Anothermag.com editor Laura Bradley shares her "fur and food shelf"

There are few corners of the internet which remain sacred nowadays, but anothermag.com, the online counterpart to Dazed ’s sister publication AnOther Magazine, feels something like a tiny jewel-bedecked cave in the midst of a vast wasteland. Hosting a curated collection of insights into the lives of legendary artists and craftspeople, alongside photographic series, handwritten letters and aspects of the fashion world which might otherwise go unnoticed, the site is a rare gem, and at its helm is editor Laura Bradley.

From her flat in Hackney Downs, where she lives with her boyfriend Tom and her cat Florence, Laura talks us through some of her favourite publications from across the ages and introduces us to “the fur and food shelf.”

Francois and Jean Robert: Face to Face

This book is brilliant in its simplicity. There are now colour versions but this a lovely black and white original from 1996. Jean Robert is a Swiss graphic designer and the first “face” he spotted was in a padlock. For ten years he and his brother Francois (a photographer) documented faces in everyday objects, from plug sockets and bags to mops and tools.

Guy Bourdin: In Between

The books I really treasure are the one that were gifts. This one was part of my leaving gift when I left i-D. I met a great group of women whilst working there and they are now some of my closest friends. There are so many Guy Bourdin books but this is certainly one of the best. I love the landscape format and the layered finger image is incredibly alluring. The book charts the course of Bourdin’s artistic development from the 1950s to the 1980s.

Harry Whittier Frees: Four Little Kittens

I love cats and I collect feline-themed books and have a special “cat zone” on the bookshelf. Next to cats is Tom’s booze and food collection. The fur and food shelf if you like. This book is probably one of my favourites and certainly one of the oldest, from 1935 – proof that cats were popular subject matter long before the birth of the internet. The book features four little kittens doing various household tasks – cooking, cleaning and entertaining. I would like to think my cat Florence does the same while I’m out.

S.H. Scott: The Observer’s Book of Cacti and Other Succulents (and Garden Flowers)

In another life, I’d probably be a florist. I love flowers and plants and have started to collect botany-themed books. I love the design of these pocket guides – so simple and elegant. These are both from the late 1950s. I’ve always been really inspired by almanacs, field guides and scientific manuals and these contain some lovely diagrams. I bought these from an antiques shop in Ramsgate at the time when everyone in the creative industry was going crazy for cacti and succulents. It’s really interesting how suddenly plant trends have become a thing.

Vladimir Nabokov: The Original of Laura

This was a gift from my best friend Laura. I’m pretty proud of our own Laura story – we met aged 17 at school, studied art foundation together, worked at Little Chef together, applied to Central Saint Martins together. She moved to America five years ago but an ocean between us hasn’t changed our friendship. The book is an incomplete novel which Nabokov was working on just before his death in 1977. He wrote it on 138 index cards – a favourite method of his. A perfectionist, he hoped the work would be destroyed but after a 30-year debate it was published. His son decided it “would have been a brilliant, original, and potentially totally radical book, in the literary sense very different from the rest of his oeuvre.” I love the cover – an exciting discovery after removing the slipcase.