Though guesthouses are typically reserved in scale and program, the projects in this monograph are hardly restrained from a design standpoint. Featured are projects by Shigeru Ban, Shim-Sutcliffe, Toshiko Mori, and others.

This comprehensive monograph of young German industrial designer Konstantin Grcic shows a mechanistic aestheticcseen in his famous ONE Chair and Mayday Lamppthat’s as comfortable in an auto shop as in a living room.

This new book on Katsura, the Japanese imperial villa, begins with an informative introductory essay by Arata Isozaki. An impressive number of images and drawings, as well as a collection of writings from architect-authors ranging from Bruno Taut to Kenzo Tange, offer a diverse analysis of the complex site.

Originally published in Italy by Domus in 1950, Silver Spoon, a collection of regional and seasonal recipes from all over Italy, has finally been translated into English. The classic best-seller has been beautifully redesigned, with recipes organized by course and ingredient.

A meticulous catalogue of things categorized by neu (objects), bau (humans), and welt (plants and animal forms) may seem like an odd gift. Inside, however, the silhouetted itemssfrom hatchets to titmiceeoffer an endlessly amusing diversity of forms. The book comes with a CD of images, which may be reproduced and edited at will.

Architecture Now 3 may be the perfect book to give to friends who are less than savvy about established and rising architecture stars. The book presents thorough profiles of 27 contemporary practitioners from around the worlddincluding the likes of David Adjaye, Carlos Zapata, Vito Acconci, Ken Yeang, and Asymptoteecomplete with head shots of principals, full-length biographies, and notable works.

The Arts & Architecture>sponsored brainchild of John Entenza has been revitalized in this grand tome. Thirty of the projects from the magazine’s Case Study program are portrayed in stunning photographs, detailed drawings, and clear essays.

Two recent books confirm Ed Ruscha’s place as one of the most important artists of our time. The second of a planned six-part volume, Catalogue Raisonnn contains paintings from 1971 to 1982 as well as essays by Peter Wollen and Reyner Banham. Then & Now includes two sets of panoramas taken of Hollywood Boulevard, one in 1973 and the other in 2004.

1000 Lights is an authoritative history of contemporary lighting design. A follow-up to 1,000 Lights: 1878 to 1959, this volume traces more recent lighting trends, with over 1,200 lights representing movements from pop to postmodernism to high tech.

From the Dixie cup to the fortune cookie, nearly 100 commonplace objects are celebrated in MoMA curator Paola Antonelli’s latest book, inspired by an exhibition she presented at MoMA Queens in 2004. The cleverly designed book features a small image of each object, accompanied by a large color photograph of a detail, and a brief blurb on the object’s design history.

Clothes, graffiti, teapots, toys, plants, and other artifacts fill the pages of this book, dedicated to showcasing endless usessartistic, jovial, and practicallof tape. The book features artists’ as well as essays about the sticky subject.

Extravagant, yes, but impressive. This digitized collection of over 35,000 plans, sketches, and documents from the archives of the Fondation Le Corbusier is being released in four sets. The first two have already been released; the remaining two will be published over the
next year.

It seems only fitting that Material ConneXion, the industry’s megasource for materials, would produce an expansive catalogue presenting the latest in plastics, resins, metals, and other cool design building blocks. Where else will you learn the difference between light-degradable and biodegradable polymers?