I was so excited to learn about this great new resource for finding inspirational books (although, it’s probably dangerous for me as I tend to hoard design books). It’s called Designers and Books. Right now I’m deep into one of my personal favorite creative person’s book list, the fabulous Cynthia Rowley. There are architects, fashion designers, interior designers, product designers, graphic designers, car designers…you get the idea. Every Tuesday another designer adds their personal book list. From there, you can create your own personal reading list and email it to yourself (be warned; if you clear your cookies, it will be lost. Upcoming technology on the site will provide password protected reading lists for users. Here’s a little peek at the clean and simple format of the site:

So far, Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi have created my favorite list.

If you’re like me, you noticed that there are not any landscape architects on the site yet. Do not fret. Lists from Michael Van Valkenburgh and Deborah Nevins’ lists are coming soon.

I met a friend for lunch today in Atlanta’s Old Fourth Ward, and as I was cutting through a parking lot I noticed a bit of guerrilla knitting over on Edgewood Avenue. I had just been reading about this phenomenon a few days ago (can’t remember where) but I do remember a blogging about a clever tree or two a few years ago, before I knew about the “guerilla.” It was fun to see this street tree (I think it’s a Japanese Zelkova) wearing a red legwarmer right in my own city:

Inspired by the beautiful sunshine and the vibrancy of the neighborhood, I took a few more camera phone shots of the cutest darn store in the world, Lottafrutta and thought I’d share:

They even have lime green construction cones!

The fun of the fruit continues to the side door:

In fact, there’s even a bit of fun out by the trash:

There’s also a rare (in Atlanta) Art Deco building across the street from Lottafrutta, complete with tropical palm trees – now that’s location:

There’s a growing Flickr pool full of guerrilla knitting, check it out here. By the way, they spell it with one “r.” I could never figure out why I could not remember how to spell this word, but it looks like it can be spelled both ways (?). My spellcheck seems to prefer “rr”:

P.S. A shameless request for advice: As you may have guessed from my cruddy camera phone pictures, my digital camera bit the dust. Does anyone have any advice on one they love that’s pretty easy for a non-photographer?

I was reading Dear Abby the other day and Dan Bowers from Red Lion PA had written in to tell her readers about a great program. It’s a service where you can pass your paperbacks along to the troops and their families. In general, they are looking for “bestsellers, action and spy-novels, murder mysteries, fantasy and science fiction — those are our most popular genres. However, we also have many requests for business and investing books, classics, history (especially military history), and current event-oriented non-fiction.” These items can be shipped via USPS Media Mail (if you want to include other items in the box, you’ll need to ship via Parcel Post or Priority Mail), which is very inexpensive, and you’ll know that book you weren’t going to pick up and re-read is going to someone who will appreciate it. I’m thinking I’ve been hoarding a pile of Nelson Demille thrillers somewhere in this house that I need to box up and ship!

To learn more,  check out operationpaperback.org.

Whoops, thought I posted these as a “Flickr Faves on Friday” but apparently I forgot! At the end of Ride Your Bike to Work Week, I wanted to share this cool bike rack I spied on the sidewalk in Palo Alto last week:

More information about bike arc

Wow am I proud and jealous of one of our furniture designers today! Kiersten, a.k.a. Mod Mom, gets to meet Nate Berkus on his show today! I can’t wait to see her; check your local listings so you don’t miss it!