In celebration of our ‘International’ issue, we thought we should alert you to what is possibly the best ‘coffee table book’ of the year;  Moroccan Interiors, by Lisa Lovatt-Smith.  Yes, our friends at Taschen have yet again delivered the kind of book you’d be proud to both give and to have, a massive, a glossy, picture laden offering which carries the reader on a visual magic carpet to the most mysterious country in North Africa.

Lovatt-Smith’s informative and chatty intro sets the scene nicely; explaining the history of Moroccan interior design, the author focuses upon the various  - often disparate  - influences which have given birth to a national unity of design;  the French, the Beduin, and the Hip, those artists, painters, photographers and writers who have settled in Morocco and brought their own ingredients to this rich and filling cous-cous.  Lovatt-Smith’s enthusiastic preface notwithstanding, it is the photographs which make Moroccan Interiors so seductive, so inspiring. From harvester tents to aristocrats mansions, from Troglodyte caves to a fashion designer’s holiday home, Morrocan Interiors introduces both the resident and location (Rabat, Casablanca, etc) before inviting us into their homes  - and what inspirational homes they have! From the warm, rustic tones of clay-walled caves to the ornate, Baroque interiors of royal palaces, no strata of society is left untouched by Lovatt-Smith’s expert eye and infectious enthusiasm, the photographs themselves as beautiful as the subject.

With the current craze in home improvement, I can think of no better book to inspire a living-room revamp or a bathroom make-over, the colours, fabrics and ornamentation found within Moroccan Interiors easily adaptable to modern, Western homes. And even if you haven’t been sucked into the current craze for interior design, Moroccan Interiors is also something else; it’s a picture book, a visual travelogue reminiscent of the Livres de Voyage so popular in the ’20s and ’30, capturing as it does the sights, sounds, colours and very essence of the magical, mysterious Morocco.

An excellent gift (especially if you give it to yourself), Moroccan Interiors comes highly recommended by the Kittens in Underpants.

• Click here to learn more about “Moroccan Interiors”.