Specific Places Books

Like Thorton Wilder's OUR TOWN, this book of portraits paints a picture of quiet, anonymous, ordinary lives that are incredibly compelling. I love this book.

I believed this would be a picture history of LaPorte. It turned out, however, to be a bunch of classbook pictures without identification. The book is meaningless.

I grew up on Michigan Avenue in La Porte, and went to La Porte High School with the owner of the diner who inherited all those many boxes of black and white photos that so eloquently reveal my town. Every time we visited La Porte, we went to the diner to spend a little time in the back room browsing the boxes, looking for family members, neighbors, grade school friends. Finding someone we knew would evoke a shriek of delight. More often, however, we weren't sure. Was that Pammie's mom and dad, or people we didn't know? Did that guy run the shoe store during the early 60s, or was he someone else? Didn't that girl go to our church? I could tell you that these pictures tell a story of my town. But they tell the story of anybody's town, evoking instantly the feel of the middle of the last century, the slight artificiality of the photographer's studio, the "special occasions" that were at once unique and commonplace. You will look at a young couple and wonder if you knew them. We may all be just ourselves, but we are everybody else, too.

I was surprised how such a simple book can be so good. I like to leave it lying around and pick it up every so often and flip through it. Very interesting concencept.

THIS BOOK IS LOVELY TO LOOK AT. I ENJOYED IT, THEY ALL LOOKED FAMILAR. THANKS

THIS IS THE STORY OF THE 2004 AMERICAN LEAGUE PENNANT RACE. IT GOES THROUGH THE GREAT RIVALRY BETWEEN THE YANKEES AND REDSOX FROM THE BABE RUTH TRADE TO THE STARTLING AND UNBELIEVABLE COME BACK BY THE REDSOX TO THEIR FIRST WORLD SERIES VICTORY SINCE 1918. THE BOOK COVERS IN GREAT DETAIL HOW BOTH TEAMS FAIRED THROUGH OUT THE SEASON AND ALSO TOUCHES ON SOME OF THE GREAT PENNANT RACES THE RIVALS HAVE ENDURED. I REALLY RECOMMEND THIS FOR ALL BASEBALL FANS BUT ESPECIALLY FOR REDSOX FANS. A GREAT READ.

This is the best Red Sox book out there, and I have read quite a few. If you are a Sox fan and haven't read it, read it!

LoL. Is that a front cover photo of A-fROD doing the illegal girlie-man move to knock the ball out of the first-baseman's glove?

Like any argument there are two sides and who better to rely on than two sportswriters who make their living covering the year-in-year out battle between the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees.
While this 2005 release has the familiar ring of the classic written by Charles Dickens, it took two authors to produce a work that is worthy both of the name and the plot line of this modern day baseball classic.
Baseball beat writers John Harper of the New York Daily News and Tony Massarotti of the Boston Herald have shared writing space as well as barbs about their two hometown teams and now take their grievances public in "A Tale of Two Cities."
The idea for the book took shape just moments after Aaron Boone's ALCS-winning homer cleared the fence at Yankee Stadium in 2003. The two minds agreed that their combined beats and insights gave the reader a truthful and exciting behind the scenes look at this historic battle.
Massarotti opens his first chapter just days after Boone's fateful, memorable shot and rolls into the firing of Boston Red Sox manager Grady Little, the placing of Manny Ramirez on waivers, the courtship and subsequent rebuff of Alex Rodriguez, the stage being set for a divorce with Nomar Garciaparra and the acquisition of Curt Schilling and Keith Foulke.
Harper responds with the news that the Yankees knew of Boone's knee injury during a pick-up basketball game for two weeks prior to releasing it to the media as well as other teams. He explains how GM Brian Cashman worked the phones, creating the trade for A-Rod along with the selling of the former Texas Ranger on a move to third base. The Daily News beat writer also includes the clandestine efforts Cashman took to prevent word from leaking out about the trade, all before taking it to George Steinbrenner.
The two authors provide insight to each team's manager, for Harper, the ex-skipper Grady Little as well as the newly hired Terry Francona after his unsuccessful stint with the Philadelphia Phillies. Harper takes the reader into the boardroom and private dining room of Steinbrenner as he proposes to extend Yankee skipper Joe Torre's contract and why the manager waffled before finally accepting.
Once the 2004 season was underway, both writers give their viewpoints to key meetings between the two squads throughout the year and no subject is off limits.
Read how Massarotti complains of the visiting press box at Yankee stadium, the air of New York fans and players. Harper pounds back with his own tongue-in-cheek shot about "Red Sox Nation" along with his own personal hatred of Pedro Martinez.
The drama continues on and off the field as the AL pennant race heats up, in April.
Pedro Martinez is without a contract, Manny Ramirez becomes a U.S. citizen, Schilling has a bum ankle and his cell phone has local sports talk radio station WEEI in its speed dial, for starters. For the Yankees, Harper reveals how boring Derek Jeter is with the media along with how fake Alex Rodriquez is with the same hoard, but at least he can give you something for your notebook.
Harper also goes so far as to mock his Boston counterparts while filing on deadline after a loss to the Yankees as well as describe the difference in how the media is perceived in the two East Coast cities.
The two authors focus on the competing shortstops, how Jeter exemplifies style, grace and competitiveness, while Garciaparra is often portrayed as shallow, selfish and sometimes weak.
The work of these two authors who have the pleasure of writing about these two ball clubs comes together brilliantly as their passion of the game and their beats glows on the work's pages.
Whether you bleed Yankee Blue or are a card carrying member of Red Sox Nation, "A Tale of Two Cities" must become a part of your baseball collection.

