5 comments about Landscape as Spirit: Creating a Contemplative Garden.

1. This book is not Landscape as "Spirit" but Landscape as "Symbolism". Which is ok but that is not why I purchased this book. I wanted a book that taught or "pointed" towards how to create or how a Zen garden is created. To see what the inner Zen world looks like when projected outward into a Zen garden.
   
   The book starts out with the idea that a garden designed from the Zen perspective is a Mandela. Then the Mandela is created using elements in the garden to symbolize Heaven, Earth and Man. Then the book goes on to say that one level down, the garden can be created using garden elements to symbolize Earth, Fire, Water, Fire, Air and Space. For me this "Spirit" theory was very incoherent. A Zen Master experiences "The Tao" and reacts intuitively. This Spirit theory seemed to contradict Zen teachings. In fact the arrangement of stones in many of the photographs and plans are "too" ordered; too balanced and unnatural; unintuitive.
   
   Don't get me wrong, it is a beautiful book with many beautiful "details" to learn from. But good eastern minded landscaping "responds" to the site NOT created things like miniature mountains, miniature trees that represent fire, perfectly placed stones, perfectly placed plants in between perfectly placed stones and so on and so on???
   
   Nature and Zen are natural not contrived. Zen is natural or consists of "a suchness" or an experience of "The garden IS" not something that reflects levels of symbolic hierarchy.



2. This is a great book that one can return to time after time. It presents landscaping principals in the context of the garden as a place for reflexion and meditation. As gorgeous as the photos are, I find the text even more meaningful.



3. This book is remarkable in at least three regards. First, it is so finely produced that we, as readers, can actually feel our way into the gardens it is showing us. Second, the principles of garden-making it offers us are profound, simple and flexible: we can see how the Mosko gardens emerge from them, and how our own might too. Third, and most unusual, it is deeply spiritual, coming from years of meditative practice in the Zen and Tibetan tradtions, as well as in unnamed native traditions of spirit. In the deepest sense this book is beauty as instruction.



4. this book's title, if the picture of the cover is real, is different from the Amazon title. who proof's this stuff?



5. This gorgeously made and printed book will inspire ANY gardener or person who enjoys gardens. The photos take you into a world of amazing gardens. I'm not a garden nut, but I love a beautiful book and this one is on my coffee table. The writing is clear, creative, and very informative. This book is an excellent gift to anyone who loves architecture, design, or landscapes.

1 comments about Art and Architecture in Italy 1600-1750, Vol. 2: High Baroque (Yale University Press Pelican History of Art).

1. This is one of the most intelligent book I've ever read about art. It's simple, complete, full of original point-of-views. In asingle word: you can't miss it if you like the Art History!

5 comments about A Japanese Touch for Your Home.

1. Primarily a picture book, but beautifully illustrated with abbreviated but clear, if rather journalistic, text. As advertised.



2. I just received my copy of this book a day ago. I was frankly a little disappointed. The book is well made but for me, ultimately unsatisfying. The rooms are traditional Japanese as I had hoped, but the photos while in color, are typically small and done in a non-glossy printing process that makes the colors look muted and dull. There is lot of detail in B&W drawing form of Shoji screen and Asian light-fixture designs. Still, I think the book cries out for bigger photos, glossier color, and a sense of life. Curiously, these are some of the things that are most notable in Japanese architecture. The rooms seem static and lifeless. It's not a bad book but it could have been done better so far as the photography is concerned.



3. Although it is a GOOD book with great quality pictures, it does very little to add a Japanese Touch for Your Home. It graphically explains the areas of a Japanese style house but it does not help you integrate the oriental with the western style of living, which is what I thought it was about.
   
   Further more the couple of projects for building Japanese furniture a pretty basic, you can find better one for free in the Internet.
   
   It is a good book to read but for me it didnt have any practical use.



4. This book has created a new hunger in me to find and devour every book I can get my hands on dealing with Japanese architecture. I can now see where Frank Lloyd Wright got a lot of his inspiration from. This is the first book I have read on the subject so far, and it seems to cover a bit of everything with lots of nice photos. If your looking for a book on organizing and storing stuff like only the Japanese can do, then get "Small Spaces: Stylish Ideas for Making More of Less in the Home" by Azby Brown



5. This is the first I purchased on the subject of Japanese interiors, which I crave. Yagi and Williams cover the essentials of what you need to know, provide excellent photographic examples of their topics, and intructions on do it yourself projects. I rate it a 4 because I wanted the book to have more!

