Glitz, glamour gorgeous paintings: Find the perfect present with the best picture books
1 I Got You Babe: A Celebration Of Cher Annie Zaleski Running Press £25, 224pp
This is a rival to Cher’s own Memoir, volume 2, only with more pictures and fewer words. Cher is a phenomenon, as renowned for her longevity as her performing skills, but this book is essentially a pictoral history of her many incarnations, as Sonny’s wife, as a light entertainer of the old school, as a power balladeer with a voice like a foghorn, and as Meryl Streep’s mum in Mamma Mia 2. ‘Given her powerful voice, it’s not easy for Cher to blend in,’ writes Zaleski. Did you know she sang back-up on the Righteous Brothers’ You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’? I didn’t, and this book is full of such fascinating snippets of information, as well as a thousand photos of her in a thousand different wigs. Wig-tastic!
2 Cartier Edited by Helen Molesworth and Rachel Garrahan V&A £35, 256pp
Few jewellers are as celebrated as Cartier, and in this book you see why. All the signature designs are here: the Tank watch, the Love bracelet, the Trinity ring, plus some photos of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, who were loyal customers. ‘The jeweller of kings and the king of jewellers,’ said the Duke, obviously gagging for a freebie. The book also studies the company’s ‘embrace of progress and modernity’: we see Tyler The Creator’s eight Cartier watches, all of them telling different times. There’s even the tiara worn by the current Princess of Wales on her wedding day, which you wouldn’t say no to.
3 Modern Tree Houses Florian Siebeck Taschen £50, 376pp
Like many books here, this does what it says on the tin. All manner of modern treehouses are depicted in this lavish tome, from the shambolic and homemade to the architectural and eyewateringly expensive. Siebeck reveals Emperor Caligula commissioned an arboreal banquet hall, while in the 19th century, the Parisian suburbs boasted Les Guingettes de Robinson, where patrons dined among the branches. Many of the modern treehouses are staggering, permanent constructions. Some are described as an ‘interactive educational experience’, intended to bring young visitors closer to the forest. Some are actually holiday homes that can presumably be hired for a small fortune. Probably cheaper to buy this book.
4 Valentino Matt Tyrnauer & Suzy Menkes Edited by Armando Chitolina Taschen £100, 576pp
Here’s one of Taschen’s enormous volumes on a giant of fashion, Valentino Garavani.
For half a century he dominated haute couture, designing dresses for Elizabeth Taylor, Audrey Hepburn and Jackie Kennedy, and although he retired in 2007, his brand continues to thrive.
This book has been assiduously researched and the photographs of luscious models wearing astonishing gowns take your breath away.
Valentino himself is pictured elegantly suited, as camp as a row of tents, and with more hair than Marge Simpson. One interview reveals that he used to go skiing with Roger Moore, and is ‘almost sick when I look at a Gauguin painting’. Even at £100, this book is amazing value for besotted fashionistas.
5 Country Life’s Book Of Dogs Agnes Stamp Rizzoli £50, 348pp
If my mother were alive, she would willingly hand over years of her life to own this book.
It’s exactly what you think it would be: loads of photos of dogs, with a few photos of country houses and the canine-crazed aristos who live in them.
Some of these dogs are working dogs, and others are purely decorative. F. Scott Fitzgerald was right: the very rich are different from you and me, and for one thing they have much prettier dogs. There are no mutts here, just pure-bred uber-dogs, frolicking on the grass or on staircases wide enough to accommodate a small army.
It’s actually a lovely book: charmingly written, magnificently photographed and a joy for all seasons.
Country Life’s Book of Dogs is available now from the Mail Bookshop
6 Gardens Of Great Britain And Ireland Royal Horticultural Society Dorling Kindersley £25, 256pp
This is garden porn, pure and simple, with 100 of the most beautiful gardens in these islands pictorially recorded for your delectation and enlightenment.
Most of the gardens are formal and very beautifully designed, but there are ad hoc gardens here too, one or two adopting more random or shambolic methods of planting, which pleases me greatly. But as the uncredited writer of all this avers, ‘this treasury of magnificent gardens will be the inspiration for endless days out’, and both postcodes and opening hours are included in the text.
There are loads of good ideas too, for those of us tilling our more modest patches of land…
8 Jean-Paul Gaultier: Catwalk Laird Borrelli- Persson Thames and Hudson £60, 632pp
Another massive book – industrial hydraulic equipment would come in useful when trying to lift it, and a fork-lift truck would certainly be a help – and this one is about fashion’s enfant terrible, Jean-Paul Gaultier.
Gaultier is now 73 and retired but this splendid volume takes us pictorially through his eminent career.
Skirts for men, Madonna’s conical bra, trans models a-go-go: they’re all here, with countless photos of amazing frocks and often ridiculous hairstyles. These aren’t exactly clothes that are meant to be worn, more meant to be seen and marvelled at. Bring back Eurotrash!
9 Ten Years Of Remembering Wildlife Wildlife Photographers United Remembering Wildlife £59.50, 200pp
This sumptuous volume is the tenth in the Remembering Wildlife series. Founded in 2015 by British wildlife photographer Margot Raggett, the series has two purposes: one to raise awareness of the plight of each species, the other to use profits from sales to support organisations working to protect them. This book features some of the best images from the collection, and also loads of photos of pangolins, one of the least known mammals on Earth and yet the most trafficked: more than a million have been taken from the wild in the last decade. (They are poached for their scales and meat.) The photos, all donated by top photographers, are as spectacular as ever.
Ten Years of Remembering Wildlife is available now from the Mail Bookshop
11 Great Art Explained James Payne Thames and Hudson £30, 320pp
This impressive piece of work is based on a series of YouTube lectures. James Payne isn’t an art historian by trade, but a very well informed amateur on a mission to explain great works of art in their social, political and aesthetic contexts, with loads of good stories. I didn’t know, for instance, that when Monet and Pissarro visited London, their main object of attention was Turner’s huge, almost abstract canvasses in the National Gallery. So Turner wasn’t just Britain’s greatest Romantic painter, he was also the father of impressionism. The critics had reservations, though. The Morning Chronicle called his Rain, Steam and Speed ‘probably the most insane and the most magnificent of all these prodigious compositions’, which now seems like a compliment, but didn’t in 1844.