It seems highly unusual that beat writers covering the teams involved in MLB's greatest rivalry agreed almost two years ago to collaborate on writing an account of the 2004 season. For both the Yankees and the Red Sox, and their fans, that season provided both the best of times and the worst of times. It is to Massarotti's and Harper's credit that the results of their collaboration, this book, succeeds so well in recreating competition both on and off the playing field. Like a classic Dickens novel, their book offers a riveting plot, direct conflict and dramatic tension, colorful characters, memorable moments, and -- best of all -- behind-the-scenes access to fans such as I who saw none of the Red Sox-Yankees (or if you prefer, Yankees-Red Sox) games in person.

Granted, the national sports media devoted constant and thorough attention to both teams. Only in Massarotti and Harper's account, however, did I find sufficient answers to questions such as these:

1. Why was Grady Little fired as Red Sox manager? Surely there had to be more to it than his deference to Pedro Martinzez.

2. How did the Yankees acquire Alex Rodriguez?

3. In terms of their deportment, what are the most significant differences between the Red Sox and Yankee players?

4. To what extent (if any) did Joe Torre's often strained relationship with George Steinbrenner affect the Yankees' behavior and performance?

5. In terms of their relations with the media, how do Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez differ? Why?

6. At which point during the season did the Red Sox become convinced that they could win the AL playoffs and then the World Series?

7. Who is the real Curt Schilling?

8. What is the single most interesting aspect of the Red Sox-Yankees competition during the 2004 season of which most sports fans are still unaware?

9. How to explain the fact that the Red Sox won the last eight games they played, especially after going 0-3 against the Yankees in the ALC?

10. According to Massarotti and Harper, who were the most valuable and yet least appreciated players on both teams? Why?

Soon, the MLB playoffs will begin. It remains to be seen whether or not the Yankees and/or Red Sox will participate. In that event, will they again meet in the ALC? Whatever does and does not happen, one fact seems obvious to me: The 2004 regular season and subsequent playoffs were among the most exciting thus far. I am grateful to Massarotti and Harper for providing such a revealing as well as entertaining commentary on them.

San Francisco has a timeless beauty that shines through in this beautiful book. It's no wonder so many great films have chosen this city as their backdrop, with it's amazing architecture, history and natural beauty. Van Buskirk's book celebrates this beauty and offers some fascinating inside information on the films that were shot there. Reading through the book gives a chance to revisit some of these classic films. Highly recommended.

In "The Other Sister"...1998...Juliette Lewis, Jim says the church in the final wedding scene is St. Peter and Paul. Wrong! The church used is St. Francis of Assisi on Vallejo.
Omitted two movies with scenes of San Francisco:
...The Gathering of Eagles...1963...Rock Hudson
...The Killer Elite...1975...James Caan
While these items are not major, a guide should be complete and thoroughly researched. I feel that Mr. Van Buskirk gets a B- for this guide and a two star rating.

