Home Design with Kevin Sharkey

Eric Cohler, known as the "Mixmaster" for his expert combinations of high and low, creates extremely chic-yet-livable spaces. His monograph, Cohler on Design, was released this past fall. The volume is full of beautiful imagery, of course, but it dives a little deeper into the mind of this expert than the average home tome. Insights into Cohler's inspirations offer some sense of how his mind works. For instance, Edith Wharton's all-encompassing love of writing drove Cohler to design a room based on her library. The billowy fabric of Jeanne-Claude and Christo's 2005 installation The Gates led to curtains instead of traditional doors on bathroom cabinetry. I loved getting that inside peek into how Cohler translates high art into functional, beautiful spaces for his clients. Get even more information on the book here.

Before paparazzi and trashy magazines splashed the intimate details of celebrities' lives on every newsstand in sight, Hollywood studios could still shape the public's perception of stars. Staged publicity shot could make them look outdoorsy and rugged or innocent and sweet, but always glamourous. ACC Editions has released a lovely book, Hollywood Unseen, full of black-and-white photography from the archives of the John Kobal Foundation. Kobal, a legendary Hollywood photographer was an expert on the old-school Hollywood portrait and curated multiple exhibitions of this kind of photography. These beautiful images make me yearn for the cinema stars of yesteryear.

The lovely Joan Collins, above, wrote the books foreword. Indulge in the Hollywood glamour for $75.

Over the years, I've been around photographer Jonathan Becker quite often -- but he's so good that I hardly ever know it. He's completed some 900 assignments for Vanity Fair, and Graydon Carter describes him as a "one of the finest portrait journalists of all time."

Paging through the weighty new tome Jonathan Becker: 30 Years at Vanity Fair, I came across one of Becker's images of Russian mogul Roustam Tariko -- and was instantly transported back to a day years ago when Martha and I had lunch with Roustam. It was Easter, we were in Moscow, and eating a caviar-fueled lunch across from the Kremlin. It was snowing lightly and the whole scene already felt like something out of a movie, when all of a sudden monks started singing nearby.

I hadn't thought about that day in so long, but the book brought me right back. And I had to laugh when I read Carter's introduction proclaiming Becker "what people who have been around for awhile would call a throwback" -- because, well, that must describe me too.

Ines Torlonia - Hido Saracevic and Dino Trapetti in Piazzeta. Courtesy of Assouline, ©Jonathan Becker

Franco Rossellini at home, New York. Courtesy of Assouline, ©Jonathan Becker

Villa Cetinale, Tuscany, Italy, 12 May 2012. Courtesy of Assouline, ©Jonathan Becker