Two new titles explore the many ways to splash your home with joie de vivre.

Happy Home: Everyday Magic for a Colorful Life is the new book by designer Charlotte Hedeman Gueniau. She advocates filling your home with happy colours that make you smile. You see a front door painted cheery yellow and accented with pretty pink scatter mats. Hallways wear a coat of periwinkle blue and are crowned with light fixtures with patterned lampshades. Rooms are adorned with flowers and embroidered fabrics.

Smiles come from kitschy souvenirs and quirky accessories, as well as heirlooms with a family story. She views walls as playgrounds to display lively art and personal collections.

For Jonathan Adler, happy, happy, happy comes with unbridled self expression and small indulgences. In 100 Ways to Happy Chic Your Life, he reveals his favourite tricks for happy living in his trademark cheeky style.

Small indulgences include creating a tea moment, napping in unusual places and watching bad TV. Luxury is a stack of towels on a chair in the bathroom. “Same rules as an orgy: You need at least three as a minimum, then add on as many as you desire.”

Throw a sheepskin on a chair for casual squish and Laplander chic. Embrace the music of wind chimes and make your own valentines. Adler is not afraid to be irreverent or conventional. Although he will cheerfully embellish a staid portrait with mustache and goatee, he will also space out with cross stitch. Above all, his message is to keep an open mind about any domestic activity that brings you pleasure and makes you glad to be alive.

- Jane

I love to recommend new interior design books to friends who enjoy them. Three of my friends have very different styles and consequently get recommendations for different books. Every now and again, a new book comes in that has a lot to offer anyone interested in design, no matter what their style preference is. A Living Space by Kit Kemp is a new title that does just that.

Kemp has an unusual resume. She is an interior designer who, together with her husband, owns a chain of hotels in London and New York. Her design work for these hotels has received international acclaim. The book features rooms from these hotels as well as their homes.

Kemp has an outstanding flair for colour and pattern mix. She creates rooms that are lively and inviting for the large-scale hotel settings as well as domestic interiors. Her spaces feature customized furnishings, many commissioned art works and fabric from collections she has designed for two companies.

She shares her sources of inspiration which are often textiles and objects collected while traveling.

“My aim as a designer,” she says, “Is to make surroundings a joyful thing – to bring in elements of intrigue and curiosity that create a sense of adventure and fun.”

It is one of the freshest new interior design books I’ve seen.

- Jane

No one will ever accuse Sera Hersham-Loftus of being tasteful. Still, her over-the-top decorating is a lot of fun. Her style could be described as somewhere between early brothel and late bordello. According to the dust jacket from her new book, Seductive Interiors, she is an “innovator of the seductive and boudoir trend”.

Lush rooms are richly layered with brocades and satin. Lampshades and tablecloths drip with heavy fringe. Sofas and alcoves are cushioned with velvet pillows and leopard print. Dramatic lighting in dusky interiors creates sultry ambience.

Some of the spaces have the quality of childhood fantasy where you might dress up in unlikely costumes and act out stories; others are like stage sets. Many of the rooms have the hallmarks often associated with romantic interiors: candles, polished silver, lace and flowers.

My favourite is a barge that travels the waterways in London. It has the appeal of a gypsy caravan and offers a cozy, built-in day bed where you could curl up with a good book – or friend.

Maybe tasteful is overrated.

- Jane

Design students and groupies will enjoy the lavish new title from design writer Dominic Bradbury. The Iconic Interior: Private Spaces of Leading Artists, Architects, and Designers takes you on an extravagant international tour of famous personal digs.

These are interiors that have been widely photographed and shown in other sources. The charm is in finding them all together between the same hard covers. For each place, Bradbury offers a tidy essay about the designer’s work and what makes the place so special. Here is a sampling:

In London, UK, visit Nancy Lancaster’s lavish, traditional, butter-yellow living room or Jasper Conran’s handsome sitting room. In Conran’s home traditional style is filtered through contemporary restraint.

Step into the free-spirited, bohemian world of artists Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell at their renowned Charleston farmhouse in East Sussex.

In Belgium, Axel Vervoordt’s home is his castle – literally. This antiques dealer/ designer/entrepreneur is known for his unique combination of classicism and rusticity. He moved with his company into the castle after four years of renovation work.