"Celluloid San Francisco" is a rather exhaustive guide to movie locations around San Francisco. In fact, for my purposes as a tourist visiting the Bay Area, it was a bit too overstuffed to be easy to use. It is quite crammed with sites used in obscure B-movies (and, I daresay, C-movies) and for random scenes in not especially memorable TV shows. A lot of the entries are also rather repetitive and have the feel of being simply padding.

As a "Vertigo" fan, I found "Footsteps In The Fog: Alfred Hitchcock's San Francisco" a lot more useful and much better written, though it was limited to Hitchcock movies, so I must admit that I had to turn to "Celluloid San Francisco" to find the sites of Bacall's art deco apartment from "Dark Passage" and Mel Brooks' glass elevator ride in "High Anxiety."

Anyone who loves anything in the SF Bay Area and in the movies will have a feast with Celluloid San Francisco. I was instantly charmed by the slick title, the elegant cover, the generous amount of photos, movie posters and other evocative details of illustration. Then I checked the index and found my favorite SF movie, Vertigo, represented 17 times. The authors are obviously serious about their passion. The research alone is impressive (an understatement), but there is much more. There is good writing, delivered in small, appetizing bites, there is a sharp eye for detail, mixed with playful irony. The love for SF as a place of culture and adventure jumps off the pages like bubbles of champaign. If you think I am making this up, go to page 94-95, entry no 50: The Fairmont Hotel, and learn that this is where Hitchcock stayed while shooting Vertigo, where "Orson Welles unexpectantly encountered William Randolph Hearst, the model for Citizen Kane's megalomaniacal character" in the elevator, where Tony Bennett first sang "I Left My Heart in San Francisco", where Marlene Dietrich......
But don't believe me -- see for yourself.
Renate Stendhal, author of "Gertrude Stein in Words and Pictures"

I read this book with great interest as a SF resident. Mr. Van Buskirk and Mr. Shank certainly did their homework. Their knowledge of Bay Area movies is fantastic, and their delivery by geography is right on.

Langdon describes why modern American suburbs, with typical cul de sacs, feeder roads, and strip malls, rob us of our sense of community and of our connections to our neighbors. He explains how the over-reliance on the automobile is both a cause and a result of these suburban designs. But he goes further, describing why older neighborhoods feel so much better to us-- neighborhoods with grid layouts, houses with front porches, homes placed fairly close to tree lined streets. If you've ever looked around at modern American developments and wondered why they feel alienating and uncomfortable, this book will answer your questions in fascinating detail. Langdon's prose is beautifully clear.

There are more books that I can count that address American suburbs, and of the dozen or so that I have read this is by far the most comprehensive, best written, and most illuminating. Far from simply being a 250+ page rant about how bad suburbia is, Langdon offers an immense amount of very specific advice about how it can be made better. You don't have to be a landscape architect or planner to appreciate and enjoy this book. Anyone concerned with ensuring that we all have great places to live will benefit tremendously from reading it.

Reading this book started out as a requirement for my Urban Planning class. However, I became so interested in what Langdon had to say, and his easy to read diction, that I couldn't put it down. I would recommend this book to anyone who lives in the city, in the suburbs or anywhere in between. Everyone can relate to the issues that Langdon brings up, and they are truly interesting and relavent in today's society. A great book to use as an introduction to issues of urban planning and urban improvement.

Langdon's book is a gentle and articulate introduction to New Urbanism - the notion that our cities and our suburbs are a mess, and that in their place, we should have higher residential densities, mixed-use zoning, and pedestrian-oriented design. Langdon extols the benefits of the traditional street grid, and bemoans suburban developers' fascination with "pods" (i.e., clusters of cul-de-sacs). The author highlights the design of individual houses, and describes various ways of hiding garages and "granny apartments." Places given special attention include Seaside (Fla.), Kentlands (Md.), Laguna West (Cal.), Portland (Ore.), Kirkland (Wa.), and Bellevue (Wa.). The book is profusely illustrated with well over a hundred photographs and diagrams, a welcome change from authors who feel they can discuss this topic at length without a single illustration.

Mr. Langdon has some excellent points in his book. For instance, he makes a very convincing case that modern suburbia is sterile and that it encourages heavy reliance on the motor vehicle. He also offers good solutions, including more mixed-use neighborhoods, higher architectural standards, and different street layouts.

