This book explores all continents and countries in search of the most extraordinary national parks around the world. Well-known and lesser-known parks are featured, but they are all special because of breathtaking views, a unique atmosphere, or exceptional fauna and flora. In these parks you will experience unforgettable treks and adventures and enjoy magnificent views. From desert parks to safari parks, from jungle areas to the highest mountains; each park has its unique story to tell. This book can serve as a practical travel guide but also as inspiration for those looking for the ultimate next travel destination. A traveller’s bucket list with a selection of the world’s most incredible natural parks.

“… With enticing descriptions and exquisite photography, the book is perfect for travelers to leaf through for destination inspiration. Here is a preview of six of the most tempting tea houses you should put on your 2026 bucket list.” — Forbes

Discover the most enchanting tea houses around the world in 150 Tea Houses You Need to Visit Before You Die. This book takes you on a fascinating journey through 150 unique tea houses across all continents. Whether you are a seasoned tea enthusiast or seeking new travel destinations, this richly illustrated book serves as an inspiring travel guide. From traditional Japanese tea houses to modern, trendy hot spots in global cities, each tea house has its own story, ambiance, and unique tea experience. Immerse yourself in the art of tea drinking and uncover must-visit locations.

“… Use it for inspiration before ~booking~ your next trip.”— Buzzfeed

Discover the most enchanting libraries around the world in 150 Libraries You Need to Visit Before You Die. This book will take you on a fascinating journey through 150 unique libraries across all continents. Whether you are an avid reader or architecture lover, this richly illustrated book serves as an inspiring travel guide and is the perfect reference for those in search of quiet yet endlessly interesting spaces. From opulent Baroque monasteries to sleek contemporary cultural hubs, each library has its own story – and an engrossing selection of books and media to browse through, of course.

“Golf, more than any other sport, is inextricably tied to the landscape. Mother Nature herself could be considered a golfer’s opponent; her rolling hills, sea breezes, and atmospheric pressure challenge all who face her. This is why golf courses are found in some of the world’s most scenic locations.” — author Stefanie Waldek

This book is a gift for every golfer – expert or novice – who dreams of travelling the world to the most beautiful golf courses. Even non-golfers will enjoy this collection of exceptional courses across the globe. Whereas the original 150 Golf Courses You Need to Visit Before You Die book fits into any golf bag, this updated version is an eye-catching book suited for any coffee table or desk. From the luxurious cover to the decorative world map poster on which you can flag your top courses with the supplied set of sticker tags, this book is a true collector’s item. Picking 150 top courses was no easy task. Author Stefanie Waldek carefully selected and described an array of courses that can be found along coastlines, in the mountains, in deserts, and along lakes. All accessible to and playable by the public.

The newest addition to the elegant 150 series of themed travel guides, this book will submerge you in coffee culture. Discover the most exquisite coffee shops around the world in 150 Coffee shops You Need to Visit Before You Die. This book will take you on a fascinating journey through 150 unique coffee shops across all continents. This richly illustrated book serves as an inspiring travel guide and is the perfect reference for those in search of the ultimate sip of coffee. From opulent century-old coffee houses to artisan coffee roasteries, each coffee shop has its own story – one of passion, craft and exceptional taste.

Discover the grandest opera houses around the world in 150 Opera Houses You Need to Visit Before You Die. This book will take you on a fascinating journey through 150 unique opera houses across all continents. Whether you are an opera-goer or architecture lover, this richly illustrated book serves as an inspiring travel guide and is the perfect reference for those passionate about the performing arts. From opulent Baroque theatres in Germany to sleek contemporary performing arts centres in China, each opera house has its own story – full of drama of course, and worth exploring both on stage and backstage.

A beautiful coffee table book with 50 residential gardens from renowned landscape architects and garden designers from all over the world. This must-have collection of exceptional garden design projects includes over 300 photographs of the most remarkable houses, with each project featured over 10 pages.