Have a look at Vicente Wolf’s bright and airy New York loft which is the perfect stage for his photography and then check out Frederic Mechiche’s book-lined Paris apartment.

Todd Oldham owns a quirky country house in rural Pennsylvania filled with furnishings that speak of his creativity and success as a fashion designer.

And you get to explore Jonathan Adler’s exuberant and surreal surroundings. His playful home appears on the cover of the book.

- Jane

Shabby Chic Interiors: My Rooms, Treasures, and Trinkets is a new edition of a title published first in 2009 by Rachel Ashwell, a designer with all the moves. She is a serial home dweller whose philosophy is “wherever I am, I make my nest, even in a rented home or hotel.” And of course, each move provides fodder for a new book. I have the theory that, when it comes to home decorating, doing it is more fun than having it. (I could certainly be accused of this myself.) And it’s easy to see that Ashwell loves the process.

The book takes you to her latest house purchase that occurred when her nest emptied. You have to get past the line that says, “So I then I began the curious mission of “unrestoring”; heaving out brand-new cabinets and deluxe whirlpool baths until I got back to the authentic and real.”

You got it. She ripped out all the improvements recently made by the previous owner who also wasn’t happy with them and so moved along. The sleek new kitchen cabinets made way for ones that are wonky and worn. And she tells you that her construction team cheered her on.

Don’t get me wrong. I like the pretty rooms she creates and the homes of others that she takes you to. Some of them, like the Milches’ house in the chapter “Dogs, Art & Literature”, might be properly labeled authentic.

This is one very stylish woman who has made a career out of being a very stylish woman. I’m just hoping that her style inspires you to live and work well with the comfortable old things you already own or discover.

On the other hand, you could just enjoy the pictures without reading the text and then you won’t have to think of it all as cultural commentary.

- Jane

High-profile designer, Nate Berkus, gets up close and personal with his latest design book, The Things that Matter. He reveals intimate details of his life and upbringing and talks about the people who have influenced him and his sense of style.

Yes, he takes you home with him and into the homes of 12 other stylish people as well. As you would expect, all of the places are beautiful and executed with an exceptional eye for detail. But, this is a text-heavy book where he shares stories about the people who live in the handsome places and what is meaningful to them.

The homes all have eye-catching collections of interesting and unique objects and each tells a tale. A brass gazelle named Fiona sits regally atop a smoked glass table in the heart of a chic black-and-white living room. Fiona is a treasured object from a humble source: EBay. Other treasures in other homes speak of esoteric interests and exotic places.

The homes are not all palatial. Fiona lives in a cookie-cutter contemporary apartment of modest proportions. He visits the tiny apartment (450 sf) in Greenwich Village of his hair dresser whose charming home is skillfully edited.

Some places are sleek and glamorous; others are cozy and filled with vintage furnishings. You see the home of Dr. Ruth Westheimer, sex therapist and media personality. You also see the swanky digs of Chris Gardner whose rags to riches career – and year of homelessness – was chronicled in the movie, The Pursuit of Happyness.

Along with the many talents that have made him a successful designer, Berkus is a good story teller.

- Jane

If you get a weekly fix of inspiration from TV makeover shows, you will enjoy a new addition to the collection.

Home By Novogratz showcases the work of husband-and-wife design team, Robert and Cortney Novogratz who have their own show on HGTV. Not surprisingly, the makeover formula is applied to the book. You see before-and-after shots, a list of steps, expert tips and a budget summary for each of the profiled spaces.

Their signature style is vintage modern. The rooms are colourful, family friendly and unpretentious. Of course, a lot of their clients have big bucks to drop on the process, like $35,000 for a tree house. No matter, there is much to be gleaned for the avid DIYer and a lot of fun in the decorating.

A long narrow attic storage space is transformed for two young girls. Beds are hung from sloped ceilings with heavy chains to maintain an airy feel. Floors are covered with bright, striped rugs. A long desk, shelving, and storage cubbies painted purple maximize the use of space. Pretty fabrics add a soft girlie touch.

