Design Books Every Aficionado Must Have, According to VERANDA's Senior Style & Market Editor, Dayle Wood
VERANDA's Senior Style & Market Editor Dayle Wood is a veritable fount of knowledge on the subject of design. Her insatiable enthusiasm for learning extends to fiction, nonfiction, and, of course, design books, so we sat down to learn a thing or two from our in-house expert, chat about all things literary, and find out how she's keeping herself inspired during this endless time at home.
Ashley Leath: Have you always been a reader?
Dayle Wood: Always. I remember as a toddler, I carried around Hailstones and Halibut Bones: Adventures in Poetry and Color. I’d take it everywhere like a blanket or a lovey. I could possibly even recite the poems if you got me started! “What is blue? Blue is the quiet sea…” I was obsessed.
AL: What books have most impacted you?
DW: As a kid it was the classics. The Secret Garden planted the seed, so to speak, for my love of gardens. My connection to nature stems from this even now, while I don’t have a garden space. I even love the film adaptation! I love seeing things brought to life. It fits my visual side.
Design-book wise, I love the old decorators, and their books are in their voices, which is so appealing. I turn to Billy Baldwin, Mark Hampton, David Hicks…They’re so instructive—"do this, don’t do that”—and still resonate today. Colefax and Fowler’s The Best in English Interior Decoration from 1989 is the book I always look to.
AL: What are you reading now?
DW: Books are so important to everything I do. Usually I’d be out and about and seeing things in person, traveling to trade shows. All of that has been taken away right now with the pandemic. So I’ve turned to my library for ideas and to seek out that sense of place in another way.
One of my favorite things to do when I travel is to immerse myself in the location’s literature before my trip. Prior to Covid-19’s outbreak, I was supposed to go on a long-planned trip to South Africa. Leading up to it, I’d dived into the literature of the place. I’d read Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime, J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace, Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country. Of course the trip was cancelled, but the books will stick with me.
With the pandemic, this has been a method for me to experience a place while not being able to physically travel. For example, I’m perpetually planning a trip to India, so I just ordered A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth. It’s almost 1,500 pages! It’s one of the longest books in the English language! I am so excited.
AL: Tell me about your favorites, the books that have taken hold of you and won’t let go.
DW: One of my favorites is Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips. It was such a surprise standout for me. The setting was so fascinating, in the far regions of Russia near Alaska in the super-remote, rugged tundra. The story reads like connected short stories of women characters. I was so intrigued and couldn’t put it down. The writer has this uncanny way of keeping the disappearance at the heart of the story hovering in the background. It’s unlike anything I’ve read. It’s not a crime book, so don’t expect that. It’s so much more and turns the whole concept of a thriller on its head.
I also just finished Shuggie Baine by Douglas Stuart. I studied in Scotland in college and have a lifelong affinity for the Scots, so this story drew me in from the start. It follows a son and his mom, who struggles with addiction, and their lives in working-class Glasgow. I couldn’t put it down. Have you ever finished a book and had to hold it to your chest? That was this book for me. It was gritty and not easy, but I felt so hopeful at the end.
Also, the Veranda January book club pick, Hamnet. To me, this was prose as poetry. I was captivated by Maggie O’Farrell’s descriptions and the way she described the gardens—and the houses! I could go on and on. The sense of place, of smell, of the time period…It was transporting.
Speaking of, I love houses in books. Like Manderley in Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca. The houses in literature and how they’re described and brought to life, it’s so important to me. Like Bunny Williams’s An Affair with a House. You go into the linen closet and get to see a space you wouldn’t normally see. I love those glimpses into the lives of people I admire, the nitty-gritty, the utilitarian spaces of life.
Other must-haves: One Man’s Folly: The Exceptional Houses of Furlow Gatewood by Julia Reed and Nicky Haslam’s Folly de Grandeur: Romance and Revival in an English Country House. And, coming out in the spring, Christopher Spitzmiller’s A Year at Clove Brook Farm and Charlote Moss's Charlotte Moss Flowers.
AL: What books do you always give as gifts?
DW: I have an affinity for bizarre, niche topics. I could spend hours at the Strand in New York, lost amid the stacks, on the hunt. My advice: Know who you’re giving something to and find something so specific to them on a topic that it’s perfectly “them.” It’s so fun. Once, I found a beautiful book on shellwork that I gave to a friend. I love hunting for the perfect niche item to fit a person exactly right. When in doubt, Suzanne Slesin’s Everyday Things: Kitchen Ceramics and Everyday Things: Garden Tools are beautifully styled.
I’m also obsessed with Shire Library’s collection. They’re these little books, five by eight inches, and pretty academic, but the topics are topiaries, trains…the Victorian fern craze! I love Britain in pictures in the '40s. And they’re all written by notable, famous writers. Vita Sackville-West wrote one.
AL: What are you reading next?
DW: That’s the problem, I can’t decide. I have so many on my list. What do you suggest?
AL: Veranda's next book club selection, of course! It's The Liar's Dictionary by Eley Williams, a perfectly light, humorous, and word-nerdy delight with some decadent interiors descriptions to boot.
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