Models of Perfection: 50 Books | 50 Covers

Many years later, as a new mother, I was at home with a colicky baby, and in desperation (refer to sleep-challenged, above) I turned on the television. Within seconds, the baby and I were instantly lulled into a kind of preternatural calm by the soothing cadences of Ina Garten—doyenne of the kitchen, she is one of those chefs who makes the most complex of culinary maneuvers look like you could manage it effortlessly, in your sleep. (I was just happy for the sleep.) As I sat there watching her spoon chosen ingredients into her behemoth of a mixer, she explained with careful precision and purpose why every ingredient in a recipe must be—you guessed it—perfect. She spoke evenly, but persuasively, focusing in that moment on the accept-no-imitations importance of vanilla extract as she did so.

“If everything that goes into your cake is perfect,” Garten purred, “your cake will be perfect, too.”

At their core, these anecdotes tell the same story: if each element is carefully considered, might we hope, any of us, to produce an ideal outcome? Mohawk’s generous donation to our 50 Books | 50 Covers annual proved a catalyst to our designers, who worked with an exceptionally gifted photographer, George Baier IV; supported by the hard-working production team at Blurb, Inc., whose print-on-demand capacity should be the go-to destination for all book design fiends; graced by the endorsement, via essay, of the brilliant writer, Dave Eggers; and thanks to a lot of help from more than five hundred supporters who came to us through Kickstarter. It does, it turns out, take a village.

The architecture student, sold his model to The Museum of Modern Art for a tidy sum that put a nice dent, as I recall, in his student loans. The colicky baby grew into a fine young man, whose passion for equality and justice often finds him arguing with anyone he can find as he seeks—with ferocious intent—his own definition of the ideal. And though I have ruined many a recipe by my own lack of talent in the kitchen, I remain steadfast in my fidelity, thanks to Ina Garten, to the elixir known as Madagascar vanilla. In the end, there is just something marvelously rewarding about the idea that quality is a function of the deftly orchestrated gestalt of so may things—from cherry-picked balsa wood to harvested root flavor — and that we benefit by breaking these things down into their component parts, identifying them bit by bit, the parts as important as the whole, the journey as critical as the destination. Patience helps. So does humility, ingenuity, and a lot of elbow grease. “Have no fear of perfection,” Salvador Dali once famously said, “you’ll never reach it.” But does that mean we shouldn’t try?