However, Mr. Langdon never adequately addresses a significant objection to his ideas: they are *expensive* to implement. At times, he does concede that his ideas would require higher expenditures on housing. Usually he counters this with arguments resembling "well, Americans don't need wet bars and a television set in every room. If only they would give that up, we could have more intimate communities." At times it seems as though he is actively encouraging Americans to consume less, an idea that could form the backbone of another book. In this book, it only detracts from his argument.

Sorry, Mr. Langdon. While Americans may want better communities, you can't force them to give up their television sets and wet bars in order to get them. Come up with a better way to pay for your ideas; otherwise, concede that the market has given modern Americans exactly what they want.

As with the other books by Viana La Place, I like all of the recipes and find them all simple and quite good, but again, only thing lacking are photos, otherwise, this cookbook would probably get 5 stars.

This book proves that you don't need a lot of bottles and jars of pre-prepared foods to get a good meal on the table. I have cooked from this cookbook all summer and have already incorporated a lot of the recipes in my kid's lunch-boxes for school. It's not to say you don't have to plan, but I can make a meal when I have the time, stow it in the frig, and serve it when I'm ready. I thought when I got this book I would quickly bore of cold and room temperature food, but everything is flavorful and fresh.

Make the Yellow Bell Peppers in Vinegar, Sugar and Oregano. I have made this dish many times to take to parties, and there hasn't been a single occasion on which I haven't been asked for the recipe. People GORGE themselves on this stuff. They love it. Another consistent winner is the White Bean, Red Onion, Tomato and Oregano Salad; it makes a terrific side dish with a broiled flank steak - the entire dinner can be ready in 15 minutes. The Torta Rustica takes some effort, but it really is a showstopper. More importantly, the authors' concept of simple foods prepared with top-quality ingredients makes a wonderful philosophy. Their emphasis on olive oil yields a cookbook full of delicious recipes low in cholesterol, and tons of fresh vegetables. Healthy, sophisticated and delectable. These are ideal recipes to take with you to a picnic or party, since they can be served cold or at room temperature.

This is the first cookbook review I've submitted. After preparing yet another scrumptious dish from this amazing collection of recipes, I was moved to share my delight with other potential readers. Everyone who has tasted the recipes I've made has praised them highly. Their simplicity belies their good taste. The two desserts I've made were huge hits - poaced peaches with amareti cookies and prunes in port over ice cream - yum! The grilled green or golden zucchini is amazing!

I'm lucky to have the ability to read a recipe and imagine it accurately in my mind. I am confident that every recipe I've savored with my eyes will live up to its promise on my taste buds. I've not been disappointed yet!

Contains recipes for casual entertaining which can be made ahead of time and served at room temperature. Good ideas for combining ingredients and for menus.

Samuel Gottscho's wonderful photographs combine an architect's eye with the mood of an Edward Hopper painting. Cool but never cold, these photos are simply beautiful. The noir-flavored night shots are among the finest, with the chiaroscuro of a John Alton film. Gottscho had the luck to be living during one of New York's most photogenic periods, after most of the Art Deco classics had been built but before the postwar clutter of shoebox skyscrapers had set in.

Technically, this collection is very well produced, with sharp, lustrous photos on high-quality paper. Highly recommended for any fan of vintage urban photographs.

A friend of mine travelled to NYC not long ago and fell in love with this city. So my idea was to find a beautiful album about NY as a birthday present, but I didn't want to buy anything with average photographs of skyscrapers that repeat from one calendar to another.
Thanks to the snapshots provided to this book review I felt that it should have a personal touch and wouldn't be boring. It turned out to be true! now I'm thinking about ordering another one for myself.

This book was a total waste of money and time. Boring, repetitive and uninspired photos taken years ago by an architectural photographer for his clients and I have no idea why someone thought this worthy of publication.

I'm planning on returning it.

My husband and I used this beautiful book as a guestbook at our wedding.
We met and fell in love in New York City. Now that we live abroad, we miss the place tremendously. The photos in the book are gorgeous and capture our love for the City. Our guests were very creative in using the book's format to write their wishes for us. I highly recommend this book if you love NYC!

