Book Description
In this groundbreaking book, noted landscape designer and award-winning writer Julie Moir Messervy and bestselling author Sarah Susanka reveal how to bring house and garden into perfect harmony. After all, who doesn't yearn for a landscape that is as well designed as the interior of their home? In Outside the Not So Big House, Julie and Sarah teach you everything you need to know about the design concepts essential to extending your home beyond its four walls.
Lushly photographed and illustrated with vivid drawings, Outside the Not So Big House explores how to build pathways and journeys in your gardens; how to make the most of your site; how to use details to bring it all together. Twenty homes from across the country aptly illustrate these easy-to-grasp design ideas. Fans of Sarah's previous Not So Big books will be pleased to discover not only Julie's clear, concise prose but also a new vision for creating home.
Customer Reviews:
The Rather Big 'Not So Big".......2007-03-29
I come away with the feeling that Sarah was lead astray when this book was in development.
Many of the houses in previous books in the 'Not So Big' series have been rather expensive even if they have not been that big. At least these books have provided me with ideas in redoing our moderate sized/priced house.
In this book I find a 'Not So Big' house with a library, a sitting room, and a sunroom on the first floor in addition to a mudroom, kitchen with eating area, formal dining room and living room. The next house in the book sits on a 4 acre lot. Almost every house in the book has grounds that require hired maintenance professionals.
I would imagine that one of the first chapters in Sarah's new book, 'The Not So Big Life', will recommend reducing the square footage of your house and the maintenance required for your grounds. Reducing the square footage of your house will substantially reduce the work needed for upkeep. The 'grounds' could be turned into a native prairie for which God will provide the maintenance. Half of our 1.3 acre lot is native forest looked after by God.
The subtitle of the new book is 'Making Room For What Matters'. One of the things that matters for me is making time for things I enjoy by spending as little time as possible 'mowing the lawn'.
pretty much only covers enormous houses.......2007-01-11
I find the title of this book incredibly misleading. For her, "not so big" means "integrated with nature" as opposed to, well, "not so big"! Almost all of the houses in here are enormous (without counting I'd say maybe 38 of the 40 she talks about), so it's not very helpful for someone like me with a smaller house. Granted, she says her "starter home" was a large Victorian in Boston with a wrap-around porch and stained glass windows, so her perspective is bound to be different from the average American's! But unfortunately I had a hard time applying her concepts to my smaller home (on a 1/4 acre lot), and found myself heartily annoyed because the title had promised something that perhaps might be more useful to someone like me.
Landscaping 101.......2006-09-14
This is a grand book with homes in differing sites in differing parts of the US. One can glean many ideas from the great photographs and text. Julie Moir Messervy's designs are elegantly simple and reflect her studies in Japan. This book is a real addition to the library of anyone interested in designing their landscape.
Wonderful Book- Susanka is the best!.......2006-08-22
Susanka is a great architect! Love it all and look forward to generating a whole new look for my entire property!
Many ideas for designing small areas near small houses.......2006-07-15
(4.5 Stars) I can see from the other reviews that there exist a wide range of opinions about this book. I fall on the high side, I suppose. I enjoyed the large number of photos and ideas for landscaping small areas - spots even - in the yard around a smaller home.
One, rather unreal aspect was that, most of the homes pictured are modern homes with interesting custom architecture. Some of us live in simple ranch-styles (boxes).
Julie's training and interest in architecture does come through, but I did not find it distracting. In fact, I found the emphasis on the relationship between the interior design of the home and landscape as seen from inside very useful. Most landscaping books present only the view TOWARD the house, not FROM it.
I got several good ideas from this book and learned a bit about design.
Book Description
Dialectic of Enlightenment is undoubtedly the most influential publication of the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory. Written during the Second World War and circulated privately, it appeared in a printed edition in Amsterdam in 1947. "What we had set out to do," the authors write in the Preface, "was nothing less than to explain why humanity, instead of entering a truly human state, is sinking into a new kind of barbarism."
Yet the work goes far beyond a mere critique of contemporary events. Historically remote developments, indeed, the birth of Western history and of subjectivity itself out of the struggle against natural forces, as represented in myths, are connected in a wide arch to the most threatening experiences of the present.
