For aficionados of Scandinavian modernism, one book stands out above all the rest - A Treasury of Scandinavian Design, edited by Erik Zahle (Golden Press, hardcover, publication price $14.95). Originally published in this English version in 1961, it’s a first-day look at the latest and greatest Scandinavian furniture, accessories, textiles and jewelry of the time. Things that would be nearly impossible to find or even see in mint condition today are forever fresh here, like Dora Jung’s fabrics for Tampella, in variations both rustic and suavely geometric. Many of the hundreds of photos, in black-and-white and color, show iconic designs like Tapio Wirkkala’s striated laminated-wood bowls and Poul Henningsen’s famous light fixtures. The fun of the book comes in seeing designs not as well-known, and every bit as exquisite, like Sigurd Persson’s voluptuous silver coffeepot, Rolf Hanssen’s chamotte stoneware with naïve sgraffito designs, and Rigmor Andersen’s achingly simple palisander cabinet. It’s provocative to compare designs whose fame has been renewed today with the ones only advanced amateurs know about: what makes Finn Juhl furniture so revered now, and why is Borge Mogensen’s overlooked by most American collectors? A section of designer bios in the back of the volume is indispensable reading. This is a book that everyone who loves Scandinavian modernism should have, and if anyone finds that ravishing sterling-and-teakwood Bertel Gardberg tea caddy on Page 259, please, please be in touch.

The world of publishing is insane sometimes, and anyone who needs proof of that need look no further than the fact that Henry Whiting II’s Teater’s Knoll: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Idaho Legacy is out of print. This 1987 large-format book (Northwood Institute Press, hardcover; publication price unavailable) is one of the few to detail both the original creation and the restoration of a Frank Lloyd Wright house; Whiting and co-author Robert G. Waite have created a tale any reader will long remember. Henry Whiting II is the nephew of architect Alden Dow, and he may well be the most appropriate and appreciative owner any Wright structure could have. When he bought Teater’s Knoll, the detritus inside its rundown shell included the archives of the original clients, Archie and Patricia Teater, iconoclasts who raised paranoia to the level of an art form. Forever suspicious of everyone, the Teaters railed against, fired, sued and alienated so many people who were trying to help build their house that it took far longer than it should have, and was not as well-built as it might have been. Whiting’s intricate, self-appointed task was to balance restoration of what once had been against necessary correction of original deficiencies, and to update the structure in a manner consistent with Wright’s intent, including the building of a guesthouse. The huge selection of vintage and new pictures in black-and-white and color shows what the Teaters built, how Whiting restored it, and how glorious Idaho’s only Frank Lloyd Wright has become in the hands of someone who dearly loves and deeply understands it.

Anyone who wanted to weep over a lost past in 1939 went to see Gone With the Wind. Anyone wishing to do so today can revisit 1939’s most nostalgia-provoking event by getting hold of The New York World’s Fair: 1939-1940, by Stanley Appelbaum. The slim 1977 Dover volume (softcover, publication price $5.00) contains an amazingly comprehensive selection of 155 black-and-white photographs, mostly by official Fair photographer Richard Wurts. Buildings that would be priceless historical sites today were erected just for the event, meant to be demolished and lost forever within two years. It’s clear no one let that stand in the way of architectural distinction or quality: Ford’s pavilion was by Edward Durell Stone, and RCA’s radio-tube-shaped one by Skidmore & Owings, predecessors to today’s SOM. General Motors’ building, looking like a set for Shape of Things to Come, was the work of Albert Kahn. At that, the established talent didn’t get all the plum assignments; one of Isamu Noguchi’s first sculptural commissions was for Ford, and a new fellow named Morris Lapidus unveiled his first woggles and cheeseholes for the Distilled Spirits pavilion. Exhibits by the likes of Raymond Loewy, Salvador Dalí, and Henry Dreyfuss were mere lagniappe against the wondrous buildings; the total effect for a 1939 visitor must have been overwhelming. People who visited the Fair were given buttons saying “I Have Seen The Future”. People who read Appelbaum’s book will wish the future had turned out the way the Fair promised it would - shining clean, magnificently well-designed, and forever filled with new beginnings.

Books reviewed in The Backlist are often out of print. Copies can be found through sources like eBay, Amazon’s used book service, or through Websites like Alibris. Prices mentioned in reviews were the cover price at time of publication; today’s market value for an out-of-print book may be higher than the original cover price.