The W* Library: flick through June's top ten titles

Dixonary
By Tom Dixon

The masterstroke monograph is something of a designer rite of passage, with the only surprise being that it took Tom Dixon so long to chronicle his work in such fine style. Violette Editions is a worthy publishing partner for Dixon's oeuvre, and Dixonary takes the reader through a chronology of his work, from product to architecture to play and beyond, each with revealing insights from the designer. The evolution of his designs is made even more evident in the context of a book, where it's interesting to see the wrought iron Rococo of his earliest work resurface in some of the highly finished metal lighting and furniture of recent years.

Published by Violette Editions, £35; available from 24 June

Writer: Jonathan Bell

Architecture now! Houses, Vol. 3
By Philip Jodidio

You have to hand it to Philip Jodidio. The prolific scribbler must surely be one of the most prodigious architectural authors in history, with nearly thirty Taschen books to his name. As the name suggests, Houses 3 is the third volume in a well-regarded line of blockbusting books honing in on modern residences. Such is the German giant's clout that there's plenty here you'll never have seen before, from big names to small.

Published by Taschen, £34.99

Tracey Emin: My Photo Album
By Tracey Emin

Tracey Emin's photo album project is surprisingly straight-laced. Styled as a facsimile wire-bound album, it contains a rich trove of the artist's personal family photographs - whittled down from 8,000 - going back all the way to her childhood. As ever, the subtext is hard at work as Emin runs the gamut of her generation's subcultures, enters art college and is consumed by the full-on insanity of the art world. Personal experience has always been at the core of Emin's work, and this visual biography is both a catalogue of sources and an artwork in its own right.

Published by Fuel, £19.95; A signed edition of 100 is also available, £200

EP Vol.1: The Italian Avant-Garde, 1968 - 1976
Edited by Alex Coles and Catharine Rossi

The Italian avant-garde of the late twentieth century were determined to deviate from the influential ideology and aesthetics of its early twentieth century predecessors. It was an era of collective and artistic metamorphosis, and the first volume tracks the manifestos, debates and expos that were to shape the years that followed, including the birth of post-modernism. Interviews reach across the generations, with Joseph Grima talking to former Domus editor Alessandro Mendini, and Experimental Jetset (the Amsterdam studio also responsible for the design of the book) examining the legacy of Ettore Vitale.

Published by Sternberg Press, €22

Ravilious: Submarine
By James Russell

The Mainstone Press continues to mine the rich seam that is the archive and output of Eric Ravilious, a British printmaker whose life was tragically cut short during the Second World War. In his short career, Ravilious was fiendishly productive, able to turn his hand to subjects both technical and mythological. Ravilious' small but well-formed body of work is given context by author James Russell, who explores the history of 20th century auto-lithography. Supporting imagery by the likes of Barnett Freedman and Vladimir Lebedev sheds light on how Ravilious came to make his submarine lithographs, alongside the book covers and posters that were his primary work.

Published by The Mainstone Press, £35

Western Artists and India: Creative Inspirations in Art and Design
Edited by Shanay Jhaveri

The cultural traffic between India and the West has been plied for generations. However, this new monograph from Thames & Hudson looks specifically at the cross-pollination between India and Western superpowers Europe and America, since the Asian nation gained independence in 1947. This was of course, the birth of Modernism's high period, most especially in fine art. The result is a rich collection of projects that owe their genesis to Indian culture and collectors, including works from Dexter Dalwood, Frank Stella, Martin Parr and Charles and Ray Eames.

Published by Thames & Hudson, £29.95

LACMA Handbook of California Design 1930-1965
Edited by Bobbye Tigerman

Admittedly this a niche product for a niche pursuit, but such is the ongoing interest in all things mid-century that this scholarly catalogue should find a well-deserved place in many a modern home. Subtitled 'Craftspeople, Designers, Manufacturers', the book accompanied a recent exhibition at LACMA, delving deep into the people, places and things that formed the era of postmodernist architecture and spindly furniture. As well as the names you know there'll be ones you won't; the handbook is essential reading on a significantly influential time in design culture.

Published by MIT Press,  £24.95

Soviet Modernism: 1955-1991
Edited by Architekturzentrum Wien

The architectural exuberance of Soviet Russia and its former satellites offers an abundant trove for off-the-wall design lovers with an interest in the abstract potential of concrete. This new Unknown History tackles post-war work in 14 Soviet Republics, where, for the most part, this new architecture was imposed rather than welcomed. There's a beauty in these spectacular failures, the romance and intrigue coming largely from the fact that they're the expression of a vanished ideology. Yet for every space age meeting hall or palace of industry there are great swathes of dismal tower blocks, a permanent reminder that the power of this architecture was at its best when it was concentrated in small intense doses.

Published by Park Books, £42

Cornelia Parker
By Iwona Blazwick

Cornelia Parker's art is about intervention: either the uneasy juxtaposition of one physical element against another, or the transformation of an object into another state, quite often through violent means. It's work that lends itself to chronicling and cataloguing, but is best experienced in person - such as the 1995 piece 'The Maybe', featuring a serene Tilda Swinton housed in a glass case. The first monograph of the artist's work includes an introduction by Yoko Ono and essays by the Whitechapel Gallery director, Iwona Blazwick.

Published by Thames & Hudson, £35

Sacred Concrete: The Churches of Le Corbusier
By Flora Samue and Inge Linder-Gaillard

It's either a sign of his audacity or his openness, but the fact remains that although Le Corbusier was decidedly agnostic, his sacred buildings are amongst the most spiritual and brilliant projects in his vast portfolio. Sacred Concrete looks at the architect's key church projects, placing them alongside broader changes in congregation and liturgy during the twentieth century, which made his approach possible. Perhaps just as many architectural pilgrimages as spiritual ones are made to places to La Tourette, Firminy-Vert and Ronchamp every year, but we doubt the priests that commissioned them are complaining.

Published by Birkhauser, £60