Cover of What Lies Within He.

What Lies Within He, published by Phoenix Fine Arts Publishing, was recently named the most beautiful book of 2025, together with 13 other books.

Organized by Stiftung Buchkunst, a German book art foundation, the competition is held every March in Leipzig. Competition judges examined 550 works from 32 countries to select the most beautiful of the year. Fourteen books from nine different countries won prizes this year.

The winning book, What Lies Within He, written by He Ming and designed by Zhao Qing and Zhu Tao, features the still-life paintings of objects purchased and used in the author's home on a daily basis. Each piece is accompanied by brief written reflections, unveiling the history, culture, and personal memories behind these objects.

This book does not use pencil drawing for easier visual effects; instead, it employs brushwork to express the materials of different objects, control the relationship between ink and wash, and use color to present various glazed textures.

The author paints objects on the same watercolor paper, dedicating one page to each item. Depending on the different shapes of the objects, some are better suited for a horizontal composition, while others are for a vertical composition. The designer thus created this book with the same format, consisting of two parts with different flipping directions.

Inside pages of What Lies Within He.

In the 120 works in the vertical section, objects are arranged from dark to light on each page according to the ink color. In the 120 works in the horizontal section, objects are arranged from light to dark according to the ink color.

The book cover is gray wallpaper, with handmade deckled edges on both sections and laser-burned edges. To reproduce the layer details of the paintings, a new type of black-and-white image printing technology is used for the inner pages. By controlling the printing with four colors—BK (special black), CK (blue-black), MK (red-black), and YK (yellow-black), the ideal gray is achieved.