The book consists in five chapters, at first glance unconnected, together with a number of shorter notes. The various analyses concern such phenomena as the detachment of science from practical life, formalized morality, the manipulative nature of entertainment culture, and a paranoid behavioral structure, expressed in aggressive anti-Semitism, that marks the limits of enlightenment. The authors perceive a common element in these phenomena, the tendency toward self-destruction of the guiding criteria inherent in enlightenment thought from the beginning. Using historical analyses to elucidate the present, they show, against the background of a prehistory of subjectivity, why the National Socialist terror was not an aberration of modern history but was rooted deeply in the fundamental characteristics of Western civilization.
Adorno and Horkheimer see the self-destruction of Western reason as grounded in a historical and fateful dialectic between the domination of external nature and society. They trace enlightenment, which split these spheres apart, back to its mythical roots. Enlightenment and myth, therefore, are not irreconcilable opposites, but dialectically mediated qualities of both real and intellectual life. "Myth is already enlightenment, and enlightenment reverts to mythology." This paradox is the fundamental thesis of the book.
This new translation, based on the text in the complete edition of the works of Max Horkheimer, contains textual variants, commentary upon them, and an editorial discussion of the position of this work in the development of Critical Theory.
Customer Reviews:
Nothing short of revolutionary.......2007-09-03
Marxist politics aside, Adorno and Horkheimer's staggering critique of post-enlightenment thought takes everything we "civilized" people take for granted and burns it---in front of your kids.
The examination of the oft-overlooked philosophy of the Marquis de Sade is especially significant, as it critiques the rogue philosopher while paying him his long-overdue respect as a true man of philosophy.
Adorno presents a challenging look at the modern condition.......2007-05-07
Adorno and Horkheimer are associated with the Frankfurt school of thought in post-WWII Germany. In this book, Dialectic of Enlightenment, the two thinkers disect the post-war condition looking at all aspects of cultural identity as based on ancient enlightenment-esque ideals. This book illuminates the devestating results of progressivist models of history in late capitalism. Probably the most famous essay deals with the culture industry and how, in post-war capitalism, movies, books, television all become tools of subjegation through which a falsified sense of individuality is produced and commodified to the ends of keeping the consumers of this industry distracted enough to ignore the insideousness of that which we allow to control us.
A very dense read, poetic in areas, but challenging throughout. Adorno is often criticized for being a cynic, but I think that under his often scathing view of modern culture is a message that through exacting self-reflection change of the "total system" can occur.
These themes are expanded on in Adorno's other works: Minima Moralia, and Negative Dialectic.
Gather the Fragments..........2006-11-14
"Myth is already enlightenment, and enlightenment reverts back to mythology" (xviii). This statement is likely one of the most explosive philosphical theses penned in the 20th century, for not only did it give expression to much of the suspicion and pessimism that people experienced in the early 20th century, particularly under the Nazi regime, but this statement set into motion much of the later suspicion concerning the Enlightenment project and its relation to not just freedom, but domination under freedom's guise.
Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments is the most important work ever written by any of the members of the Frankfurt School; it stands as a type of manifesto really for the possibility of Critical Theory as a post-positivistic discipline. It is easy to miss, but this is not just a work of philosophy - it is not a work written by old men with elbow patches on their jackets pondering various ideas in a scientific and socio-historical philosophical vacuum. Quite the opposite: this is a book that drew upon then-current sociology and anthropology (particularly pertaining to religion), in addition to the history of philosophy and philosophical currents such as Marxism (Western Marxism, to be specific). This is a book that draws - obviously - on history; it is a book that has much to say about media and the effects of what Adorno called "The Culture Industry".
Several authors, such as Jurgen Habermas and Leszek Kolakowski, have noted the the structure of the book - what we might call its "poetics" - is quite abnormal for a work of philosophy. The subtitle of the book comes well into play here as a means of understanding the book; "Philosophical Fragments" very much describes what it is like reading this work. The genuinely fragmentary nature of the book - it begins with an essay titled "The Concept of Enlightenment" before two excurses (one on Odysseus and the other on Marquis de Sade), the chapter "The Culture Industry", a series of theses titled "Elements of Angi-Semitism: Limits of Enlightenment", and the closing section "Notes and Sketches" (which is anything but smooth) - only adds to the sense of urgency.
