This beutiful book by Victor Arwas is predominately focused on the sumptuous French Art Deco of the "Roaring Twenties". It covers all the media that these craftspeople and designers worked in, with numerous colour plates throughout. While not the most informative volume on this hedonistic decorative arts style it is lavishly published and a pleasure to hold and peruse.

Art Nouveau: 1890-1914 is the definitive book on Art Nouveau, published to coincide with the successful V&A exhibition. The Art Nouveau style permeated all areas of "Fin de Siecle" culture. This sumptuous volume should be in your bookcase if you love this decorative arts movement with its decadent and sophisticated approach to craft, art and design.

This book was published to accompany the V&A exhibition and is an important volume on the rustic Arts and Crafts movement. With a focus on honestly made handcrafted items it is a fascinating movement that changed the way craftspeople and designers worked. If you love this decorative arts movement International Arts and Crafts will give you a fascinating read.

This comprehensive volume covers many women decorative artists and designers to have worked in the USA between 1900 and 2000. Edited by Pat Kirkham, this timely volume redresses the male bias of generations of past scholars and commentators on art. Full of stunning objects in full colour this beautiful book will delight those interested in womens issues and American design history.

DKs Collectors Guides are a must have for the serious decorative arts enthusiast, giving one a thorough object by object valuation of what is worth what. The rustic Arts and Crafts movements exponents created honestly made items that followed the creative tenant "truth to materials".

DKs Collectors Guides third book is on the ever popular Art Deco style. The volume gives one a checklist of items ranging from inexpensive Bakelite costume jewellery to incredibly expensive bronze & ivory statuettes. All three DK books listed here are an essential must have for the collector.

This highly informative and entertaining volume by Alastair Duncan is in my mind the best book on American Art Deco published so far. His mode of writing is scholarly, eloquent and engaging and will give one a deeper appreciation of this all encompassing style. I'm just waiting for the revised edition to come out someday... hopefully it does. hint hint Abrams!

Nature Perfected is an exhaustive survey of the art of gardening in different world cultures through history. It has been quoted that a culture cannot call itself truly civilized unless it has a gardening tradition. Based on a popular BBC series this beautiful volume is highly informative. It covers gardens in ancient Egypt and Rome, East Asia, Arabia, India, Europe and the America's.

Australian Impressionism is the story of creative experimentation among five talented artists working between 1883-1897. This book details how they changed the face of the Australian art scene in the late Victorian era, creating a vibrant, colourful and new aesthetic identity for this young nation. Their beautiful paintings influenced how generations of us aussies perceive our sun bathed country.

In The Golden Age of Children's Book Illustration Richard Dalby gives detailed biographies of some of the important figures in early "fantasy" illustration. Ranging from creative luminaries such as Arthur Rackham, Edmund Dulac, Harry Clarke, Kay Nielsen and Maxfield Parrish to lesser known artists like Warwick Goble, Ivan Bilibin, V. F. Sterrett plus many more... its a treasury of magical art.

The Pre-Raphaelites were an English art movement of the mid to late 19th century. Akin to the Symbolists, they were inspired by Arthurian and Biblical mythology, the Medieval era and early Renaissance art. Their meticulously detailed paintings are populated by dreamy maidens, brave knights and mythical creatures, all pervaded by a sense of nostalgia, moralism and melancholy.

Modernism: 1914-1939 Designing a New World is based on a successful V&A exhibition. The naively utopian Modernist movement was the extreme obverse of its stylish contemporary, Art Deco. Eschewing ornamentation as a bourgeois conceit modernist designer/architects strove to apply pure form to utilitarian objects and architecture that would improve the living conditions of the populace.

In Pre-Raphaelite Women Artists due attention is finally given to the female members of this mid to late Victorian art movement. Except for a notable handful the women included in this book have been excluded from official histories of art. These talented artist bought a uniquely feminine perspective to Pre-Raphaelite subject matter imbuing it with a romanticism, sentimentality and sensuality.