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A Place of My Own: The Education of an Amateur Builderby Michael Pollan |
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"A room of one's own: is there anybody who hasn't at one time or another wished for such a place, hasn't turned those soft words over until they'd assumed a habitable shape?"
When writer Michael Pollan decided to plant a garden, the result was an award-winning treatise on the borders between nature and contemporary life, the acclaimed bestseller Second Nature. Now Pollan turns his sharp insight to the craft of building, as he recounts the process of designing and constructing a small one-room structure on his rural Connecticut property--a place in which he hoped to read, write and daydream, built with his two own unhandy hands.
Invoking the titans of architecture, literature and philosophy, from Vitrivius to Thoreau, from the Chinese masters of feng shui to the revolutionary Frank Lloyd Wright, Pollan brilliantly chronicles a realm of blueprints, joints and trusses as he peers into the ephemeral nature of "houseness" itself. From the spark of an idea to the search for a perfect site to the raising of a ridgepole, Pollan revels in the infinitely detailed, complex process of creating a finished structure. At once superbly written, informative and enormously entertaining, A Place of My Own is for anyone who has ever wondered how the walls around us take shape--and how we might shape them ourselves.
A Place of My Own recounts his two-and-a-half-year journey of discovery in an absorbing narrative that deftly weaves the day-to-day work of design and building--from siting to blueprint, from the pouring of foundations to finish carpentry--with reflections on everything form the power of place to shape our lives to the question of what constitutes "real work" in a technological society.
A book about craft that is itself beautifully crafted, linking the world of the body and material things with the realm of mind, heart, and spirit, A Place of My Own has received extraordinary praise: -->
From Amazon.com Review:
Michael Pollan's A Place of My Own might be suspiciously viewed by some readers as a text begging for interpretation. What is it that causes this man at midlife to attempt to put up a structure, an actual wood and concrete dwelling, where he can work on his own craft away from his domestic life? Arguably, Pollan's intentions are more transparent than a too clever postmodern audience can easily appreciate. The author of this fine, well-crafted book offers an explanation that seems honest and understandable: "Whenever I heard myself described as an 'information service worker' or a 'symbolic analyst,' I wanted to reach for a hammer, or a hoe, and with it make something less virtual than a sentence."
In Pollan's bestselling book Second Nature: A Gardener's Education, he illustrated his facility with both hoe and pen. In A Place of My Own he hefts the hammer and again records with great intelligence how thoroughly thought and reflection can be woven into our common lives and the patterns of a day's work. His book's subtitle, "An Education of an Amateur Builder," captures much of what this book contains: the lessons learned by a diligent student of architecture, design, and construction. The writing contains no gaps or unsightly seams, and it's full of clues to readers who share a similar desire to build something tangible in a world that prizes the evanescent.
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Nothing to see -  |
A Place of My Own: The Education of an Amateur Builder Review |
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If you want to see some photos of the author's place so as to get an idea of what he is talking about, don't look in here. There are no pictures in this book which makes it mostly useless. |
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A Place of My Own -  |
A Place of My Own: The Education of an Amateur Builder Review |
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Wonderful, wonderful book. I am inspired to find some land and build my own little haven... I guess that makes this the most expensive book I've ever bought. |
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A Place of One's Own! - |
A Place of My Own: The Education of an Amateur Builder Review |
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I love this book because Michael allowed me to feel I could build a place of my own, and because I experienced the process so thoroughly and vicariously through him, I probably won't. I loved reading of the balancing of reality and desire, of architect, builder, and setting. I am amazed at what Michael is able to do, and I savor and share his rightful pride in being able to do so. I appreciate my own home more and view other structures with more curiosity as a result of reading this book. Michael entertains, and makes the process of home-building accessible to any one of us. I sit and look at the cover, wanting a little home of my own, and, as I say, I feel satisfied with what he has built, and the creation of my own little nest within a home that is already mine. And if I change my mind, he is here as guide. |
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Not a how to book. Think "architectural philosophy". -  |
A Place of My Own: The Education of an Amateur Builder Review |
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First, I enjoyed reading this book. I'm a carpenter turned cabinetmaker that aspires to build spec homes per my own designs, from bottom to top. Given my existing interest in the field, I most enjoyed his discussion of the various architectural movements and the philosophies thereof. It provides a broad overview of different theories of design and how they result in pleasing (or not so pleasing) structures.
However, he definitely goes overboard - especially with the obnoxious use of esoteric vocabulary. Synecdoche? I'm pretty well read and I don't think I've ever even seen that word written before. It goes on and on like that, and it's unfortunate because it really distracts you from what's otherwise a pretty interesting read. He also seems to slip into a bit of stream of consciousness about the theory behind some detail of construction or another (like muntins). Be prepared. It was also tiring to read about the conflict between the architect and the builder. If it was indeed as tense as he claims, then he's probably in large part to blame, getting wrapped up in the drama (which I believe he does). Overall I gave it a 3, because it definitely provided a lot of good information. But I was dragging by the end, and it really felt like once he hit his quota of pages he just stopped. He takes you all the way through the process of construction, but doesn't tell you how it ends. How's the building feel? What worked and what didn't? Is it great in the spring with the windows open, or is it too buggy? Freezing in the winter? By dropping 30 pages of theory and putting in an equal amount of reality it would have made this book a real winner. |
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I Like Michael Pollan, But ... - |
A Place of My Own: The Education of an Amateur Builder Review |
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... this book is much too wordy and self-consciously "word-crafted." A Place of My Own: 3 stars.
I have loved his other books: The Botany of Desire in particular. He is an excellent writer and great to listen to in a radio interview. However, this book, it seems to me, was written for his former colleagues in the "word industry" as a proof that he can write more intricately structured sentences, more erudite vocabulary, more commas generally THAN YOU CAN!! I began reading the book with great hopes, and I hate to rate any of his books less than a 5; but I immediately bogged down. It has overly complicated, assertively complicated, prose. It has an immensity of nested clauses delimited by a blizzard of commas. I started looking for a sentence without a comma. I couldn't find one for at least a page and a half. Immensely long, self-consciously crafted sentences. Nothing is just a thing: It's possibly the strangest, most meaningful thing, except that his wife, when in the kitchen, though not generally not on Tuesdays, used to enunciate, with a wry expression on her lips -- a rather inappropriate expression I thought, that it was the opposite of the physical object, in spite of Plato and Aristotle, because her cabalistic, pernicious, atavism. (You get the style?) I think he was trying impress himself that his life, decision to write full time and his little studio were worthwhile. To me, it's navel-gazing at its worst. If you like the kind of sentence I parodied above (though trust me, it's not that much of a parody) you will like this book. Otherwise, not. As noted, I like Michael Pollan. I could not read this. Thank goodness for his more recent books. [edited for spelling and grammar 28FEB08] |
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