The attempt to ascertain "why humanity, instead of entering a truly human state, is sinking into a new kind of barbarism" (xiv) animates the work. This regression ultimately has to do with the very nature of myth, which is "obscure and luminous at once" (xvii). It is with positivism that science believes it can banish all mystery from the world such that humans become masters of it (1); art itself has fallen prey to this myth (14). Perhaps surprisingly, this does not begin in the 18th century European Enlightenment, but with one of our most ancient of founding myths: Odysseus. The deceptive nature of the sacrifice in Odysseus is the beginning of our journey towards enlightenment, for it places us on a similar footing with the gods. The attempt of persons such as Sade to advocate a world without superstition not only turns us into beasts with "the innocence of wild animals" (77), but means that we still must hold onto one myth: that we can actually live in a world where all is entirely as it seems. Transgression of the previous morality (Catholicism) is the necessary mythical supplement to this view; it brings no pleasure but only violence. Both the Culture Industry and Anti-Semitism ultimately have the same totalitarian goal: to make everyone the same, as economic cogs in the machine, devoid of their individuality. Thus Enlightenment is necessarily violent against the Other, who doesn't fit in. The book ends with Notes and Sketches in a kind of anti-climax; Dialectic of Enlightenment is left open.
In many ways, this edition by Stanford University Press, in their uber-fine series "Cultural Memory in the Present", is like a critical edition in English. Dialectic of Enlightenment was printed various times and in various editions from 1944 thru 1969; this edition collects each of the prefaces for the various editions, and notes every single textual variant for each edition, some of which are seen as rather unimportant, but others of which show that the text was very much a continual work in progress for Horkheimer and Adorno. In addition to an Editor's Afterword, there is an essay appended at the end of the book titled "The Disappearance of Class History in "Dialectic of Enlightenment": A Commentary on the Textual Variants (1944 and 1947)", which many will likely to find insightful reading. This is an important addition to the library of many different fields - political thought, intellectual history, philosophy, theology, religious studies, and social theory, among others - regardless of how it has been produced. Stanford University Press should really be commended for producing it in such a way that it is a fine addition to one's library as well.
One does well to remember that this work should not be simply taken at face value. In their 1969 Preface, Horkheimer and Adorno mention that they ascribe a "temporal core to truth" (xi), which means that as an older text, what remains applicable in it should be used today, and what no longer applies should be left alone as having been applicable at one time in the past. Neither author ever endorsed the irresponsible usage of their work in the 1960s by protesting students who had become little more than mobs; that they have been linked to irresponsible New Left anti-politics (via their friend Herbert Marcuse) is not their fault. Rather, what Horkheimer and Adorno endorsed then (and would continue to endorse, were they still alive) is not a brutal application of a particular theory, but a sustained, thoughtful and well informed engagement of theory with the whole of the modern world. "As a critique of philosophy, it does not seek to abandon philosophy itself" (xii). In short, they believed in wisdom: and this is what philosophy is ultimately all about.
A masterpiece of critical theory.......2006-11-11
Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, both prominents of the Frankfurter Schule of critical theory, wrote this work during WWII. In their own words, the purpose of the book was to explain why humanity, instead of entering a truly human state, is sinking into a new kind of barbarism. Obviously their experiences as Jewish intellectuals fleeing for the national-socialist regime to the United States was a strong impulse for this view, but the book is not limited to a critique of nazism or even totalitarianism altogether.
The main subject of the book, though that itself is already difficult to disentangle, is Enlightenment's betrayal of its own liberating capacity. Adorno & Horkheimer analyze this by means of various cultural metaphors, which in highly abstract, contradictory and aesthetic language (especially the parts by Adorno) trace the development of Enlightenment and its subsequent 'dark side' throughout an equally metaphorical history of culture and ideas. In a certain sense this may most remind readers not familiar with both authors of Foucault and his use of concepts like the Panopticon to express a view of power relations. The method of Adorno and Horkheimer is however not so much genealogical, as Foucault's is, as dialectical in its idealist form.
