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74 I n the world of Prosper Assouline, books are elevated beyond words and pictures to exquisite objets d'art. His eponymous publishing company, which he runs with wife Martine, creates some of the most coveted books on style found anywhere in the world, on topics ranging from architecture, art, design, and fashion to gastronomy, lifestyle, photography, and travel. Known for lavishly photographed, hand-bound volumes, Assouline has partnered with luxury brands Cartier, Dior, Valentino, and Louis Vuitton to produce limited-edition books and collaborated with fascinating tastemakers such as Lee Radziwill, to tell their stories. Closer to home, Prosper has opened an Assouline shop inside Forty Five Ten on Main's third floor home design department — a small but chic space he likens to a private library, with shelves filled with vintage and out-of-print Assouline titles, along with their newest tomes. It's also stocked with vintage objects from Prosper's own travels, such as African masks circa 1940, carved elephant bookends, and a globe, as well as select pieces from the Assouline Interiors collections, including a red leather-topped desk, leather room divider, and a sumptuous rug, along with scented Library candles. W ithin the walls of the Assouline offices, the book is tantamount to art — for instance, the Chanel luxury set, a sold-out 2011 book about the legendary fashion house, included a three- volume case made from signature black quilted leather and stamped with a silver MORE THAN MERE COFFEE-TABLE TOMES, ASSOULINE'S ULTRA-SOPHISTICATED BOOKS HAVE LAUNCHED THE COMPANY, FOUNDED 23 YEARS AGO BY PROSPER AND MARTINE ASSOULINE, INTO A SMART, LUST-WORTHY LIFESTYLE BRAND. BY REBECCA SHERMAN GLORY BOUND for metal Chanel logo (the slipcase is still in stock). South Pole: The British Antarctic Expedition 1910-1913 (2016, $4,500) is a hand-bound, oversized limited edition of 150 signed by Monaco's Prince Albert and Britain's Princess Anne and touted as the world's first waterproof coffee-table book. This spring, Assouline is publishing 15 new books, including one of Prosper's favorites, Dinner with Georgia O'Keeffe, which focuses on the kitchens inside her New Mexico houses, along with 50 recipes and handwritten notations. Last year, one of Prosper's pets was The Impossible Collection of Wine, a limited-edition, hand- bound treatise on the 100 most exceptional vintages of the 20th century, which comes packaged in a wooden wine crate for $845. "It's spectacular," Prosper says of the book written by Enrico Bernardo, the acclaimed former sommelier at Four Seasons Hotel George V in Paris. He's also fond of The Queen's People, ($845), covering English royal protocol, past, present, and future. With royal household approval, Prosper worked with Queen Elizabeth II on the book and included her letters and photographs. W hen they launched their Paris- based publishing house in 1994, Prosper had a background in fashion and magazine publishing, and Martine was an attorney and a publicist at the fashion house Rochas. Their first book, La Colombe d'Or, celebrated the hotel in the South of France where they Assouline Interiors armchair and lamp from the High Society collection often spent weekends. "We were in love with this place, so we decided why don't we do a book?" recalls Prosper from Assouline's New York offices. Martine handled the text for the book, while Prosper did the graphic design. It was a small, quiet hotel without pretense, but the book captured La Colombe d'Or's charm, the kind of savoir vivre that eventually became Assouline's trademark. Almost 1,500 titles later, the French version of how to live the good life is paramount in all of Assouline's books, and continues to drive its focus, no matter the topic. The Assoulines' roles at the company have remained constant: Prosper is the company's creative director, while Martine is editorial director. Each project is a joint effort from start to finish. "Sometimes we have a different point of view," he says, "but we don't fight. Martine sees something different, and I see something different, but 95 percent of the time, we agree on everything. It's a conversation." O ver the last six years, the publishing house — which has offices in New York, Paris, and London — has been quietly building itself into a luxury brand, with offerings ranging from candles and stationery to ambitious library design services. Their series of lifestyle products capture the kind of literary life Prosper and Martine adore: Assouline aromatic candles based on the scent of a library, glamorous handcrafted bookcases, desks, and library lighting, special-edition Goyard travel Prosper and Martine Assouline in their NYC apartment Martine and Prosper Assouline's Paris apartment