No comments about Growing Smarter: Achieving Livable Communities, Environmental Justice, and Regional Equity (Urban and Industrial Environments).

1 comments about Urban Utopias in the Twentieth Century: Ebenezer Howard, Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier.

1. Although an interesting subject matter, the author does an amazing job using the narrative of the thinkers lives to cooincide with their belief system, the only problem is he probably could have done it in about 50 pages less, but overall its a good fast read

3 comments about Native American Architecture.

1. This book is well written, and finely illustrated. Historical photos and accurate descriptions of the structures illustrate not only how Native Americans lived, but how they built their homes, shelters and camps. This book is valuable for the historian, survivalist and primitive technologist among others. Well worth the cost!



2. More than a testament to Native American artistic vision and ingenuity, this book is a delightful resource for survivalists as well as historians - and for those who would just like to find ideas for less technological ways of building simple dwellings. Well illustrated with diagrams, photos and how-to drawings for constructing shelters in many different climates and with various resource limitations. Excellent, fun to read and full of eye openning ideas.



3. This book is an excellent bioregional overview of Native American structures. What I appreciate most is the way the authors have actually shown HOW the structures were made, sometimes in actual step-by-step procedures, which would allow someone to actually build in that style and using many of the same natural materials today. Another thing I love about the book is that the authors have sincerely tried to understand my Native American relationships to all the materials and the sacredness of the spaces we created. The authors treat that understanding with respect and honor. In this day when material resources are dwindling at alarming rates and the Earth is being devastated by the mindless rape of resources, it is a reminder to us all that we can choose alternatives to conventional wood-frame homes and return to more sustainable and natural housing for our respective bioregions. This book, though maybe not necessarily intended as such, is a hands-on, how-to book for us all. It reminds us that Native Americans lived in harmony and balance with our lands and our local plant and animal family for tens of thousands of years without destroying the places in which we lived. The photographs are instructive and beautiful and the architectural-type drawings are a delight. They make the actual building of these structures possible. I use parts of this book as required reading for all my students, especially my graduate students, and have taught actual classes using this book as the text, though it is not written in a "textbook" style. It is a very readable book and most useful for these times. I recommend it highly to all.

5 comments about Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend.

1. This is no children's book of comics! When I showed it to my over twenty-one daughter she asked,"This used to published in a newspaper?" She loved it as much as I did. The "Far side," type humor is still funny today. Dover said they removed some of the ethic humor that would offend people today. It is sad to me that people can't laugh at themselves any more without getting offended. I would have loved to have seen all of the strips uncensored and formed my own opinion.



2. I'm delighted to see that this book is available. I bought my copy of this book in the mid-70's and it is still one of the favorite books in my library. Mr. McCay is just devastatingly funny and honest about the mayhem that is turned loose in our dreams. Decapitations, public nudity, personal disasters and humilitations of all sort are rendered in the sky's-the-limit fashion that dreams take...and definitely not PC!
   McCay is also a superb draftsman, although these cartoons are a pared down version of his work on the Little Nemo strips. Highly highly recommended.



3. I discovered Winsor McCay pretty recently and have been enjoying the Little Nemo full page newspaper spreads and been astonished at McCay's talent. I've seen the full sized hardcover Maresca Little Nemo 2005 publication, and two hardcover reductions: the Evergreen (Taschen) and the "Best of Little Nemo..." edited by Richard Marschall, which closely resembles the former in most cases (evidently from the same source). I read the reviews here on this book, "Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend" and decided to order it. It too is amazing, but in a very different way. Whereas Little Nemo is wonderful and lavishly illustrated and colored, it doesn't make me laugh. However, just about everything in the 1905 black and white Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend (this book) makes me laugh out loud. I wasn't sure when I ordered (not having seen any of the material previously) but quickly realized it's well worth it. I can't think of a modern comics artist who makes me laugh so consistently.
   
   This is a handsome little book and McCay's illustrations are beautifully presented. I own 4 different McCay books and have seen another and of all of them, this is the most flawless... and by far the cheapest!



4. "Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend" is McCay's overlooked masterpiece. "Little Nemo" gets all the press (and it deserves the highest possible praise) but The Fiend is often equally compelling. More adult in subject matter than Nemo, it is less visually resplendant, but still quite powerful in its invocation of the fears and hopes underlying our day-to-day thoughts.
   