The book consists of an introduction, two "excursions" and two chapters on the Enlightenment itself, as well as a series of aphorisms provided at the end as "notes and sketches". Each part of the book consists of a very abstract, very metaphysical and almost entrancing analysis of, in turn, the development of Enlightenment as myth out of earlier myth, the form of modern Enlightenment as instrumental reason and mass deception, and the limits of Enlightenment to its own rationality, in the form of anti-semitism. The language of the book is extremely difficult, even in English, and in the best (and worst) traditions of continental philosophy it contains a very great amount of layers and meanings, not all of which are free of internal contradiction. Readers familiar to Situationist works are perhaps best prepared for the effect, which is somewhat similar in method, if not in style, to Guy Debord.
The introduction, "The Concept of Enlightenment", posits Enlightenment as thought liberating man from his natural shackles, and creating man as master of the earth. This process of liberation entails at the same time the possibility of man to protect himself from, and understand the workings of, nature, and also mankind's loss of being one with nature. In this process, the self is created as a subjectivity divorced from direct experience of the outside world. Man's memory of this is very vague and distant, but is present in everyone as a certain inchoate feeling of loss.
This is also the main subject of the first Exkurs, "Odysseus, or Myth and Enlightenment". The story of the Odysseia is here used in many ways to provide metaphorical expressions for the role of myth in and against Enlightenment. Myths are primitive descriptions of the world, and in being so are already classifications used as a form of instrumental reason, which is the seed of Enlightenment. The role of sacrifice to the Gods, for example, is presented as manipulation of those Gods, and in so doing already expression of an Enlightened mind avant la lettre. Odysseus' adventure with the Sirens is metaphor for man's loss as described above: Odysseus, the Enlightened ruler, knows his loss but is constrained by his knowledge from acting on it; and the shipmates, the great mass of modernity, is only vaguely aware of the loss, and are not affected. But Circe, the Cyclops, and many other themes are used besides.
The second Exkurs is "Juliette, or Enlightenment and Morality". The works of De Sade, in particular Juliette, here provide an expression of Enlightenments freeing and therefore contradictory character. Kant is contrasted with Juliette; where Kant is the restrained form of reason, reason as classifying and ordening power, Juliette is reason's destructive power of old orders. Because Enlightenment destroys the validity of any appeal to tradition, religion, etc., it falls pray to itself, in that Enlightenment's appeal to its own absolute values is undermined, in the same way that Juliette uses and is used by Catholicism in undermining it.
The third chapter is "Enlightenment as Mass Deception", covering the subject of the culture industry. Here Adorno rants against all the vapid and degraded culture forms he perceives in the United States, although he never states it as valid only for the US, of course. There are many interesting insights and observations about modern culture and still valid ones too in this chapter, but Adorno's general tone is that of the "hochbürgerliche" bourgeois annoyed about the offenses against good taste he sees. Yet to dismiss it based on that would be superficial, even if we cannot agree with Adorno's hatred for radio and jazz. His observations on American movies are very poignant, and in between his cultural criticism he hits on certain relations between the capitalist mode of production, its Enlightenment ideology, and the cultural superstructure that are very worthwhile for a patient radical.
The fourth chapter is called "Limits of Enlightenment", and addresses directly the subject of anti-semitism and fascism more generally. Fascism is posited as Enlightenment turned against itself (it must be noted Adorno & Horkheimer were among the first to state this, even if it is somewhat of a cliche now). Enlightenment's general instrumental reason knows only power as a measure of behavior. Therefore, it cannot tolerate the existence of groups that thrive, yet never have power, such as Jews and women. Whenever Enlightened society fails to satisfy the needs of its members, their anger is turned against such groups.
The last chapter, "Notes and Sketches", is as said a series of aphorisms, familiar to people who have read situationist works, or for example Walter Benjamin's notebooks.
Overall, this book is an extremely complex, but very worthwhile philosophical critique of modern culture, and a very pessimistic and negative analysis of Enlightenment and its possibilities. It is hard work to get to the bottom of it, but nevertheless rewarding for any student of philosophy.