The American Museum’s collection of more than 250 quilts, ranging from the 18th to mid-20th centuries, is acclaimed as the finest of its type in Europe and the equal of many premier collections in the United States. Examples include early whole-cloth quilts, pieced and appliquéd work, Hawaiian and Amish quilts, and the African-American quilts of Gee’s Bend. Over 50 quilts and their unique stories are included in this new publication. Each entry is beautifully illustrated with stunning photography that celebrates the skill and artistry of these textiles. The selection includes celebrated favourites and new Museum acquisitions that have never been published before. Accompanying the individual quilt entries is an introductory essay that tells the story of how this remarkable Museum was established and the world-class quilt collection was formed. 

The Focus series is a celebration of an institution’s chosen area of strength, appealing to the visitor interested in that specific area as well as a wider audience seeking out collections of their favoured genre.

This volume unveils the refined artistry of Jiangnan gardens through an in-depth exploration of Yangzhou’s Ho Family Garden. Featuring captivating photography, delicate sketches, and rare archival images, it traces how the garden’s unique architecture—its layered walkways, wall-backed rockeries, and harmonious synthesis of northern grandeur, southern elegance, and subtle Western influences—emerges from the local cultural heritage and aesthetic traditions. Blending visual richness with scholarly insight, the book rediscovers the often-overlooked cultural values and the profound, place-specific wisdom embedded within this landscape. Organised around the engaging framework of “stories, routes, and appreciation,” it invites readers to wander its pages. Ideal for landscape architects, garden enthusiasts, cultural scholars, and travellers, this journey reveals why Ho Garden is celebrated as a pinnacle of late Qing dynasty garden design and an enduring jewel of Chinese horticultural art.

Text in English and Mandarin.

This volume unlocks the timeless allure of Jiangnan’s classical gardens through an intimate exploration of Wuxi’s Jichang Garden. Featuring evocative photography, historical sketches, and archival imagery, it traces how this five-hundred-year-old masterpiece harmonises rugged natural landscapes with sophisticated scholarly design. The book investigates the fusion of ancient craftsmanship, imperial legacy, and literary spirit embedded within its layered rockeries and tranquil waters. Structured around the engaging “Story-Route-Appreciation” framework, it invites readers to wander through pivotal eras—from its Ming Dynasty origins to Qing Dynasty grandeur—and examine twenty significant aesthetic vignettes. This scholarly yet accessible volume celebrates Jichang Garden as an enduring symbol of Chinese landscape art, offering profound insights for architects, historians, and travellers seeking to understand the poetic soul of Jiangnan.

Text in English and Mandarin.

London’s record shop scene is at its most vital and buoyant point since the 1990s, following a resurgence of interest in vinyl over recent years. Tom Greig, who has immersed himself in the world of London’s record shops for close to two decades, profiles and tells the story of 60 distinctive independent record stores, selling both new and used vinyl. Vinyl London is at once a practical guide, featuring maps, addresses, opening times and stock information, and an attractive visual celebration of London’s record shops. The book is organised geographically, and contains the following chapters; Soho; North; East; South; West; Suburbs; Markets; Vinyl Cafes. Also in the series: Rock ‘n’ Roll London ISBN 9781788840163 London Peculiars ISBN 9781851499182 Art London ISBN 9781788840385

This volume guides readers through the exquisite world of the Master-of-Nets Garden in Suzhou. Part of the acclaimed series curated by leading scholars, it employs the “stories-routes-appreciation” framework to unlock this classical landscape. Celebrated as the “Garden by Night” for its enchanting Kunqu performances and interplay of light, it embodies the poetic ideal of a “Fisherman’s Retreat.” The book explores how, within less than ten mu, the garden achieves profound spatial complexity and the literati ideal of “small yet complete.” It traces the garden’s journey from its Southern Song origins to its modern resonance, including its notable replication as the Astor Court at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Through scholarly insights and engaging visuals, this work reveals the garden as a masterpiece of condensed artistry and a living expression of Jiangnan’s cultural sophistication.

Text in English and Mandarin.