I thought it was very apt to use the word mythic in the title of this wonderful book. Surely Samuel Gottscho as much as anyone helped to create the popular visual concept of the dynamic American metropolis, a city of towers by day and a kaleidoscope of dazzling light by night, his work must have especially influenced creative folk from comic book artists to Hollywood art directors, the graphic city image is straight out of his photos.

Apart from the short intro essay the book is basically photos, divided into several sections and covering, for instance, bridges, Times Square, business, commercial and residential areas of Manhattan plus a few photos of the 1939 New York World's Fair. It is with the night photos where Gottscho really excelled. To achieve his luminous effect he took two exposures, one at dusk to define the building shapes and another some hours later to capture all the blazing window lights. I think these photos plus the ones of Times Square at night look quite stunning.

Another reason I like the book is the coverage of streamline design that keeps on appearing in many of the photos, not just the skyscrapers but interiors of retail units, Radio City, some of the apartment interiors and obviously the '39 World's Fair.

The book is well printed and designed and the paper makes the photos sparkle with their 200 dpi screen. The captions are basically the location, date and architect though frequently there is more detail provided where necessary. Overall I thought this was a fascinating photobook of what New York looked like in the recent past.

***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.

This is a wonderful book. "A road trip with an alcoholic father and a child? Must be a downer," you'd think. Not so. Never sliding into self-pity, the author just lays out a personal cross-country saga in mesmerizing detail. At times heartbreaking, this book is ultimately an inspirational story of survival by a child who deserved better. I've read a lot of travel narratives, and this is as good as they come.

This wonderful hitchhiking odyssey is all thumps up (or outstretched as the young boy would tell us). What a romp across 1960 America. It's the kind of book I'd love to see as a movie. Sure lends itself to the big screen because I have read few more visual stories. This is fun all the way to California and back! What a roll of the camera . . . and sentence.

I would normally give this book 5 stars, except I have a strong sense that this book is a fictional fraud.

It's the story of an 11 year old boy who hitchikes the country with his alcoholic, dead-beat father in search of a better life in California. Of course, California is no better than any other place they've been and they take buses back to Albany where his mother lives with his two sisters, only to ***spoiler*** go back out on the road again with his father at the end of the book.

The book is well written and engaging, but only if the book is true, which I doubt. The book often states what a good storyteller the father is and how good said father is at making up things to get what he wants out of people. The author continually expresses his desire to be on the radio or in movies, not to mention how often he embellishes stories, so I wouldn't be surprised if the book was just one big lie.

From the outset, the author states how he went 2 entire months without a bowel movement, which I don't even know is medically possible, much less didn't land him in the hospital. Plus he recounts in great detail names, places, and events that happened 40 years ago. And somehow, all these events involve sexual predators, thieves, and other ne'er-do-well's. Never any average people. Nah, I don't think the book is true.

But if it is true, it's really well done.

Smiling ghosts of Mark Twain and Jack Kerouac hover over many pages of Michael Keith's "The Next Better Place." This captivating book places Keith squarely in the same row with America's finest writers of the road adventure story. Which is to say that "The Next Better Place" is so much more than a memoir-cum-novel of a precocious son traversing America's great expanses with an ageing picaro of a father. Keith knows when to embroider his book's perfectly intoned dialogue, tremulous details, and charming teenage bravado with both lyrical pathos and hints at the perverse. The greatest American road novel, Vladimir Nabokov's "Lolita," also came to mind as I devoured Keith's book, and I can only hope that Keith will soon reward his readers with another one.

I ENJOYED THIS BOOK VERY MUCH,HOWEVER I'M A LITTLE CONFUSED ABOUT MR. KEITH'S DATES. HE SAYS THESE EVENTS TOOK PLACE IN 1959, WHEN HE WAS 11 YEARS OLD. HOWEVER ON THE "AUTHORS NOTE" PAGE IT GIVES HIS YEAR OF BIRTH AS 1945, WHICH WOULD HAVE MADE HIM 14 YEARS OLD AT THE TIME OF THESE EVENTS. ALSO HE MENTIONS SEVERAL TIMES THE SONG FROM THE MOVIE "THE MAGNIFICANT 7". HOWEVER THAT MOVIE WASNT RELEASED TILL THE EARLY 1960'S. NO BIG DEAL. JUST BAD PROOF READING BY THE PUBLISHERS.

