A revealing guide to a career as an interior designer written by New York Times bestselling author Kate Bolick and based on the real-life experiences of the cofounders of the acclaimed Brooklyn firm Jesse Parris-Lamb-required reading for anyone considering a path to this profession. Becoming an Interior Designer takes you behind the scenes to find out what it's really like, and what it really takes, to become an interior designer. This artful profession combines visionary creativity and taste with architecture, engineering, and business savvy. Acclaimed Brooklyn-based studio Jesse Parris-Lamb specializes in crafting warm, textured room designs shaped by the people that inhabit them. Bestselling author Kate Bolick shadows founders Amanda Jesse and Whitney Parris-Lamb to show how this dream job becomes a reality. Visit their studio as they as they map out new projects. Watch as they inject beauty and atmosphere into open air lofts and historic brownstones. Decide on the perfect shade of blue that will complete a serene reading room. Gain professional wisdom as Bolick traces the founders' paths to prominence, from attending design school and starting a studio, to building top-tier clients and planning landmark redesigns.

'Whom to marry and when will it happen - these two questions define every woman's existence.' So begins Spinster, a revelatory look at the pleasures, problems and possibilities of living independently in the 21st century, reconsidering what it means - what it could mean - for women to 'have it all'. 'I wish I could give this wise and subtle book to my thirty-year-old self; she would have taken heart . . . Bold and intelligent' Rebecca Mead, author of My Life in Middlemarch 'A triumph' Malcolm Gladwell 'Women of the world listen here: drop whatever you're doing and read Kate Bolick's marvelous meditation on what it means to be female at the dawn of the 21st century' Joanna Rakoff, author of My Salinger Year 'Moving, insightful and important' Elif Batuman, author of The Possessed