Culture
31 December 2025
5 min read
A Book That Could Only Be Mine
One of the absolute highlights this Christmas was a book gifted to me by my dearest friend Arnaud. He is the film director behind all our Thursday shows and the editor of this newsletter, and we have been working side by side for fifteen years. This gift says everything about how deeply he knows me. The book quite literally has my name on it, and it feels as if it was made for me and no one else.
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The book is The Art and Beauty of Flower Arranging by Frederic Girard, a French artist and illustrator whose work became widely recognised in the 1960s and 70s. Girard was known for translating the natural world into strong graphic compositions, combining botanical precision with a very modern visual language. His illustrations were often used in art books and educational publications, yet they never felt academic. They were bold, joyful, and deeply aesthetic.
This book is a collection of his flower prints from the 1970s. Every page feels confident and alive. The colours, the shapes, the rhythm of the compositions. It is timeless rather than nostalgic, and endlessly inspiring. Without a doubt, the winning Christmas present.