Perhaps it is because I am originally from Akron, Ohio, one of the places where fellow native Pierson lovingly writes about with clarity and sorrow. Or perhaps it is just because I love well-written books about landscapes and places. Regardless, this book is still resonating with me several months after reading it. Pierson weaves in her own memoir of the places she has known and lived in her life with their history and quotes from other authors. Along the way she makes the point that we take our landscapes and special buildings for granted until it is too late and they have been replaced by strip malls and a more homogenous American background.

For anyone who has ridden their bikes around their childhood neighborhoods or have known each house, each bush and tree, or corner store or the threads of roads and hills which form our memories of place, this book will have great meaning. You will be taken to your home place, wherever that may be, and you will see our vanishing American landscape with greater appreciation. Pierson's lucid, introspective prose is a pleasure to read.

Holbrook Pierson's dreamy and emotive look at changing landscapes, both in her personal history and the history of America (mostly) invites the reader to identify the ghosts of their own lost places. The second-person voice points at the heart of the reader even though it is her memories we drift through. What I found compelling about the book was not necessarily her anger at the collective disregard for patience and care for place (it's become so easy to rail, unsuccessfully, against the Wal-marts or McMansions), but her style. The book reads like one long prose poem, full of startling, recognizable and even funny images.

That the voice can sound both emotional and right at the same time is admirable. The cries are like a slap in the face to wake up: wake up to what we're losing. There were times I felt this cry might be too one-sided, too apt to romantisize the past or the victims of forced change, but I think Pierson aknowledges this for the most part. She articulates so elegantly what many people feel about "progress".

THE PLACE YOU LOVE IS GONE: PROGRESS HITS HOME hit particularly hard for author Melissa Holbrook Pierson, who tells of three special places in her life which have been radically changed. From her birthplace Akron, Ohio which shaped her soul to her move to Hoboken, New Jersey which was a backwater to New York until its transformation during the eighties, special places which have been transformed by growth and progress are considered for their sense of place, purpose, and changes over time. A compelling blend of memoir and survey of growth planning and change.

I enjoyed this book as I am a lover of the history of places and like to know how a village,town or cityscape came about.

I felt a connection to the book because of previous work assignments in a dead end Ohio town , being able to see Hoboken from my office and owning a home in Ulster County, not far from the Catskills and only a short hop from Kingston.

For me the only disappointments were the overwrought metaphysical language Pierson used in the first chapter in describing Akron and the lack of detail on Kingston, the proposed third chapter.

The third chapter is strange in this way in that Pierson is discussing the barbaric approach that New York City used to appropriate clean water supplies ,although the chapter title is about Kingston, she only spends a handful of pages talking about Kingston.

These are minor quibbles ,the work done in the third chapter captured the current shape of the county and how it was irrevocably changed by the reservoirs which replaced the drowned villages.

If you have ever raged against the greed of "development" or experienced the sadness of seeing the fencerow you explored as a child plowed under by "progress," The Place You Love Is Gone is a warm and welcome act of understanding and comprehension. Holbrook weaves a tale of reminicence with a subtle but effective exposition of a movement that is destroying not only the places we know and that are part of us; but a "development" movement that is destroying our self.

Holbrook's writing style interjects (sometimes startling) facts with an overall story about life in three communities--Akron, Hoboken, and the Catskills of New York. The book has an almost poetic feel and does drag at times. However, overall, the style is effective. One cannot put down this book and not think of his or her first home--and tellingly, that home is probably gone forever for most of us.

This is a book that needed to be written and Holbrook did a magnificent job of effectively communicating the effects of the "development" industry without the normal soap box stands. An excellent work and likely to become a classic.

Are you looking for a book that recognizes the need for designing buildings to meet lofty sustainability goals, but that also places human needs on an equal or superior plane? Do you look at new mechanistic buildings of steel, titanium and low-e glass and wonder how it's possible to feel inspired, or even comfortable, when you're in them? If you answer yes to these questions, then perhaps you would benefit from reading the second edition of Christopher Day's book, Places of the Soul, Architecture and Environmental Design as a Healing Art (Grammarians might suggest "as Healing Arts").

Day wrote the book in 1988, long before the birth of LEEDS, to address his perception of a growing lack of concern about human needs for variety in the form of spaces, the connection of spaces to nature and natural processes, and craft in the production of habitation. From his concerns one would assume that he was a student of the work of Christopher Alexander, particularly "A Timeless Way of Building". However, he moves beyond Alexander in citing the results of empirical studies that support his theses.

