Furniture & Interiors of the 1960s by Anne Bony is another great book to have on your Formica coffee table.
The book looks at that most radical of decades, where designers experimented with plastics, and inflatable furniture was mixed with Victorian influences. Featuring 300 key designs, by the likes of Eames and Harry Bertoia, the book offers a great insight into the bold designs of the period, as well as some great photographs to feast your eyes upon.
Buy it online from Amazon for £28.
When I think of plastic in design, I tend to think of 1960s space-age pieces, but its importance actually spans the past 150 years rather than just one decade. Plastic Dreams: Synthetic Visions in Design looks at the influence the material has had over that period.
The book charts the use of plastic from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, but of course it covers a lot of our favourite design periods in between. It features over 120 landmark designs, including Wells Coates AD 65 radio from the 1930s and Konstanin Grcic's MYTO chair, a modern design that we’ve featured here before on account of its retro looks.
Plastic Dreams is available to buy from Amazon, priced £23.70.
Any fiction with a retro setting is always welcome here, but Frantic by Frances Lynn is particularly noteworthy as the book is illustrated by Celia Birtwell.
Frantic is about the exploits of a young woman in the early 1970s in London and San Francisco, a hedonist world of which Frances had first hand experience. She apparently got the idea for “Frantic” from hanging out in David Hockney’s basement in the Seventies and her friendship with Celia Birtwell goes back to this period. You can buy the book from the usual book retailers, but if you buy it from Celia Birtwell’s website, you will get a copy signed by the designer.
The book costs £8.99 from the Celia Birtwell website.
We love a vintage bicycle, which is why we'll be investing in a copy of Cyclepedia: A Tour of Iconic Bicycle Designs book by Michael Embacher.
It's packed with such things, specifically charting 100 models designed over the past 90 years, models apparently chosen for their 'innovative mechanisms, engineering precision, and commendable design'. Mountain, racing, single-speed, touring, kids', tandem, urban, folding, cargo, and curiosities, they're all here.
Wallpaper has an online gallery of some of those models if you want a glimpse inside. If you like what you see, the book has just been published by Thames & Hudson and available on Amazon now for a discounted £11.73.
Find out more at the Amazon website
Not an exact template for the movie, Ritual by David Pinner was, however, the book that inspired the movie – and it is getting a reprint in the very near future.
Rather than being set in the Scottish highlands, this 1967 novel is set in Cornwall, with police officer, David Hanlin asked to investigate the murder of a local child. Whilst there, he's subjected to mental trickery, seduction, ancient religious practices and sacrificial rituals. Sound familiar?
The rights to the book were obtained for the Wicker Man movie a few years later, with a fairly minimal rewrite creating the ultimate movie cult classic. Original copies go for silly money, so the £6.39 price tag for the new version, which comes with original cover artwork and a new forward by Saint Etienne's Bob Stanley, looks a serious bargain. Alternatively, a hardback version sells for £9.09.
Not out yet, but you can now pre-order the forthcoming Vintage Fashion Sourcebook by Cleo and Mark Butterfield, which is published by Carlton Books on 12th May.
The people behind the book are the owners of C20 Vintage Fashion, which both hires out and advises on vintage fashion. The book itself, covering a fairly modest 64 pages, claims to offer a 'decade by decade look' at 20th century clothing, as well as pointers on sourcing and caring for original vintage pieces. The book also covers 'key looks' from the different eras.
Probably not the most in-depth book around, but certainly sounding like a good introductory guide, with a budget price of just £4.49.
