Our must-read books to enjoy this month

Here are some of the best new titles to enjoy in isolation, from flower art to neoclassical fashion.

The Eleven Associates of Alma-Marceau 

The Old School Writers Circle (Anomie Publishing) 

Courtesy Anomie Publishing

What secrets does the Mona Lisa hold? Marrying art history, conspiracy, adventure and the phenomenon known as pareidolia (to see images in textured surfaces), this collaboratively written novel poses questions about the world’s most famous painting through the lens of a coming-of-age thriller. 

Flower Art 

Makoto Azuma (Thames & Hudson)

Makoto Azuma, Shiki 1 × Landscapes, 2015. Photograph by Shiinoki Shunsuke/ Courtesy of AMKK

Discover the incredible hybrid practice of Makoto Azuma, a world-renowned florist, sculptor and photographer who marries nature and artifice to reveal the beauty of botanicals. This expansive book presents his ambitious installations and presents plants and flowers like you have never seen them before. 

Edward Hopper A-Z 

Ulf Küster (Hatje Cantz)

American realist Edward Hopper has always been a master of isolation. His most famous work, Nighthawks, encapsulates a strange, romantic melancholy unique to a nocturnal city, where people feel lonesome even when in company. In this new encyclopaedic volume, curator Ulf Küster reveals the subjects, themes, and mastery of light and architectural space that made Hopper’s paintings so iconic. 

The Age of Undress 

Amelia Rauser (Yale University Press)

With most of us working from home, the notion of dressing up might seem like a distant memory, but fashionable states of undress are nothing new. In this book Amelia Rauser examines the neoclassical trend for empire-style garments in the 1970s, which marked a short-lived yet dramatic shift for women’s silhouettes, where extreme corsetry and hooped skirts were abandoned in order to mimic the elegant simplicity of classical statuary. 

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