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LifestylesCrafts, Hobbies & Home

My home, sweet home: designing and decorating your living space

Review by bookpagedev

Daydreaming may seem a little self-indulgent in these difficult times, but curling up with a glossy book on a dreary November day may be just the catalyst you need to re-envision and revitalize your home. Without these dreams, and the designing and redecorating that follow, American homes would not be what they are: welcoming, comfortable places, full of the fragrance of good food cooking on the stove mingled with the sound of healthy debate in the air. Homes where antiques and air mattresses somehow go together.

American homes have become eclectic combinations of functionality, beauty, whimsy, technology and tradition. The season’s best home decorating books discuss planning and designing interior spaces, but they also capture that indomitable, contagious American spirit that is reflected in our individual dwellings our own sweet homes.

Mary Carol Garrity, author of Nell Hill’s Style at Home, is an example of American vivacity and success in her own right. Garrity followed her dream and defied the odds; she transformed an old bank building in the small Midwestern town of Atchison, Kansas, into one of the hottest home furnishing stores in the nation. Customers now come from miles away to feast their eyes on the ever-changing displays of unique and fascinating furniture and home-decorating accessories arranged with Garrity’s special flair for creating style and atmosphere. She shares her design secrets and decorating tips in this warmly illustrated book full of inspirational ideas for invigorating and enhancing your own home’s interior. She encourages her readers to try mix-and-match techniques and to use items they already own in new and creative ways. "Consider an object’s intended purpose," she suggests, "then challenge yourself to dream up other, totally unconnected treatments." She concludes with a room-by-room portfolio of practical suggestions, her list of "must haves" for creative decorating, and seven "rules" she breaks with aplomb, assuring readers they may "happily ignore" them, too, with similar success. If you feel you need a better understanding of the basic rules of design before you start breaking them, however, Better Homes and Garden’s Decorating Basics: Styles, Colors, Furnishings is a wonderful resource. It’s a user-friendly guide to understanding your own tastes and preferences and incorporating them into your home’s dŽcor. It offers a wealth of sage advice, and like Mary Carol Garrity’s book, showcases a philosophy of home decorating that embraces personal taste and one’s cherished belongings. "The joy as well as the challenge of early 21st century decorating is to learn how to pair elements harmoniously and gracefully. It’s about working with and enjoying your favorite colors, furnishings, collections, and art." Resplendent photos take you on sundry home tours in styles ranging from Ô50s Funk to Country French to Colorful Contemporary. This is a fun book, full of handy tips for the first-time homeowner or beginning decorator.

For the more serious student of design, Mary Gilliatt’s Interior Design Course is a handsome volume with in-depth chapters on specific room elements: walls and ceilings, floors, windows, furniture and finishing touches. Techniques for achieving a multitude of effects are explained in detail, terms are defined, and illustrative, inspiring photos complement the text. The pictures are as sumptuous as they are educational, and plenty of practical advice is sprinkled throughout as well: "A corridor will look less long and narrow if the end wall is painted or covered in a warm color." A renowned British designer, Gilliatt even delves into the play of light in a room, the chronology of style periods and an overview of period furniture on both sides of the Atlantic, making this a comprehensive as well as comely addition to any home library or coffee table. If your house is going to the dogs, and you need more than an innovative paint scheme to solve your decorating dilemmas don’t growl try Animal House Style: Designing a Home to Share with Your Pets by Julia Szabo. This book offers the latest in living with canines, cats and other creatures great and small. Animal lovers will appreciate this light-hearted book devoted to helping humans design pet-friendly accommodations for their co-habitant critters. From choosing appropriate flooring and fabrics to protect your home, to practical safety tips to protect your pet, this book demonstrates how living with animals doesn’t mean giving up style, beauty or your own creature comforts. It’s also packed with plenty of indoor shots, but of course, in these photographs, the dŽcor takes a back seat to the beguiling animals who innocently steal the show.

Aside from all the living, loving and pet-pampering we Americans do in our domiciles, an increasing number of us also accomplish some sort of additional work there. Whether a full-fledged home office is your need, or some space for your lucrative hobby is required, At Work at Home: Design Ideas for Your Home Workplace by Neal Zimmerman takes the home workplace to new heights. (Literally included are "elevated" work spaces like attics, lofts and tree houses, along with plenty of conventional room conversions, additions and renovations.) Again, the photos are divine, and whether you crave a state-of-the-art music studio, erudite writer’s retreat, cozy, out-of-the-way alcove for your computer or a complete home office, if these appealing work spaces don’t motivate you to action, they will certainly allow you to daydream in splendor.

