By Elisabeth Vedrenne, Assouline, $18.95
This petite 80-page primer on the chairs of the legendary French designer is the perfect refernce for those of us who can't make it to the end of anyone's entire monograph. Paulin designed lamps, writing desks and cabinets, too, but it is his colored-jersey-covered mushroom-, tongue-, ribbon-, tulip- and even snake-shaped chairs that have become cult symbols of the 60s and 70s. More than 25 of the most sought-after designs are pictured in easy-to-identify--if inventive--photos. (Globe Chairs, for example, are strewn in a field like bales of hay.) One in a series of Assouline books that includes fashion, arat, architecture and design heavyweights, the pocket Pierre Paulin and other titles on designers including Jean Michel Frank, Eileen Gray, Charles and Ray Eames, and Bauhaus are cool-looking crib notes for anyone interested in boning up on the classics. (via Elements of Living)