Clarkson Potter/Ten Speed

Clarkson Potter/Ten Speed

English

Deborah Needleman is a terrific editor--of words, and now, of rooms and living spaces. In her very readable book, The Perfectly Imperfect Home, the author offers her advice and expertise on a very important subject--how to make your house your home. She includes succinct advice from the great decorators, sage commentary on what to keep and what to throw away, and valuable rules for what to add to a room to make it exactly right--for you and your family. -Martha Stewart I used to think that my taste was so irredeemable and so rooted in some kind of male, post-college, National Football League time warp--I own a green velour couch!--that no one, not even Deborah Needleman, could help me. I was wrong. -Malcolm GladwellBeautiful in a similar way is Deborah Needleman’s PERFECTLY IMPERFECT HOME: HOW TO DECORATE & LIVE WELL (Clarkson Potter, $30), with Kalman-like illustrations by Virginia Johnson. Ms. Needleman, the editor in chief of WSJ Magazine and the founding editor of Domino magazine, has a terrific eye and a dry sense of humor. This is a decorating book for how we live today, and it’s for the 99 percent as well as for the swells. Chapter titles include: “Places for Chatting,” “Cozifications,” “A Bit of Quirk” and “Spots for Books, Drinks, & Feet.” This has the feel of a minor classic, and aren’t the minor classics so often better than the major ones? -Dwight Garner, New York Times Holiday Gift Guide