In the chapter Architecture: Does It Matter? Day discusses how good design adds value, increases productivity, reduces health care costs, and accelerates healing. He cites the work of Dr. Roger Ulrich that demonstrated faster healing of patients in ICU's with views of nature. Important to architects struggling with limited budgets is the cited research that demonstrates how a 6.5% increase in productivity can justify a building four times as expensive!

This book takes a broad-brush look at regionalism, vernacular architecture, the art of architecture, human and planetary health, quality versus quantity, making spaces livable, and even design as a listening process. Responding to criticism from clients that listening is a problem with some architects, the National Architectural Accrediting Board has made a recent change in its student performance criteria that emphasizes listening as a required skill.

From listening, Day moves to making buildings with soul, building as a health-giving process, silence and peace in architecture, and the creation of appropriate spaces for children. He concludes with an important chapter on the urban environment, the conflict between sustainable values and urban pressures, the needs of urban life, cities as places for people and for life, and whether eco-cities might be utopian or practicable.

Places of the Soul is an excellent primer for students of architecture seeking a balance between design for sustainability and for human needs, between a mass-produced machine aesthetic and one that includes hand-craftsmanship, and between sterile mind-numbing sameness and invigorating variety. It is illustrated with photographs and drawings of buildings and places in Great Britain that, while relevant, could be supplemented with more recent global examples. This book raises challenging questions about the buildings and places we will design and build, and the affect they will have on us as people and as a society.

PLACES OF THE SOUL is a very satisfying, powerful look at how the architectural environment makes an impact health, thought, and especially spirit. Mr. Day's writing is beautiful, drawing the reader through ideas of space, light, structure, environment, location and intention. Reading it was both inspiring and informative. An elegant book about an important subject.

My God, I was forced to read this book for a construction management class at a four-year university in the United States and struggled through every minute. I don't know what was more frustrating, having to read this dull-minded and repetative junk or reading four words at a time because for whatever reason the prestigious author, Christopher Day, was forced to go against conventional thinking and put two columns on each page. This was hands down the worst book I have ever read throughout my life. The guy is hypocritical of everyone who lives in an ordinary house and works in an ordinary job in an ordinary office building. Sorry Mr. Day, but most of us don't have the time and monetary security to write a 200-page book regarding soulful places. We just trudge off to work everyday in our non-biologically inducing office buildings. A bunch of junk!

A bit wordy and repetitive, but some of his ideas are first rate. The pictures are really nice too.

This is a seminal piece of work, that I would recomend for anyone involved with homes and living spaces, (I think that means everyone!) There is much wisdom in this book, and it is as much a book about how we live as it is a life philosopy book.
Best book I have read about our 'third Skin'

I initially bought this book for friend of mine and I ended up ordering another copy for myself ah!
Amazing photographs, high quality prints... One of the best book I bought (twice) this year!

This is a great book to give someone who loves nature. Great pictures.

A book of that will have you looking at the photo's over and over again, never tiring of their beauty.

This was a gift for my husband and he loves it. The images are pretty amazing. The book itself is a little oversized and not very easy to hold. Also it would be better if each image had a little blurb to explain where exactly and when the image was shot. Otherwise I'd recommend this book for any keen outdoor types who love photography.

I'm lucky enough to live in the American West, and have visited most of the western parks. When I go there I don't even take a camera and I've often asked why. In answering I simply point to a book. In the past this has usually been an Ansel Adams. In the future it's going to be this one. My own picture taking ability is so pathetic when compared to these that I have to say 'why bother.'

In the past I've found the black and white photographs from Adams and others to be better than color. With this book, that has changed. The pictures here are in color, but color with a richness that has to be seen to be believed. I can't imagine what M. bourseiller has done to get such rich reds, such subtle greens, and restful blues. I can only imagine the time he must have spent looking for the right spot, waiting for the sun to be just so, even for the moon to appear just under that arch. The printing quality has likewise matched the photographic quality. It has changed my view completely.

This new book consists of relatively recent photographs of some 53 National Parks. I've been to most of them, and this book is a better way to remember them than any picture I could possibly have taken. It's simply magnificant.