Linda Stankard’s home, sweet home is in Cookeville, Tennessee.

Daydreaming may seem a little self-indulgent in these difficult times, but curling up with a glossy book on a dreary November day may be just the catalyst you need to re-envision and revitalize your home. Without these dreams, and the designing and redecorating that…

LifestylesCrafts, Hobbies & Home

My home, sweet home: designing and decorating your living space

Review by bookpagedev

Daydreaming may seem a little self-indulgent in these difficult times, but curling up with a glossy book on a dreary November day may be just the catalyst you need to re-envision and revitalize your home. Without these dreams, and the designing and redecorating that follow, American homes would not be what they are: welcoming, comfortable places, full of the fragrance of good food cooking on the stove mingled with the sound of healthy debate in the air. Homes where antiques and air mattresses somehow go together.

American homes have become eclectic combinations of functionality, beauty, whimsy, technology and tradition. The season’s best home decorating books discuss planning and designing interior spaces, but they also capture that indomitable, contagious American spirit that is reflected in our individual dwellings our own sweet homes.

Mary Carol Garrity, author of Nell Hill’s Style at Home, is an example of American vivacity and success in her own right. Garrity followed her dream and defied the odds; she transformed an old bank building in the small Midwestern town of Atchison, Kansas, into one of the hottest home furnishing stores in the nation. Customers now come from miles away to feast their eyes on the ever-changing displays of unique and fascinating furniture and home-decorating accessories arranged with Garrity’s special flair for creating style and atmosphere. She shares her design secrets and decorating tips in this warmly illustrated book full of inspirational ideas for invigorating and enhancing your own home’s interior. She encourages her readers to try mix-and-match techniques and to use items they already own in new and creative ways. "Consider an object’s intended purpose," she suggests, "then challenge yourself to dream up other, totally unconnected treatments." She concludes with a room-by-room portfolio of practical suggestions, her list of "must haves" for creative decorating, and seven "rules" she breaks with aplomb, assuring readers they may "happily ignore" them, too, with similar success. If you feel you need a better understanding of the basic rules of design before you start breaking them, however, Better Homes and Garden’s Decorating Basics: Styles, Colors, Furnishings is a wonderful resource. It’s a user-friendly guide to understanding your own tastes and preferences and incorporating them into your home’s dŽcor. It offers a wealth of sage advice, and like Mary Carol Garrity’s book, showcases a philosophy of home decorating that embraces personal taste and one’s cherished belongings. "The joy as well as the challenge of early 21st century decorating is to learn how to pair elements harmoniously and gracefully. It’s about working with and enjoying your favorite colors, furnishings, collections, and art." Resplendent photos take you on sundry home tours in styles ranging from Ô50s Funk to Country French to Colorful Contemporary. This is a fun book, full of handy tips for the first-time homeowner or beginning decorator.

For the more serious student of design, Mary Gilliatt’s Interior Design Course is a handsome volume with in-depth chapters on specific room elements: walls and ceilings, floors, windows, furniture and finishing touches. Techniques for achieving a multitude of effects are explained in detail, terms are defined, and illustrative, inspiring photos complement the text. The pictures are as sumptuous as they are educational, and plenty of practical advice is sprinkled throughout as well: "A corridor will look less long and narrow if the end wall is painted or covered in a warm color." A renowned British designer, Gilliatt even delves into the play of light in a room, the chronology of style periods and an overview of period furniture on both sides of the Atlantic, making this a comprehensive as well as comely addition to any home library or coffee table. If your house is going to the dogs, and you need more than an innovative paint scheme to solve your decorating dilemmas don’t growl try Animal House Style: Designing a Home to Share with Your Pets by Julia Szabo. This book offers the latest in living with canines, cats and other creatures great and small. Animal lovers will appreciate this light-hearted book devoted to helping humans design pet-friendly accommodations for their co-habitant critters. From choosing appropriate flooring and fabrics to protect your home, to practical safety tips to protect your pet, this book demonstrates how living with animals doesn’t mean giving up style, beauty or your own creature comforts. It’s also packed with plenty of indoor shots, but of course, in these photographs, the dŽcor takes a back seat to the beguiling animals who innocently steal the show.

