Villa Lewaro Irvington New York

A thoughtfully curated collection in a stunning package that recognizes and celebrates the birthdays of famous, infamous, and often-overlooked designers and architects. The gift book for design and architect professionals and students they didn’t know they needed but will no longer be able to live without. Drawn from architect James Biber's epic Instagram project in which he posted a birthday bio of a famous (or less famous) designer or architect every day for a (mid-pandemic) year, The Architect and Designer Birthday Book is filled with personal, opinionated, and humorous observations on fascinating design and architect figures past and present. The minibiographies and birthday profiles in the book cover a range of international architects and designers, as well as artists, including: Architects from the Aaltos (Aino and Alvar) to Zumthor Rivals Bernini and Borromini Photographers Lee Miller, Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Vivian Maier, Dody Weston Thompson, Margaret Morton, and Judith Turner Midcentury modernists Marcel Breuer, Walter Gropius, and Florence Knoll Charlotte Perriand, Lilly Reich, Anne Tyng, and Denise Scott Brown More anecdotal histories than authorized biographies, these daily profiles are not only fun to read but provide spot-on commentary for anyone interested in how designers and architects relate to each other as well as their place in history. It is the intersection of Biber’s life and the history of architecture and design.

Harlem Renaissance writer Dorothy West led a charmed life in many respects. Born into a distinguished Boston family, she appeared in Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, then lived in the Soviet Union with a group that included Langston Hughes, to whom she proposed marriage. She later became friends with Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, who encouraged her to finish her second novel, The Wedding, which became the octogenarian author’s first bestseller. Literary Sisters reveals a different side of West’s personal and professional lives—her struggles for recognition outside of the traditional literary establishment, and her collaborations with talented African American women writers, artists, and performers who faced these same problems. West and her “literary sisters”—women like Zora Neale Hurston and West’s cousin, poet Helene Johnson—created an emotional support network that also aided in promoting, publishing, and performing their respective works. Integrating rare photos, letters, and archival materials from West’s life, Literary Sisters is not only a groundbreaking biography of an increasingly important author but also a vivid portrait of a pivotal moment for African American women in the arts.