Interiors and Narrative shows how crucial interiors are for our understanding of the nature of narrative. A growing cultural fascination with interior dwelling so prevalent in the late nineteenth century parallels an intensification of the rhetorical function interior architecture plays in the development of fiction. The existential dimension of dwelling becomes so intimately tied to the novelistic project that fiction surfaces as a way of inhabiting the world. This study illustrates this through a comparative reading of three realist masterpieces of the Luso-Hispanic nineteenth century: Machado de Assis’s Quincas Borba (1891), Eça de Queirós’s The Maias (1888), and Leopoldo Alas’s La Regenta (1884–1885). The first full-length study to juxtapose the renowned writers, Interiors and Narrative analyzes the authors’ spatial poetics while offering new readings of their work. The book explores the important links between interiors and narrative by explaining how rooms, furnishings, and homes function as metaphors for the writing of the narrative, reflecting on the complex relation between private dwellings and human interiority, and arguing that the interior design of rooms becomes a language that gives furnishings and decorative objects a narrative life of their own. The story of homes and furnishings in these narratives creates a semiotic language that both readers and characters rely on in order to make sense of fiction and reality.

Modern maximalist designer Philip Mitchell reveals his talent for blending collections, family heirlooms, contemporary art, and accessories in visually creative environments that are brimming with personality, color, authenticity, and warmth. The elegant, clean classicism of Philip Mitchell’s style is on full display in these homes, where he masterfully incorporates a wide-ranging mix of antiques, vintage collectibles, and contemporary pieces—everything from inherited furniture collections to modern art—in rooms that are filled with memories and warmth. As a master of what he calls modern maximalism, Mitchell embraces the challenge of taking wonderful things that a homeowner already has and making more of them. Once Mitchell has established a connecting thread among a variety of disparate pieces—whether through finish, material, scale, color, texture, or line—he starts the process of building the relationships that bring a space to life. Brilliant photographs take readers on in-depth tours of nine homes, ranging from an elegant Upper East Side pied-à-terre to a classic cottage on the water in Nova Scotia. Mitchell’s personal narrative in elegant text enlightens, while his takeaways accompanying each home help readers understand how to blend new and old, mix colors and patterns, and fill a home with an eclectic mix that is truly their own.

In essays and analyses of 12 stories by established writers and students, bestselling author Madison Smartt Bell emphasizes the primary importance of form as the backdrop against which all other elements of a story much work.

Learn how to create rooms filled with warmth, meaning, and your own unique story of home Kim Leggett’s ï¬?rst book, City Farmhouse Style, was a big hit. Now Kim is back with the welcoming interiors her fans crave and a no-rules approach that is all about using what you love to create rooms that tell your personal story. Everyone has a story worth telling, and every room can become part of that story—whether you decorate it with heirlooms, flea market finds, simple mementos, or a mix. In Home Stories, Leggett shows readers how to use all these treasures to design very special rooms filled with interest and meaning. She begins by asking readers what it is that attracts them to a certain piece: “Thinking hard about what really speaks to you, and then using it as the basis for design, is the secret behind all of the best, most interesting rooms.” Each chapter presents fascinating spaces and the stories behind the accessories, furnishings, and mementos that fill them. There are plenty of projects, too, plus practical design guidance and design inspiration for refreshing decor as the seasons change.

Take a holistic approach to contemporary interior design. The interior design process is changing. In order to create truly engaging work, designers are developing a deeper and broader understanding of how design theory, research, and existing practice can help them make better decisions. This inquiry provides answers on how design is experienced, and its impact over time. At the same time, the profession is becoming increasingly collaborative. Designers today work closely with other professionals—such as architects, landscape designers, product designers, anthropologists, and business consultants—in new ways, engaging an expanding network of experts in the design process more than ever before. Written by renowned scholars Joy Dohr and Margaret Portillo, the book brings interior design theory and research to life utilizing a narrative inquiry approach that offers highly accessible coverage of the interior design world as it exists today. By looking at real-life stories that demonstrate what makes a memorable design, coupled with photographs and drawings to further illustrate these concepts, this book is a must-read for anyone interested in keeping abreast of interior design in the twenty-first century.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • From the infinitely inventive author of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe comes "one of the funniest books of the year.... A delicious, ambitious Hollywood satire" (The Washington Post). A deeply personal novel about race, pop culture, immigration, assimilation, and escaping the roles we are forced to play. Willis Wu doesn’t perceive himself as the protagonist in his own life: he’s merely Generic Asian Man. Sometimes he gets to be Background Oriental Making a Weird Face or even Disgraced Son, but always he is relegated to a prop. Yet every day, he leaves his tiny room in a Chinatown SRO and enters the Golden Palace restaurant, where Black and White, a procedural cop show, is in perpetual production. He’s a bit player here, too, but he dreams of being Kung Fu Guy—the most respected role that anyone who looks like him can attain. Or is it? After stumbling into the spotlight, Willis finds himself launched into a wider world than he’s ever known, discovering not only the secret history of Chinatown, but the buried legacy of his own family. Infinitely inventive and deeply personal, exploring the themes of pop culture, assimilation, and immigration—Interior Chinatown is Charles Yu’s most moving, daring, and masterful novel yet.