Aside from all the living, loving and pet-pampering we Americans do in our domiciles, an increasing number of us also accomplish some sort of additional work there. Whether a full-fledged home office is your need, or some space for your lucrative hobby is required, At Work at Home: Design Ideas for Your Home Workplace by Neal Zimmerman takes the home workplace to new heights. (Literally included are "elevated" work spaces like attics, lofts and tree houses, along with plenty of conventional room conversions, additions and renovations.) Again, the photos are divine, and whether you crave a state-of-the-art music studio, erudite writer’s retreat, cozy, out-of-the-way alcove for your computer or a complete home office, if these appealing work spaces don’t motivate you to action, they will certainly allow you to daydream in splendor.

Linda Stankard’s home, sweet home is in Cookeville, Tennessee.

Daydreaming may seem a little self-indulgent in these difficult times, but curling up with a glossy book on a dreary November day may be just the catalyst you need to re-envision and revitalize your home. Without these dreams, and the designing and redecorating that…

NonfictionCrafts, Hobbies & Home

Kid-friendly video choices

Review by bookpagedev

If the chorus I love you, You love me makes you cringe, or if you’re a new mom dying for a few minutes of peace, you can finally let the TV do the babysitting with these guilt-free videos. Kids First!, a nonprofit arm of the Coalition for Quality Children’s Media, has updated the easy-to-use A Parent’s Guide to the Best Children’s Videos, DVDs & CD-ROMS with a second edition that includes more than 1,800 kid-tested and adult-approved titles. A panel of jurors 3,000 children from diverse backgrounds and 300 child development specialists watched thousands of videos to come up with a selection of kid-friendly entertainment free of violence, negative stereotypes and sex. Broken down by age group and category, the video encyclopedia presents a vast resource for popular favorites like Teletubbies, Blue’s Clues and Dr. Seuss, along with tons of educational flicks like Yoga for Kids and Fraction Attraction. Whether your child is an infant or a teenager, you can banish Barney and pick quality videos the whole family can watch together.

If the chorus I love you, You love me makes you cringe, or if you're a new mom dying for a few minutes of peace, you can finally let the TV do the babysitting with these guilt-free videos. Kids First!, a nonprofit arm of the…

NonfictionCrafts, Hobbies & Home

Dictionaries: words for the wise

Review by bookpagedev

One sure way to give your child a head start on a successful school year is to stock your home bookshelves with up-to-date, reliable reference material. Whether your student is tackling a spelling test, a term paper or a creative writing assignment, an excellent dictionary is an indispensable tool.

The most popular choice is the college dictionary, aimed at students (from high school to graduate level), but also widely used in the home and office. This year, the college dictionary market includes a new competitor: the Microsoft Encarta College Dictionary, released in July. Billed as “the first dictionary for the Internet age,” the Encarta dictionary is also the biggest in its category, with more than 320,000 entries. A previous dictionary created by the same team, the Encarta World English Dictionary, provoked an uproar when it was published in 1999 with the stated goal of capturing the English language as it is spoken all over the world. The new Encarta College Dictionary takes a more traditional approach, sticking with American English, and using the opinions of American college professors on questions of usage. The new volume includes several helpful features, such as Spellcheck (common spelling errors), Quick Facts, Correct Usage and Literary Links, which are interspersed with the definitions. In tackling the college dictionary market, the Encarta entry faces competition from four long-time favorites that dominate the category. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 10th edition is the best-selling dictionary in America, known for its clarity and reliability. Noah Webster wrote the first American dictionary in 1806, and the Merriam brothers later bought the rights to his work. Merriam-Webster is thus the true heir to Noah Webster’s achievement, but the name Webster, having become synonymous with dictionary, has entered the public domain and is freely used in many titles. Take for example, Webster’s New World College Dictionary, fourth edition. No Webster was involved in compiling this volume, but it has become an authoritative source for journalists and writers, as well as students. Many organizations, including the Associated Press and The New York Times, use Webster’s New World College Dictionary as their official standard on matters of spelling and usage.

Two other top college dictionaries to consider for your budding scholar are Random House Webster’s College Dictionary, 2001 edition and American Heritage College Dictionary, third edition. Random House updates its college dictionary each year, and the 2001 edition includes more than 100 new words everything from DSL (digital subscriber line) to hottie (a sexually attractive person). The American Heritage College Dictionary includes interesting asides on word histories and regional usage, as well as an attractive design with numerous illustrations and maps.

