On the upper floors of The Martin luther King Jr. Library in downtown San Jose is the best kept secret. The books of San Jose State College are housed there and included is a sort of rare book collection. Vintage books, that are normally kept in cases or held as reference books only, are allowed to circulate. The trouble is, there are so many amazing books there that I keep adding to my pile and then, because of the sheer weight of them, I am forced to stop. The only thing that would make the experience even better is if they served tea there in the stacks!
On my most recent trip I picked up a book on Persian Handicrafts that is bound in the most sumptuous nubby cotton. It’s a book coat rather than a book jacket ! I also got a book on arts and crafts from India that is bound in a hand-done blockprint cotton fabric that is a work of art in itself.
I also discovered designer Josef Hoffman. He was born in Pirnitz, Moravia (now Chechoslovakia) in 1870, and moved to Vienna at the age of 22 to study architecture at The Academy of Fine Arts under Karl von Hasenauer and Otto Wagner.
He was a prolific and pioneering designer who made his mark on everything from furniture to lighting, and tableware to textiles.
One of the things that I like about the book I found on him, titled Josef Hoffman Designs, is that it’s filled with a lot of his original design sketches.
He has some incredible lamps, but for some reason I’m having trouble scanning them. Here is an especially lovely vase:
You can sometimes find his pieces on ebay.
So Sylvie 
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