The Black Book of Western Philosophy.......2005-05-03
The dialectic of Enlightenment is a history of appearances and false totalities that end up in totalitarianism. It is history presented as instrument of dominion. The false totalities of myth and rationality hides the primordial lie in which the law of identity appears in the world. By this logic, everything must be the same. Appearance is mythical in the sense that promise something that can never be fulfilled. The central argument of this wonderful book is that myth is already enlightenment because it tries to explain the world and gain utility from it; and enlightenment is already myth for it tries to exorcise everything different from it. As Adorno & Horkheimer puts it: "Enlightenment has a mythical horror to myth." The impulse for which Enlightenment tries to free itself from myth goes against itself in the form of saturating technical, formal rationality that will end up in the horror of ethnic genocide. This is the black book of Western philosophy.
Average customer rating:
- Put the postmodern waffle on the side, please.
- A very good book
- Games of Computer Life
- Great introduction to Artificial Life
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The Garden in the Machine
Claus Emmeche
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
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Growing Explanations: Historical Perspectives on Recent Science (Science and Cultural Theory)
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The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America
ASIN: 0691029032 |
Book Description
What is life? Is it just the biologically familiar--birds, trees, snails, people--or is it an infinitely complex set of patterns that a computer could simulate? What role does intelligence play in separating the organic from the inorganic, the living from the inert? Does life evolve along a predestined path, or does it suddenly emerge from what appeared lifeless and programmatic?
In this easily accessible and wide-ranging survey, Claus Emmeche outlines many of the challenges and controversies involved in the dynamic and curious science of artificial life. Emmeche describes the work being done by an international network of biologists, computer scientists, and physicists who are using computers to study life as it could be, or as it might evolve under conditions different from those on earth.
Many artificial-life researchers believe that they can create new life in the computer by simulating the processes observed in traditional, biological life-forms. The flight of a flock of birds, for example, can be reproduced faithfully and in all its complexity by a relatively simple computer program that is designed to generate electronic "boids." Are these "boids" then alive? The central problem, Emmeche notes, lies in defining the salient differences between biological life and computer simulations of its processes. And yet, if we can breathe life into a computer, what might this mean for our other assumptions about what it means to be alive?
The Garden in the Machine touches on every aspect of this complex and rapidly developing discipline, including its connections to artificial intelligence, chaos theory, computational theory, and studies of emergence. Drawing on the most current work in the field, this book is a major overview of artificial life. Professionals and nonscientists alike will find it an invaluable guide to concepts and technologies that may forever change our definition of life.
Customer Reviews:
Put the postmodern waffle on the side, please........2007-07-04
Perhaps it's the translation, but the author comes off as overly dubious about the field he claims to want to introduce to us. The book might be useful to philosophers who want to pick fights with a-life enthusiasts, but it's very unsatisfying if you want to learn anything. Some philosophy of science books are much more than cursory glances at the science (Cartwright's How the Laws of Physics Lie or Mayo's Error and the Growth of Experimental Knowledge come to mind), but this isn't one of them. There are so many facinating paths that you can explore starting from the idea of a-life that Emmeches' attempts to fence-in the field come across as premature and pointless.
A very good book.......2003-03-18
Emmeche's slim book is a great intro for those interested in this new & theoretical science. It is well-written, with a constant eye towards the philosophical side of the emerging discipline of "artificial life". Crucial to this discipline is the idea that "form"--a self-organized pattern in space--takes precedence over the material substrate of which it is made. As Emmeche emphasizes throughout his narrative, computer scientists have gained better results at modeling artificial life with the "bottom-up" approach (in contrast to "top-down" attempts to legislate global behavior of these systems). This is a good book for those who might want to study the amazing work of Chris Langton and Stuart Kaufmann. Those chapters in particular are excellent.
Games of Computer Life.......2001-05-21
Great little introduction to the world of artificial life. Short, but to the point, and without the exaggerated claims of many of its proponents trying to use these models to justify Darwinian theories, the book gives a glimpse of the main elements of the field. We must be seeing the evolutionary theories of the future, the first real ones, being born here.
Great introduction to Artificial Life.......2001-02-13
"If life is information, and information is an answer...What was the question?"
