Oxford-trained artist and interior decorator Jane Gordon Clark believes wallpaper has been undervalued. Gradually, painting and stencil designs have replaced paper as popular tools for bringing a room alive; people often imagine papering as a terrible chore--all paste-encrusted brushes and sloppy seams. Clark wants to prove the contrary, and her book brings to light the lush possibilities of this ancient art, which can transform a bland room into a shimmering oasis. In the past, wallpaper designers were true artists, but their names have been forgotten. The photos here are arresting: a dining room surrounded in images of an English countryside, a bedroom thick with Renaissance-style gold brocade. A close-up of a wall in Vanessa Bell"s (the sister of Virginia Woolf) Sussex farmhouse reveals handmade paper: a black background covered with gray squares and hand-painted yellow chevrons. It"s so glamorous you"ll never enter the paint aisle at the hardware store with such certainty again. A "Technique Library" concludes the book, with drawings to guide the novice through the papering process. As Clark writes, wallpaper "is unique in its potential for introducing an infinite choice of design, and brings a high degree of finish, clothing the walls with a richness and warmth." --Emily White