“When one is tired of London, one is tired of life.” – Samuel Johnson London has long been a centre of the literary world. From Shakespeare to Amis, Byron to Blake, Plath, Thomas, Christie and Rowling; many of the greatest names in literature have made this metropolis their home. Writers’ London guides the reader through homes, bookshops, pubs and cemeteries, in search of where literary greats loved and lost, drank and died. Discover the Islington building where Joe Orton was murdered by his lover, the Soho pub where Dylan Thomas left his manuscript, the Chelsea hotel where Oscar Wilde was arrested, and the Bank of England where Kenneth Graham was shot at (and missed) three times. Gathering hundreds of famous and less-well-known anecdotes, this meticulously researched volume will entertain any lover of literature. Also in the series: Vinyl London ISBN 9781788840156 Rock ‘n’ Roll London ISBN 9781788840163 Art London ISBN 9781788840385 London Peculiars ISBN 9781851499182

Women Garden Designers presents twenty-seven of the most important and influential women garden designers and their gardens from around the world, showing both their finest commissions as well as the gardens they designed for themselves, in their own space. The carefully researched text examines their influences and their legacy to garden design. Beginning with the remarkable Gertrude Jekyll and Beatrix Farrand, who were working simultaneously, though on different sides of the Atlantic, the book then moves on into the 20th century, featuring international designers as diverse as Florence Yoch – who created gardens for film sets and for glamorous Hollywood homes – and Vita Sackville-West – whose regular gardening column in the Observer, along with her own garden at Sissinghurst, influenced those in Britain. In Australia, Edna Walling supplemented her income from her practice with regular articles in life-style magazines. Increasingly with picture-led articles, designers found a way to publicise and advertise their work, thus gaining new clients in emancipated women who were in a position to place their own commissions. Women designers were more likely and quicker to embrace the ecological garden movement particularly in Germany and Sweden in the middle of the 20th century. They are represented by Herta Hammerbacher and Rosemary Weisse, who created the glorious perennial plantings in Munich’s West Park and Ulla Bodorff in Sweden, as well as Isabelle Greene in California with her dry native plantings. The modern movement includes Monica Gora and Topher Delaney, for whom spirituality and landscape as works of art are important. The more conventional structured approach is represented by Penelope Hobhouse and Rosemary Verey, who began creating gardens later in their lives, following motherhood. Haruko Seki from Japan and Isabel du Prat from Brazil express their own special cultural qualities in their trans-global practices. Contents: Gertrude Jekyll (1843-1932, English); Beatrix Farrand (1872-1959, American); Norah Lindsay (1876-1948, English); Marian Coffin (1876-1957, American); Florence Yoch (1890-1972, American); Vita Sackville-West (1892-1962, English); Edna Walling (1895-1973, Australian); Brenda Colvin (1897-1981, English); Herta Hammerbacher (1900-1985, German); Sylvia Crowe (1907-1997, English); Maria Teresa Parpagliolo Shephard (1903-1974, Italian); Joane Pim (1904-2002, South African); Ulla Bodorf (1913-1982, Swedish); Rosemary Verey (1918-2001, English); Cornelia Oberlander (1921-, Canadian); Rosmarie Weisse (1927-2002, German); Penelope Hobhouse (1929- English); Niki de Saint Phalle (1930-2002, French); Isabelle Greene (1934- American); Arabella Lennox-Boyd (1938- Italian); Nancy Goslee Power (1942- American); Topher Delaney (1948- American); Isabel du Prat (1954- Brazilian); Petra Blaisse (1955- Dutch); Monica Gora (1959- Swedish); Haruko Seki (1959- Japanese).

The idea of this book is to shed light on the various stages in the construction of the buildings along with their use in the Cinquantenaire in Brussels from 1880 until today.

Besides statues and monuments, the history of the major institutions that are housed here are brought to life in text and image. The story of the World Fairs is linked to the history of Belgium as well as daily life in the park today with the help of the many unpublished documents.

London teemed with top-rated singers and musicians during the ’60s and ’70s, whether they were squatting, playing gigs or investing in multi-million pound mansions. Follow McCartney and co. to the quiet flat on Green Street that was their refuge before the Beatlemaniacs sought them out. Wind back time to when Loog Oldham locked Mick and Keith in their flat and demanded they compose a song. From the zany to the tragic – it was in St Mary Abbot’s Hospital, Kensington where Jimi Hendrix was pronounced dead – this is a guidebook like no other, a pilgrimage dedicated to the rock ‘n’ roll greats. Also in the series: Vinyl London ISBN 9781788840156, London Peculiars ISBN 9781851499182, and Art London ISBN 9781788840385.