In this insightful piece of work danish theoretical biologist Claus Emmeche introduces Artificial Life as a true interdisciplinary scientific subject and discusses the topic from both a scientific and philosophical point of view.
Using a language that's easy to understand but also complete the book deals with artificial (computer-simulated) life and its relationship with areas such as auto-organization, emergence, cellular automata, chaos theory, fractals and artificial intelligence.
Although not very extense the book features 7 chapters with 170 excellent references to the "creme" of the subject which are alone worth its price. Computer geeks (such as me) will undoubtly suffer the lack of any source code or companion software.
Average customer rating:
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The German "Mittelweg": Garden Theory and Philosophy in the Time of Kant (Studies in Philosophy)
Michael G. Lee
Manufacturer: Routledge
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ASIN: 041597674X |
Book Description
By interpreting Kant's topographical metaphors in relation to contemporary garden theories, this book offers new insights into the structural similarities between his critical path and the German garden's middle path between French formalism and the English picturesque.
Book Description
Although we visualize the landscape as a place, it is best understood as a process. Landscape design thus becomes a tool for managing this process of change to create meaningful and compelling places. Landscape Architecture Theory provides an insightful introduction to the evolving body of knowledge that underpins the discipline and practice of landscape architecture. The author's treatment emphasizes the interrelationships between the biophysical and human dimensions of the environment and the theories and decision-making processes that issue from these relationships. Students and practitioners alike will appreciate how this comprehensive text integrates knowledge from a wide variety of disciplines—including earth science, ecological science, behavioral science, design process, and aesthetics—with the theories that have been formulated to apply that knowledge to understanding the landscape. This understanding, it is hoped, will result in designs that improve both quality of life and quality of the environment.
Book Description
This book is intended to give correct and practical information on the Art of Bonsai. The horticultural and artistic aspects of Bonsai are covered in depth, and the reader is also presented with knowledge of the historical and philosophical aspects of the art.Published at $29.95 Our last copies available at $14.98
Customer Reviews:
Comprehensive coverage for beginners to experts.......2000-06-16
This text was the one i'd been searching for so long. I've purchased a dozen bonsai books over the years and finally found Koreshoff's book. It's straight foreward, simple, and explains so many things i'd been confused about that other bonsai books don't touch on like the philosophical purpose of the shapes of trees. Bottom line is this: you can get many bonsai books and get close to what Koreshoff has done, or you can purchase hers and be done. You won't regret it.
A compendium of practical and innovative bonsai techniques........1998-03-13
With few color photographs but many excellent line drawings and lucid writing, the author covers all the essentials. The techniques presented are both practical and innovative. The chapters on shaping, soil, and styling are exceptional. Only Naka's two volume set rivals this publication.
Book Description
From feng shui master Nancilee Wydra comes the ultimate guide to creating happier, healthier surroundings right in your own backyard. Feng Shui in the Garden offers practical, easily implemented ideas for creating an exquisite outdoor environment in accordance with the principles of this ancient Chinese art.
Customer Reviews:
A lovely book!.......2006-12-29
I really like this book. It gives suggestions for gardens made to improve one's life. I made a miniture 3x3 foot version of the 'Power Garden' and loved it! This book has some good illustrations. There were no photo examples but I will still rate it a 5 because it has some great information regarding the bagua, the meanings of color and meanings of shapes in Feng Shui, the different types gardens (i.e. Meditation Garden, Lover's Garden, Children's Garden, etc) and many helpful tips. This is a fairly basic book that someone will understand even if they know little or nothing about Feng Shui. This is a cheerful and fun book, with none of the superstition, none of the complicated ceremonies, or number calculations like other Feng Shui books I have read. I own this book and will read it again once I am ready to plant a garden in my new place!
You can create your own feng shui garden.......2000-12-20
I followed the guidelines for plants, color, fragrance, shapes,and meaning, and designed five interlocking Florida feng shui gardens based on Nancilee's book. We used the bagua to locate the right spots (for us) for a Meditation garden, a Healing garden, a Fertility garden, a Child's garden and, in the Power Corner, the Lover's garden.
The result is a tropical paradise which enchants us, our friends, and garden enthusiasts. The book was a great guide to learning by doing.
