our favourite {non-fiction} books

The next in our "a few of our favourite things" series, here are some of the non-fiction books we love...

• A Japanese series of creative/interiors books called Editions Paumes - hard to get hold of, and all in Japanese, but worth it for the lovely and inspiring pictures (here).

• London A-Z for the geek inside, I love the attention to detail and the story of its creator Phyllis Pearsal (here).

• Breathe on 'em Salop (history of Shrewsbury Town FC).

• A Year of Mornings: 3191 miles apart - a good coffee table book full of gorgeous photography where two friends, living 3191 miles apart, took photos every morning for a year to share with each other.

• A People's Tragedy by Orlando Figes - heavy in both content and physicality, but epic and - incredibly - all true.

• A Million Little Pieces by James Frey - really gripping story.

• Falling Leaves by Adeline Yen Mah - if China is going to be the biggest world power, we need to worry.

our favourite galleries & museums

If you feel a cultural visit coming on - in or out of London - and need inspiration, here are some of our favourites...

our favourite shops {anywhere}

Although shopping is kind of off our agenda for January, we've shared our favourite London shops here before and thought in the spirit of New Year's inspiration we'd throw it open to shops anywhere at all. So here are our picks...

From top:

Daikanyama, Tokyo "interesting boutiques beautifully designed and great for people watching"

Topshop, London

Merci, Paris "whereas Colette is too cool for school, this is a concept store that is just really lovely to spend time in"

Independent cookware shops "whoever would have thought you could buy a pair of 'onion glasses' - ingenious

Shrewsbury Antiques Market "a treasure trove of stuff that you just can't find anywhere"

Selfridges, London "after being to New York, Paris, Rome and countless other places, I really think this is the best shop in the world"

J R Raine & Son, Middleton-in-Teesdale "a tiny warren of a DIY shop which sells everything Homebase offers, except in smaller amounts and cheaper"

Paul Smith "nuf said"

our favourite websites

Next in our occasional series where we share a few of our favourite things...
From top: Snippet & Ink; The Sartorialist; Design*Sponge; Garance Doré; Friends of Type; grain edit; The Cool Hunter; ShareSomeCandy; Etsy; Made in England; Butterflies and Wheels; BBC; The Daily Mash; spiked; Harry's Place; MoneySavingExpert, Spotify.

our favourite artists/designers/illustrators

The latest in our occasional series where we share a few of our favourite things...

our favourite food/drink packaging

The latest in our occasional series where we share a few of our favourite things...

our favourite holiday destinations

With winter starting to drag, thoughts can't help but turn to getting away from it all, so it seems like a good time to post the latest in our "favourite things" series...

our favourite colour combinations

Seeing as our last post was about colour, we'll follow it with the next in our series of favourite things. These are a few of our favourite ...colour combinations!

(clockwise from top: nautical blue and white stripes; grey with dusky pink/peachy orange; charcoal grey and neon yellow; blue and amber; really bright acid orange with either shocking pink or an electric aqua; the dark blue vs. orange bit just above a sunset; black with bright pinging colours like magenta, yellow, cyan, luminous greens etc.; cement grey and white; sky blue and chocolate brown; pink, red and orange)

our favourite {London} shops

our favourite words

We've each been thinking about a few of our favourite things, and are going to share them on the blog in a bit of a "getting to know you" series. First up - and easing into it gently - a selection of our favourite words...