In a world shaped by immediacy — of headlines, feeds, and digital flashes — there is something remarkably grounding about a book that asks you to slow down. To pause. To hold something weighty in your hands and feel its presence linger on a table, in a room, in your day.

This is the quiet ritual that Assouline has been crafting for over three decades.

Founded in 1994 by Prosper and Martine Assouline, the publishing house began as a love letter to storytelling — one told not just through words, but through texture, imagery, and presence. Their first book, La Colombe d’Or, set the tone: an ode to history, art, travel, and elegance. Since then, the Assouline name has become synonymous with books that live not on dusty shelves, but in the rhythm of everyday life.

Each title is a curated world — a story wrapped in linen or boxed in wood, infused with heritage, craftsmanship, and the beauty of detail. From the Riviera’s coastal light to the legacy of a fashion house, Assouline’s collections don’t just inform, they evoke. They bring culture into the home as something tactile and tangible. As something to live beside.

But perhaps what sets Assouline apart is not simply what they publish, but how they do it.

Their spaces — whether tucked into the mezzanine of the Plaza Hotel or housed in their flagship Maison in London — resemble modern cabinets de curiosités, where books live alongside objects, textures, and memory. And their ethos remains quietly revolutionary: that a book can be both a source of knowledge and a source of beauty. That design, story, and soul can share the same page.

In the words of Martine, “We like that we’re still a niche.” There is no urgency here. No algorithm. Just the ongoing, evolving ritual of gathering — and honouring — the stories that shape us.

On World Book Day, we don’t just celebrate the act of reading. We celebrate the spaces it creates. The pause. The presence. The quiet clarity that comes from living with culture — not as decoration, but as devotion.

Assouline reminds us: some books are not just read. They are kept. And in keeping them, we hold a part of the world just a little closer.