Gifts Collection

Walking along the water's edge, who among us has not stopped to admire the evocatively patterned, shaped, and multihued stones that beckon? Fun to collect and free for the taking, beach stones are objects of contemplation, beauty, and sentiment. This exquisite volume-at once a gorgeous art book and a nature guide-presents more than 200 exceptional stones from around the world and describes the fascinating natural processes that produced them. Photographer and installation artist Josie Iselin, who uses a flatbed scanner to generate her imagery, has arranged these stones with great artistry, and nature writer Margaret Carruthers yields their secrets, revealing, for instance, that a pebble from Maine was created 400 million years ago during the birth of a great mountain range. Art lovers and beachcombing spirits everywhere will cherish this gift book.

$17.95

A heart stone is one of nature's gifts. Heart stones are not rare or precious in the typical sense--a good scour of a beach with any stones at all will usually turn up one or two heart-shaped stones. But heart stones, lifted from their obscurity, with all of their cracks and blemishes, lopsided and imperfect, are simply the best find on any beach. Beachcombers collect them, keep them as talismans, and give them to friends and lovers. Josie Iselin, author of Abrams' very popular Beach Stones, has put together a magical collection of 100 heart stones, and each one expresses a universal feeling. Love, passion, admiration, obsession, reassurance, joy, intrigue, comfort, wonder, and many other human emotions seem to be portrayed in these homely but appealing objects. This little book can bring great pleasure to anyone who has ever sought inspiration and solace in nature.

$9.95

Warren Brown wants you to bake your cake and eat it too. And he wants you to conquer your fear of flour and learn to love every step of cake baking—including, of course, the step in which you present your made-from-scratch masterpiece to bedazzled, hungry-eyed family and friends. (Not to mention the moment when you yourself get to sample a slice of that lovingly crafted creation.) For Brown, love and baking are inseparable. After all, he abandoned an unrewarding career in law to do the work—baking cakes!—that he finds truly emotionally satisfying. Every page of CakeLove communicates that satisfaction, as well as Brown’s can-do approach to the art of baking. As he asserts, baking cakes isn’t a cakewalk, but it’s not rocket science, either—and getting it right isn’t nearly as hard as you think. Pound cakes, butter cakes, sponge cakes, cupcakes. Glazes, frostings, fillings, meringues. Brown provides all the basics on ingredients, equipment, and techniques, as well as recipes for more than 50 cakes that range from the classic (Chocolate Butter Cake) to the adventurous (“Sassy,” a pound cake made with mango puree and cayenne pepper). The informative step-by-step shots make you want to run to the kitchen and start baking, and the scrumptious color photos of completed cakes look good enough to sink your teeth into.

$27.50

Is dressing a home the same as dressing a body? Dressing the Home attempts to answer that question, looking inside the homes of more than twenty of today’s hottest fashion designers and revealing them to be incredibly talented interior designers as well. The designers include Christian Louboutin, Catherine Malandrino, Patrick Cox, Betsey Johnson, and Diane von Furstenberg, as well as Dolce & Gabbana, who wrote the foreword. Author Marie Bariller precedes each interview with a brief biographical note summarizing the designer’s career and signature style on the runway. Through Guillaume de Laubier’s photographs and the designers’ own words, the tone and décor of each home is revealed. Perfect for both the fashion and interior design enthusiast, Dressing the Home shows that the talents behind the world’s most fashion-forward clothing and accessories have also created some of the world’s most lavish and intriguing interiors.

$45.00

On assignment for Esquire magazine in 1962, fashion photographer and filmmaker Jerry Schatzberg documented the ultra-exclusive world of French haute couture in stunning photographs of famous fashion icons. All the glamour and drama of the runway is presented, including images of Yves Saint Laurent’s first collection after leaving Dior, as well as tastemakers such as Diana Vreeland and American Vogue editor Jessica Daves mingling in the chic crowds. As an insider, Schatzberg was permitted entry into the private, behind-the-scenes world of the models and photographers, which he reveals in candid images of renowned photographers such as Helmut Newton, William Klein, Hiro, and Norman Parkinson perfecting their glamour shots.Schatzberg’s images embody an era in fashion history, and document the glamour, intrigue, and opulence of the Parisian runway shows. With an eye for subtle moments of elegance, drama, and humor, Schatzberg captures the essence of the period’s style and grace.

$75.00

A deceptively simple game rich in subtleties, baseball, more than any other sport, is passed down parent to child, one generation to another. In every era, fans have found heroes to cheer, and in part our attachment to the game has been fueled by hotly contested efforts to measure the superstars of the present against the titans of yesteryear. Greats of the Game fondly contributes to the nostalgic appeal of the national pastime by celebrating-in a subjective, engagingly outspoken text and dazzling, rarely seen photographs-the game's greatest players, teams, managers, games, and colorful personalities. Here are a century's worth of stars and highlights: Babe Ruth and Nolan Ryan, Jackie Robinson and Barry Bonds, Don Larsen's perfect game, Willie Mays's catch of Vic Wertz's 450-foot drive in the 1954 World Series. Ray Robinson, author of the definitive biography of Lou Gehrig, shares more than 70 years of memories, while fellow baseball maven Christopher Jennison describes the stunning photos he has selected-in a lavish, opinionated treasury that is certain to inspire passionate debate.

$35.00

We can't all camp out in old-growth forests, lying down in front of the bulldozers. And it's not only that we're too busy: Some of us just don't want our fabulous threads to get caked with mud. But that doesn't mean we don't care passionately about the environment. Luckily, the days when becoming environmentally aware entailed eating bread that tasted like dirt, wearing clothes that looked like frayed burlap sacks, and spending summer vacations assailing whaling ships with Greenpeace are passing away. It is now perfectly possible (and increasingly easy) to be well fed, well coiffed, well dressed, and well traveled while remaining deeply committed to an ecologically sustainable lifestyle. In The Lazy Environmentalist, Josh Dorfman—host of the Sirius Satellite Radio program of the same name—provides comprehensive guidance to fashion-forward consumers who are as concerned about the long-term health of our planet as they are about the design of their bathroom fixtures. Covering topics that range from clothing to electronic gadgetry, home decor to recreation, and gardening to financial investment, Dorfman lets us know which trends to watch and which eco-conscious products—cars, toothbrushes, cell phones, pet accessories—to buy. Green, it turns out, can be an extremely stylish color.

$14.95