Paint and stencils create a bold graphic for a living room wall in a “hipster haven”. For a singer-songwriter friend, they created a reader’s refuge, reorganizing hundreds of books into existing shelving and building a custom L-shaped sofa with additional library space in the base.

In a suburban basement, play space is created for both children and adults. Bold checkered carpet tiles brighten the area. Wallpaper is a collage of enlarged family photos.

It’s the kind of book where many high-cost (let’s-pay-a-contractor-to-do-it) ideas can be adapted for low-budget living.

- Jane

I have always loved the cozy domestic atmosphere evoked by Graham Nash in his famous song, Our House. The song describes the home he shared for a while with Joni Mitchell in Laurel Canyon and celebrates some quiet and soul-satisfying moments of everyday life.

“The house had a large, life-size, wooden carousel pig in the corner. Bricks, wooden floors, lace curtains, a couple of stained-glass ornaments in the window, which were the jewels that I was talking about in the song.” Nash tells the story behind the song and shares his happy memories of the place in Canyon of Dreams.

The book, by Harvey Kubernik, is a compilation of stories about the famous musicians that came together in Laurel Canyon in the 60s to create a magical and creative place that continues to inspire artists today.

There is a picture of zoned-out Eric Clapton staring at Joni Mitchell who is playing guitar while David Crosby in the background is trying to make a point. In the foreground, baby Owen Elliot placidly watches the circle of adults. They are all hanging out at Mama Cass Elliot’s place.

According to Nash, her house was a gathering place, like the salons of Gertrude Stein in Paris – that is Gertrude Stein with acid. The book tells of parties and people, the politics of the entertainment business, love and lust, and all that wonderful music.

Fans of Randy Bachman’s Vinyl Tap will love this book.

- Jane

Today's blog comes from Candace Weir, Central Library staff:

How do you enthuse about a book that is black and white, except for the cover, when it is written about Matisse, a master of colour? Matisse on Art is a new book where the artist’s language provides the colour. It arrived at the Library at the same time as the lavishly illustrated new book, Picasso and Maria-Therese: l’amour fou.

What have the two books to do with one another? I believe that Picasso owed a great debt to Matisse. It was Matisse who wrote, “The effort needed to see things without distortion demands a kind of courage; and this courage is essential to the artist…” Both artists had a great deal of courage when it came to creating bold and innovative styles of expression with paint. It was like developing a new language and having to educate the viewers.

After all, paint is paint; it is never the object it represents. Therefore, it has to be true to the artist’s vision and not the preconceptions of the viewer. Matisse worked on some of his paintings through hundreds of hours until they arrived at a stage where they spoke truly to him. I believe that slowly and methodically Matisse broke down boundaries in art.

Learning from this approach to truth in painting, Picasso explored it through a prodigious number of works. Some of the most captivating were paintings of one of his mistresses, Maria Therese Walter. They remained remarkably gentle in ways that the paintings of his other mistresses – or wives – never did. These are just thoughts, but don’t take my word for it. Check it out for yourself.

- Candace

I love the beautiful decorating books in our collection and enjoy reviewing the new ones. Many of them are glossy and shallow confections which I still appreciate if I like the design style portrayed. A picture says a thousand words and all that.

Every now and again, one of the pretty ones offers a little more than I expected and that’s a treat. Like this one.

Bringing Nature Home is a new book about flower arrangement that combines the talents of a lifestyle photographer with floral and prop arrangers.

They have chosen common flowers from garden and meadow, arranged them with inspired simplicity and placed them in lovely, uncomplicated room settings which are as intriguing as the arrangements.

As well, they provide information about the historical cultivation of the flowers and their place in art and literature.

A graceful branch of bleeding heart is tucked into each of a pair of modern white vases that complement an art grouping. Bleeding heart is combined with daffodils, pansies and Solomon’s seal for another charming kitchen bouquet. You see it again mixed with tulips, crab apple blossoms and geranium leaves in a sturdy pottery container set on an end table.

Along the way you learn, among other things, that there are more than 25,000 cultivars of daffodils and have been reminded of a famous Wordsworth poem.

The book is a beautiful page turner with arrangements organized by season. And it all looks so effortless.

“This would make a great gift book,” said Janet, an Arts Department colleague. I agree.

- Jane