is that it is a precious commodity.

After hearing about the sensation that is Dr Julie Smith, I simply had to get my hands on her book, “Why has Nobody Told Me This Before”?

So, a bit of background information. Dr Smith is a clinical psychologist on a mission. Her goal is to make the life skills and copy skills we need on a daily basis, while dealing with mental health issues, as well as just ‘real life’ struggles, more accessible and digestible. She started her YouTube channel at the end of 2019, offering short ‘lessons’ and practical tips as how to deal with anxiety, stress, grief, etc. When the global pandemic hit in early 2020, her sensible and meaningful clips on social media were much needed and devoured by her followers world-wide.

Getting back to the book, this is exactly what you can expect. No complicated terminology and diagnoses, just informal, informative guidance and tools to help you cope.

It is not necessarily a ‘read from cover to cover’ book (but you can if you are so inclined), but you can dip in and out for pearls of wisdom and tried-and-proven advice as you see fit. The book is divided in the following chapters (I am highlighting just a some of the details covered):

On Dark Places (including low mood, mood pitfalls to watch out for, how to turn bad days into better days)

On Motivation (including How do you make yourself do something when you really don’t feel like it?)

On Emotional Pain (including Make it all go away! How to support someone)

On Grief (including Understanding Grief, The tasks of mourning)

On Self-Doubt (You are not your mistakes, Being enough)

On Fear (Things we do that makes anxiety worse, What to do with anxious thoughts)

On Stress (Is stress different from anxiety? Making stress work for you)

On a Meaningful Life (Working out what matters, How to create a life with meaning)

You will also find practical tools, ideas to try, etc within each topic.

This is a book that I keep going back to, and on a personal level, the chapters on ‘self-doubt’ and ‘fear’ will probably be dog-eared soon. It also makes a wonderful gift!

A beautifully crafted debut

The Correspondent is a thoughtful and quietly powerful novel told entirely through letters and emails. At its centre is Sybil, a woman in her seventies whose life unfolds through the correspondence she sends to family, friends and the occasional public figure. The format gives the story a sense of closeness, allowing the reader to see her humour, her frustrations and the private worries she rarely voices aloud.

Sybil is a wonderfully complex character. She can be sharp, funny, stubborn and unexpectedly vulnerable, often within the same letter. Through her writing the novel explores ageing, grief, adoption, strained family relationships and the long‑term consequences of choices made decades earlier. There is also a subtle thread of tension linked to her past work in the courts, which adds another layer without overshadowing the emotional core.

The number of characters can feel a little overwhelming at first, but once the rhythm settles the structure becomes one of the book’s strengths. Each exchange reveals something new about Sybil and the people who have shaped her life. The writing is warm, observant and full of small insights.

A beautifully crafted debut that will appeal to readers who enjoy reflective, character‑driven stories.

Worth reading if you enjoy stories that blend philosophy with emotional introspection!

Re‑reading Veronika Decides to Die after so many years turned out to be a very different experience for me. I remembered it as dark and philosophical, but this time I found it far less bleak than the title suggests. It is thought provoking, occasionally uncomfortable, and definitely dated in its approach to mental health, yet still full of those signature Coelho moments that make you pause and reflect.

The story follows Veronika, a young woman in Slovenia who attempts to end her life and wakes up in Villete, a mental institution, where she is told she has only days left to live. Through her interactions with other patients, including Mari with severe anxiety and Eduard who lives with schizophrenia, Coelho explores what it means to be “sane” and how society often punishes anyone who does not fit the mould.

Some of these characters struck me more deeply this time around. There were moments that made me uncomfortable, especially the twist involving the doctor, and I wished the ending had been more layered. Still, the final quarter of the book landed beautifully. The writing is fluid, the themes are bold, and the message about appreciating life is powerful.

Not my favourite Coelho, but definitely worth reading if you enjoy stories that blend philosophy with emotional introspection.

Stephen King's masterpiece?

I finally picked up The Stand again and I completely understand why so many readers call this King’s masterpiece.

For a book written in the late 1970s, it feels shockingly current. The “superflu” premise hits differently after the past few years, and King’s exploration of what happens when 99.4% of humanity is wiped out is both fascinating and unsettling. The sociological and moral questions were some of the most interesting parts for me.

But it’s the characters that truly make this book unforgettable. Stu, Frannie, Nick, Larry, Glen, Tom, Kojak, Lloyd, Trashcan Man… they’re still living rent free in my head. King gives each of them such depth and humanity that closing the book felt like saying goodbye to people I’d travelled with for months. Even the villains are complicated in ways that make them strangely relatable.

Despite its intimidating length, I never found it slow or dull. Almost every chapter feels purposeful, and the atmosphere (cosy one moment, deeply unsettling the next) kept me hooked. There’s always that sense of something lurking just out of sight.

If you enjoy post-apocalyptic fiction, character driven epics, or stories that dig into the messy nature of good and evil, this is absolutely worth the journey.

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