There are better books out there.......2000-11-29
Fortunately I already knew Feng Shui. This book, I felt was rather thin on the basics of Feng Shui. As I read it I kept waiting for Wydra to touch more upon the Bagua, but it never came.
Provides a new way to analyze your garden........1999-04-14
I recommend this book if you are looking for a new approach to what might be called the garden metaphor. This book provides wonderful definitions of the garden and the importance of place, but also gives practical ways to analyze faults as well as checklists and questions to help gardeners pinpoint where they might want to go. I found it helped to diagnose my problem areas and also pointed to some not so radical solutions that changed emphasis just enough to give my garden a whole new look. I highly recomment it.
Feng Shui in the Garden is a treat for all.......1998-11-17
Feng Shui in the Garden is a great book for either the feng shui savvy or the novice. Easy to understand explanation about feng shui and soul provoking ideas for the garden make this a "best buy". Ms. Wydra presents a mini encyclopedia on vegetation that transcends the norm by including the implications of color, shape and symbolic meaning of plants and trees. The reader also learns how to create speciality gardens to include a power garden, a lover's garden, a meditation garden and a healing garden plus more. She continuously connects all of this with the Ba-Gua, a feng shui roadmap for life. What I especially like about this book is the simplicity of the garden designs - nothing seems overwhelming. I highly recommend this book.
Book Description
The Japanese dry landscape garden has long attracted—and long baffled—viewers from the West. While museums across the United States are replicating these "Zen rock gardens" in their courtyards and miniature versions of the gardens are now office decorations, they remain enigmatic, their philosophical and aesthetic significance obscured. Reading Zen in the Rocks, the classic essay on the karesansui garden by French art historian François Berthier, has now been translated by Graham Parkes, giving English-speaking readers a concise, thorough, and beautifully illustrated history of these gardens.
Berthier's guided tour of the famous garden of Ryoanji (Temple) in Kyoto leads him into an exposition of the genre, focusing on its Chinese antecedents and affiliations with Taoist ideas and Chinese landscape painting. He traces the roles of Shinto and Zen Buddhism in the evolution of the garden and also considers how manual laborers from the lowest classes in Japan had a hand in creating some of its highest examples. Parkes contributes an equally original and substantive essay which delves into the philosophical importance of rocks and their "language of stone," delineating the difference between Chinese and Japanese rock gardens and their relationship to Buddhism. Together, the two essays compose one of the most comprehensive and elegantly written studies of this haunting garden form.
Reading Zen in the Rocks is fully illustrated with photographs of all the major gardens discussed, making it a handsome addition to the library of anyone interested in gardening, Eastern philosophy, and the combination of the two that the karesansui so superbly represents.
Praise for the French edition:
"A small book of rare depth, remarkably illustrated, on one of the most celebrated and beautiful rock gardens of the monasteries of Kyoto."—L'Humanité
"Through Le Jardin de Ryoanji, Berthier teaches us to read the zen in the rocks, to discover the language offered by the garden at Ryoanji. Enigmatic, poetic, and disconcerting, an enriching journey through a work of art of surprising modernity, Le Jardin de Ryoanji is a work that will interest all the amateurs of Japanese art and Eastern philosophy."—Lien Horticole
Customer Reviews:
Better in the French edition........2000-06-25
A Frenchman explaining Zen and Japanese gardens, translated into English, makes for an international headache. Some good insights, yes. A lot of pseudo-Zen philosophical nonsense, yes. Best read with a glass of wine (French) in hand.
A great book to understand Zen spirit.......2000-06-16
It's a good book on the subject of Zen. It introduces the spirit of Zen in terms of the number and location of rocks. You can't miss it.
Amazon.com
Written in a charming, warm voice, The Magic Land guides new gardeners in using their intuition to envision their dream garden. Touching on concepts such as vignettes and movement in the garden, the book works to awaken a sense of wonder about nature and the home so that people can have a sanctuary that's perfectly matched to their lifestyles. Readers are encouraged to make collages representing what their gardens might feel like and to collect pictures and information from magazines. Overall, the book's strength is in its wide coverage of planning out the green area around a home; its weakness is in its lack of new and in-depth information. The book includes practical advice for design, but what is said has been said before in Sunset or Better Homes & Garden manuals, e.g., "Figure out where the sunny and shady parts of the garden are in the different seasons, where the land is boggy or dry ..." There's minimal information for those gardeners who simply want to grab the shovel and plant a fast low-maintenance garden or tailor a backyard for children, guests, or pet activities.
