Maharam Stories contains engaging, revealing, and inspiring texts by the mostsignificant designers and writers working today from John Pawson's musingon the eleventh-century abbey of Le Thoronet, which he cites as an endlesssource of inspiration for his own minimalist architecture, to Alice Rawsthornon her favorite nineteenth-century chocolate shop in Vienna (still goingstrong). Some are humorous lessons in design, such as Murray Moss's storyabout growing up with a water fountain in their family's dining room, installedby his scientist father who believed in hygiene over aesthetics. Others revealhow politics can inform design, such as Stefan Sagmeister's story of a cheapplastic watch given to him by Ben Cohen (of Ben & Jerry's) which shows incolorful pie chart graphics that year's national budget spending with over halfgoing to the Pentagon.With commissioned and unique photography and images and the texts bysignificant design luminaries, Maharam Stories is sure to both delight andeducate design lovers.