Homing instinct

For Jasper Conran the country is about ‘the scent of ripe apples or freshly-baked bread’, about grand houses that ‘sleep among ancient trees’, Morris dancers, Morris Travellers, tasteful cottages and ‘daffodils dancing in the breeze’. In his book Country (Conran Octopus, £50) there are some lovely interiors, though the most striking are those of his own former house in Chiswick. Conran’s acknowledgement of Andrew Montgomery, whose outstandingly beautiful photographs of landscapes, people and rooms transcend cliché to make this book such a pleasure, is churlishly scant.

Lars Sjöberg’s Classic Swedish Interiors (Frances Lincoln, £30) is a record of the eight houses and one church he has preserved from demolition or decay by buying and restoring them himself. Here, in Ingallil Snitt’s beautiful photographs, are the grey panelled rooms, the muslin curtains, the charming country versions of French 18th-century furniture that is known in Britain as the ‘Gustavian’ style. From his first purchase in 1966, Sjöberg has worked with his own hands, scraping back to the original wallpaper, re-making old furniture and discovering and re-printing old fabrics.