The Library — books worth owning

Where to begin

• The Gentleman's Library

  The foundation.

  Fiction, history, biography, philosophy, travel, politics, economics, art and adventure. The books worth returning to — the shelf a man builds over a lifetime rather than a weekend.

• Great Fiction

  Novels still worth the evening.

  Fitzgerald, Greene, Waugh, Conrad, Maugham, Highsmith, Ishiguro, McCarthy. Not a literature syllabus — simply the novels we would press on an intelligent friend, with an honest word on which ones are hard work.

• Espionage & Intrigue

  Beyond Bond.

  Le Carré, Ambler, Deighton, Forsyth, Furst — plus the real thing: MI6, CIA, KGB, Mossad, defectors, double agents and the diplomacy that surrounded them.

• Power, Money & Business

  Deals, dynasties and decisions.

  Serious biographies, corporate histories, investment classics and books about how men build and lose fortunes. No motivational paperbacks, no morning routines.

• Lives Worth Reading

  Biography and memoir.

  Churchill, de Gaulle, Agnelli, Onassis, Ferrari, Hemingway, Niven — soldiers, diplomats, explorers and entrepreneurs. Achievement, contradiction, ambition and failure. Never celebrity gossip.

• History Without Homework

  The past, told properly.

  Rome, the Renaissance, Napoleonic Europe, the Ottomans, two wars and the Cold War — written by people who understand that a good historian is first a good storyteller.

• Philosophy for Real Life

  Ideas you can use.

  Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Montaigne, Camus, Nietzsche — read for how they help a man think, not so he can quote them at dinner.

• Travel Books

  Books that make places richer.

  Classic travel writing and the volumes that turn a week in Sicily, Provence or Istanbul into something you understand rather than merely photograph.

• The Italian Library

  Italy, in print.

  Lampedusa, Calvino, Eco, Levi, Machiavelli, Dante — with Ferrari, Fiat, Renaissance Rome, Sicilian crime and the design that followed. Our most distinctive shelf.

• Books for the Riviera

  For the terrace and the deck.

  Elegant thrillers, short classics, Mediterranean crime and European novels — books to be read beside water, with the phone somewhere else.

• Adventure & Exploration

  Ice, sand, sea and altitude.

  Shackleton, Lawrence, Thesiger, Leigh Fermor, Freya Stark. Great journeys, properly told — the antidote to a comfortable week.

• Motoring Library

  Ferrari to Le Mans.

  Authoritative histories and exceptional photographic volumes: Ferrari, Porsche, Bentley, Aston Martin, Alfa Romeo, the Mille Miglia and the men who drove them.

• Style & Design

  Tailoring, watches, interiors.

  Savile Row and Naples, Rolex and Patek, mid-century furniture, grand hotels and the villas behind them — books about how things are made and why they endure.

• Art & Architecture

  Without the degree.

  Renaissance painting, modern art, European architecture and photography — explained for a curious man rather than an examiner.

• The Coffee Table

  The books worth leaving out.

  Cars, watches, architecture, hotels, yachts and photography. A good coffee-table book should be as handsome as the objects inside it.

• Editions Worth Owning

  Books as objects.

  Folio Society, Taschen, Assouline, Phaidon, Everyman's Library, Penguin Clothbound Classics — when the edition matters as much as the text.