Nomad [Tapa dura]

If you have Etcetera (first book of this type) then you pretty much have Nomad, the same ideas are rehashed except she used 5 countries of inspiration Mexico, Italy, Syria, India and Japan (about 10-15 pages each, some pages more jumbled than others). Her ideas or sources of ideas are repeated in parts, and her instructions on design is small. A few sentences per a page (not a big deal as this is her style of writing), but a note if you are expecting deeper information on nomad life and wares, this is not the book. This is more a travel log of what she has seen and about herself (an excessive use of "I" overload). If you are new to Sibella Court or like the countries mentioned this may be an okay book, but I think Etcetera is the better book as it has more design and better use of props and objects in home design. Some good things about the book include the choice of paper and binding, and the Japan chapter was a nice start.

First, the good:
The book is beautiful and hefty. The cover is thick and ornate, and the pages are a pleasure to turn. Beautiful photographs with beautiful lighting illustrate beautiful ideas. This is the kind of book you want to snuggle down with at the end of a long day, in your deepest armchair, with a glass of wine.

The average: I bought it because I live in Japan (the first country featured) and was looking for new ideas. I learned a few new things, but this book is primarily to indulge the senses and not to inform. You won't find explanations of most items featured. So if you want to search on ebay for the Japanese bamboo ladle pictured on page 56, you had better already know that it is a bamboo ladle used in tea ceremony. As another reviewer mentioned, the book reads like Sibella Court's travel diary. If the navel-gazing becomes too much, you can just skip the text (there's not much) and enjoy the eye candy.

The bad: Unfortunately, the 4th country profiled is Syria. I'm going to guess this is just very unfortunate timing and that the book was already well on its way to being published before the uprising. The chapter is well-photographed and fascinating, but definitely uncomfortable to read in light of current events. Hopefully, in a few years time, there will have been a happy ending and readers will be able to follow her travels there. There is also some awkwardness with her romanticized views of these countries ("I have had a longtime love affair with the romantic side of colonialism...", etc). Obviously, this is a book on design and not history, but her failure to even hint at the problematic caused a bit of squirming. On my part, at least.

This book has a beautiful quality about it, it is printed on beautiful paper and the photographs are beautifully shot. The only complaint I would have is that for an interior decoration book there aren't many photographs of completed rooms, it is more like design mock-ups. I would have liked to have seen more interior shots.