A new volume in ACC Art Books’ London series, focusing on the capital’s vibrant LGBTQ+ scene. Queer London is a timely and accessible introduction to the city through a LGBTQ+ lens, and will appeal to anyone with an interest in London’s thriving queer landscape.

Celebrating the diversity and innovation of queer individuals in London, both historically and today, Queer London features a range of bars, clubs, shops, Pride events, charities, community organisations, saunas and sex shops that cater to the LGBTQ community.

Along with highlighted features on influential queer Londoners of the moment, this book delves into the cultural history of queerness in the capital, including events, organisations or venues that have sometimes been forgotten or overlooked, but which were of key importance to the community. From the long, illustrious queer history of Soho and the legendary drag balls at Porchester Hall, to the hottest clubs of the moment, Queer London is the go-to guide for anyone looking to engage with rich queer legacy of this nation’s capital.

“…a delectable tour of 46 clubs that span 300 years of architecture and design.” — Airmail

“… a lavishly illustrated and wittily written study of one of the capital’s most distinctive – and most secretive – institutions.” — House & Garden UK

“Jones treats them not really as clubs, but as examples of interior decoration, which he writes about interestingly and with an observant eye.” — Charles Saumarez Smith

“From the concealed bookcase door in the library of The Travellers Club in St James’s to the taxidermy fish and walls lined with rods in Mayfair’s Flyfishers’ Club, it serves as an unofficial guide to the city’s strangest and most elegant private dining and drinking venues.”— FT

“…wonderful book on the architecture and interiors of London’s private members’ spaces.”— The Rake

London has more members’ clubs than any other city. There are clubs for everyone: from actors, plutocrats, aristocrats and bishops to sailors, soldiers, fishermen and spies, as well as journalists, jockeys, architects and æsthetes.
Andrew Jones opens the door to 46 of the most beautiful, interesting and unusual of these clubs, presenting 300 years of architecture and design. The London Club features the oldest clubs in London as well as the most recent, with perfectly preserved interiors, original furniture and extraordinary
collections. From bohemian to bling, shabby to chic, classical and brutal, this is a celebration of variety and beauty, with newly commissioned photographs by Laura Hodgson.
“From the grandest to the simplest taking in the quirkiest en route, this book is an irresistible journey through London’s clubland.” – From the Foreword by Nina Campbell OBE

Hargreaves Associates has been on the forefront of landscape architectural practice since its founding in 1983, creating a narrative approach to place making that layers history, ecology, and environmental phenomena. This book, featuring the built work of Hargreaves Associates explores how they create meaning through dynamic, interactive, and exultant landscape. Whether reductive or rich, highly programmed or passive, culturally interpretive or teeming with the phenomena of nature’s own systems, the built landscapes of Hargreaves Associates in this volume seek the power of connection to our day-to-day lives.

“In a visually arresting book titled Houses That Sugar Built, authors Gina Consing McAdam and Siobhán Doran tell the tales behind the historic homes that proliferated during the sugar boom in the Philippines.” — Tatler

Houses that Sugar Built – An Intimate Portrait of Philippine Ancestral Homes explores the largely unknown architectural legacy to be found in the ancestral houses of Iloilo, Negros Occidental and Pampanga – the three main sugar-producing provinces of the Philippines. These grand residences have yet to receive international exposure.

Nonetheless, they are important in two ways. Firstly, although easily classifiable in terms of architectural style, upon experiencing the buildings themselves there are almost always layers of additional influence. Secondly, this assured blending of styles reveals what we might call a ‘Critical Ambition’ – a desire on the part of the patrons who commissioned these residences to participate in an international architectural culture. Their relatively overlooked location did not stop the sugar barons responsible for these houses from undertaking a 20th-century form of the Grand Tour of European capitals, returning with a desire to bring the latest trends from Paris or Vienna to the provincial Philippines, or from partaking of the latest streamlined Moderne style from the US.

Beautifully photographed with over 200 pages of interiors that have rarely been seen by the public, Houses that Sugar Built- An Intimate Portrait of Philippine Ancestral Homes is layered with intimate stories and individual house texts that transport us back to a time when these residences were in their heyday.