If you are a fairly experienced gardener who already owns a garden- design book, chances are you won't glean much from The Magic Land beyond its delightful writing, but for those with virtually no gardening experience, this is the perfect book. The author's voice is intimate, her guidance is knowledgeable, and she does a good job of beginning at the beginning. --Karen Karleski
Book Description
This is an idea book for your imagination, full of concepts, images, and principles that can help you take what is now a yard and make it into an enchanted gardena landscape full of personal meaning and magic. Julie Moir Messervy lends her spiritual sensibility and sensual writing style to a book about gardening as an act of creating emotional space. Through meditative and hands-on exercises, garden design tips, anecdotes drawn from Messervys gardening experiences and those of her clients, students, and family, and thoroughly engaging prose, we come to realize that the creative process is both a personal journey and a method for giving life to our own gardens. Illustrated with Barbara M. Bergers evocative charcoal drawings of the gardens of dreams and the imagination.Julie Moir Messervy is a renowned landscape designer, prolific garden lecturer, and critically acclaimed author whose prior books include Contemplative Gardens and The Inward Garden. She has collaborated on numerous landscape design projects, including a new Music Garden in Boston with legendary musician Yo-Yo Ma. This project will be the subject of a documentary film that will open at the Venice Film Festival in Fall 1997, and will air on PBS in early 1998.
Customer Reviews:
Launch into a new way of life filled with magic:.......1997-11-08
Advance Praise from Yo-Yo Ma, Thomas Moore and Carol Stocker for THE MAGIC LAND: Designing Your Own Enchanted Garden by Julie Moir Messervy, author of THE INWARD GARDEN and CONTEMPLATIVE GARDENS.
"Every Page of this book is filled with magic. Julie Moir Messervy leads us on imaginative journeys, showing us how to create our own dream gardens. Julie and I collaborated for several years to turn a Bach Suite into a Music Garden. Now, with this book, Julie collaborates with readers, offering practical as well as inspirational advice on garden design. THE MAGIC LAND is a delight!"
Yo-Yo Ma, Cellist
"When you read The Magic Land you might launch into a new way of life. It treats the spaces and places of our lives as though they were connected to the geography of our dreams and the inner places where meaning is revealed. Julie Moir Messervy's observations are thoughtful, solid and practical as she teaches us charmingly how to make a garden with deep imagination. She invites us into a world that is seriously magical and offers a way out of the mechanical, literal, uninspiring spaces peculiar to our time which, I am convinced, are behind our depressions and anxieties. So, not only are her gardens enchanting; they are places of true healing and re-creation."
Thomas Moore
Author of The Art of the Soul, Care of the Soul
``The Magic Land'' will open doors for intuitive gardeners who not only want suggestions on how to stamp of their personalities upon the land, but how to shape a place that will reawaken the wonder they felt at discovering the world for the first time. Succinctly encapsulating a lexicon of design philosophies from feng shui to Egyptian symmetry, this book presents so many resonant garden concepts that it could double as either a text book for design classes or as a companion for inspired daydreaming. Julie Moir Messervy is a spirit guide for those who want to explore the translation of emotions into garden designs."
Carol Stocker, The Boston Globe garden writer
Books:
- Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
- Peonies
- Perelandra Garden Workbook: A Complete Guide to Gardening with Nature Intelligences
- Plant Identification Terminology: An Illustrated Glossary
- Plants for Tropical Landscapes: A Gardener's Guide
- Pool & Spa Planner (Better Homes & Gardens)
- Pots in the Garden: Expert Design and Planting
- Prescription for Nutritional Healing, 4th Edition: A Practical A-to-Z Reference to Drug-Free Remedies Using Vitamins, Minerals, Herbs & Food Supplements ... A-To-Z Reference to Drug-Free Remedies)
- Red Lily (In the Garden, Book 3)
- Reflections of Kauai: The Garden Island
Books Index
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