Hot off the presses is a gorgeous coffee table book of photos of mostly Chicago-area midcentury modernist homes taken by the famed architectural photographer Julius Shulman, who died at 98 in 2009. Gary Gand, a founder of Chicago Bauhaus and Beyond (who himself lives in a Keck and Keck ranch house in Riverwoods), approached Shulman in 2006 about doing the book. Julius Shulman: Chicago Midcentury Modernism (Rizzoli; $60) features the Minsk House, designed by Keck & Keck in 1955; the 1960 Burton Frank House; architect Harry Weese’s inspired modernist home and studio of 1957; and other modern masterpieces.

—JAN PARR