   This collection is the standard, but it collects only a fraction of what McCay produced (this is a reprint of a 1905 volume, but the strip ran until 1910 or 1911). You can pick up the Checker "Early Works" volumes for a more complete run (in questionable quality) and there are more strips in the Canemaker book on McCay as well as the Fantagraphics "Daydreams and Nightmares" (which I highly recommend).
   
   Checker has since produced a fine collection: [[ASIN: 1933160659 The Saturdays]] which would make a great follow-up to this book.
   
   When I first wrote this review in 2006, I pleaded for someone to do this strip justice with a comprehensive reprint. Little did I know that Ulrich Merkl was, in fact, working on one at the time. You can search the web for his "The Complete Dream of the Rarebit Fiend" (http://www.rarebit-fiend-book.com). I highly reccommend it, though it is a bit pricey. [[ASIN: 3000207511 The Complete Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend]]



5. Winsor Mccay is considered one of the pioneers of cartooning AND animation. His drawing style is so architecturally fine tuned that each panel of his work is a piece of art itself! The Rarebit Fiend has a habit of eating toasted cheese before going to bed and consistently wakes up from a nightmare at the end of each piece. The nightmares vary from the slightly off-kilter, to the maddeningly surreal. This large paperback book reproduces a good number of these, and is well worth the price. Essential for fans of early comic strips.

No comments about SOA Design Patterns (The Prentice Hall Service-Oriented Computing Series from Thomas Erl).

1 comments about Great Houses of Chicago, 1871-1921 (Urban Domestic Architecture Series) (Urban Domestic Architecture Series) (Urban Domestic Architecture Series) (Urban Domestic Architecture Series).

1. Great Houses of Chicago is a treat to read, or to simply browse through. Filled with images of the magnificent homes that once were, or still remain, a part of my city, it is a book that I'd recommend to any lover of Chicago history or urban architecture.

5 comments about Eichler Homes: Design for Living.

1. I have been looking for as much information as I can on Eichler houses and this was a real find. It not only provided me the fundamental information I had been searching for but surprised me with wonderful photos, including the very house that I want to build. The only problem I have now is trying to find contractor willing to provide a contemporary interpretation.



2. This is the first book on Eichler, and it does an admirable job of getting the topic out there. The good part is that there are plenty of color photos and the book is very well desgined. The not-so-good part is that many of the homes pictured are remodeled and don't truly represent the original designs. The text is by 4 different authors and doesn't hold together well as a complete narrative. Still, if you are relatively new to Eichler this is a nice browsing book that will give you plenty of visual stimulation. For the definitive historical tome on the Eichler story, get "Eichler: Modernism Rebuilds the American Dream" by Adamson which is more complete and scholarly but not as visual and colorful. The two books actually make a good set and give you both sides of the story. In all, this is a very good book about beautiful and innovative homes by an important midcentury homebuilder and businessman.



3. As a fan of Mid-century modern and Eichler homes,I loved the many photographs in this book.I believe this book would be a good reference for anyone who owns an Eichler home or someone who wants to achieve a modern look in or outside their home.



4. Being a real fan of the "Eichler Home" architectural style, I was excited to recive this book. After a quick read, I felt that it was a waste of time and money.
   
   First, the narrator (who is Mr. Eichler's son) skims over the architectural concepts that embody the Eichler Home concept. And this from an architect! The design elements of the home are covered so quickly, with practically no details, that this book will be useless to anybody wanting to use this as a teaching aid, reference text, or just to get a better appreciation of how these homes were designed.
   
   The author also spends an inordinate and oddly placed amount of time to describe how magnimonius Mr. Eichler was to sell homes to African Americans, unlike the trend at the time. Unfortunately the author's claims are not borne out by my personal experience in looking through the housing covenants of an Eichler Home in Mountain View that date to the early 60's, which specifically stated that the home would not be sold to people of colour. Nice retrospective attempt at social equality, but the treatement of that sad portion of America's history is treated in a white-washed derisitory fashion by the author.
   
   And the book ends with a weird comparison of Mr. Eichler to other property development tycoons, including Donald Trump, with the conclusion that the brave Mr. Eichler rose above the greed and vanity of the rest.
   
   This is a simplistic, self-serving, useless book. Look elsewhere.
   
   The photography and interior shots are good.



5. I agree with the other reviewers' comments about the excellence of the Eichler homes and this book. I have many design books, but I keep coming back to this one and never tire of the clean, modern--but not cold--design. I wish Ditto, et al. would produce a video on the subject.