A slew of summer reading material, including plenty of books inspired by the great outdoors, is hitting the shelves this season. Scour EAL’s latest roundup of the newest design books to add to your coffee table—and personal reading list.

With hundreds more images from photographer Larry Lederman, the revised and updated edition of The New York Botanical Garden celebrates the landmark’s 125th anniversary, following its historical evolution under the guidance of leaders like Calvert Vaux, Samuel Parsons Jr., John R. Brinley, Beatrix Farrand, the Olmsted Brothers, Dan Kiley, Piet Oudolf, Jon Coe and Penelope Hobhouse, among others. (Edited by Gregory Long and Todd A. Forrest; published by Abrams)

Designer Vicente Wolf’s new tome, The Four Elements of Design: Interiors Inspired by Earth, Water, Air and Fire, is divided into these four categories; Earth, for example, is focused on “grounded interiors,” with an emphasis on stone, wood and natural textures. The book includes 12-plus projects across the tri-state area and California. (Rizzoli)

Nothing says summer like a Balinese-style beach house in Malibu. Martyn Lawrence Bullard spotlights that project, and others, in his latest book, Design & Decoration. With a Tommy Hilfiger-penned foreword, Bullard’s second book spotlights design at a number of sunny locales, including Hilfiger’s own Miami beach house, a Newport Beach restaurant, and a Palm Springs retreat, among others. (Rizzoli)

Equal parts monograph, manual and manifesto, Kate Orff’s Toward an Urban Ecology delves into the ways landscape architecture can impact sustainable and community-centered spaces. SCAPE, Orff’s landscape architecture and urban design studio, is known for its progressive approach; this tome provides an in-depth case study of the firm's practice...and the implications of its work. (The Monacelli Press)

It won’t debut until September, but Sidewalk Gardens of New York, with photographs by Betsy Pinover Schiff, foreword by Adrian Benepe and text by horticulturalist Alicia Whitaker, is worth noting now. A discovery of New York City’s green spaces, from planned public spaces to private residences’ green enclaves, the work also issues strategies for embracing nature in the thick of the urban environment. (The Monacelli Press)