One sure way to give your child a head start on a successful school year is to stock your home bookshelves with up-to-date, reliable reference material. Whether your student is tackling a spelling test, a term paper or a creative writing assignment, an excellent dictionary…
LifestylesCrafts, Hobbies & Home

Living off the grid teaches valuable lessons

Review by Heather Seggel

William Powers spent a decade doing international aid work in Latin America and Africa among people who live at the very edge of subsistence. When he came back to the U.S. he was depressed and overwhelmed by the disposable excesses of American culture, and uncertain how to adapt. In the midst of this crisis he heard about a physician, Dr. Jackie Benton, who took herself off the grid, moving into a 12-foot-by-12-foot cabin in rural North Carolina and giving up electricity, running water and all but $11,000 of her six-figure salary. Intrigued by this voluntary austerity, Powers finagles an invitation to the property, then an offer to stay there solo through the springtime while Dr. Benton is traveling.

The 12 x 12 itself is a fascinating space, situated in the midst of the doctor’s permaculture garden near the shore of No Name Creek. With its raincatchers, composting toilet, sleep loft and little shelf of books, it’s an eco-fantasy come true. There are other people living off the land on nearby parcels, and their stories overlap as Powers finds his way around. From the homeschooling family who escaped a drug-laden trailer park to try their hand at organic farming to an undocumented Latino furniture maker, cultures rub up against one another, sometimes uncomfortably, among these people who want to “get away from it all,” but each for different reasons.

Twelve by Twelve is a fascinating look at a subculture making positive changes in the world, but the book is not without faults. The decision to organize it in two sections of 12 chapters each feels gimmicky and adds little to the reader’s experience. Powers also changed facts about Dr. Benton’s identity to protect her privacy, but it’s unclear how much of the information about her neighbors has been altered, which becomes worrisome when they occasionally hew to stereotype. Hardest of all, Powers refers endlessly to the 12 x 12, and what it taught him to “live 12 x 12,” and what “Jackie’s wisdom” imparted to him, but he doesn’t give us enough firsthand access to those insights to be able to judge them for ourselves. His lectures feel a little disingenuous when he’s biking into town for lattes or shopping at the expensive co-op. Still, for those unfamiliar with the permaculture lifestyle, this is a lovely introduction to its philosophies and principles, and a hopeful story as well.

Heather Seggel reads and writes in Ukiah, California.

 

William Powers spent a decade doing international aid work in Latin America and Africa among people who live at the very edge of subsistence. When he came back to the U.S. he was depressed and overwhelmed by the disposable excesses of American culture, and uncertain…

LifestylesFashionCrafts, Hobbies & Home

Living pretty

Review by MiChelle Jones

What's in your wardrobe?

Valentino: Themes and Variations begins with a series of photos documenting the couturier's final collection, from seamstresses hovered over a single garment to the finale of evening gowns in his signature poppy red. Next comes Valentino's exquisite creations shown on silver gray mannequins and interspersed with sketches and contemporary photos. Arranged thematically rather than chronologically, the pieces offer a sartorial snapshot of the decades: a 1972 pink gingham shantung maxi skirt, Julia Roberts' 1992 Oscar gown with cascading train of black tulle and white ribbons. The final chapter shows 40 years of magazine campaigns.

Long before Valentino presented his first collection in 1959 (before he was born, in fact), Edward Steichen was reinventing the fashion shoot. The portraits of models and celebrities in William A. Ewing and Todd Brandow's Edward Steichen: In High Fashion – The Cond

One of Steichen's breakthroughs was elevating the commercial to art, as he did with shoes in the 1920s. Caroline Cox's Vintage Shoes: Collecting and Wearing Twentieth-Century Designer Footwear suggests he had fabulous material to work with. Cox steps through the rest of the century, discussing major styles, influential designers and all sorts of trivia—from the origins of terms like "spectators" and "flappers" to the influence of the Charleston, tango and other dances on footwear. The many accompanying images are easier on the eyes than the small, sans serif typeface, so don't feel bad about skipping ahead to ogle the striking pumps and slings; ballet slippers and mules; Louis, Cuban and stiletto heels; go – go and kinky boots; platforms and wedges. Oh my.

Living like Ed

Anyone who's seen Ed Begley Jr.'s quirky reality show knows that living green isn't always pretty or comfortable—but it can be, according to Dreaming Green: Eco-Fabulous Homes Designed to Inspire. Along with gorgeous photo spreads of each dwelling, there's a list of its green features, which can include gray water systems, recycled and natural fabrics, lots of energy-efficient windows, even a pneumatic elevator. While the eco – friendly route was the logical choice for homeowners like Dwell's marketing director or an environmental lawyer wed to a biostatistician, others were inspired by health concerns or memories of the energy crisis of the late 1970s. The resulting homes range from the Manhattan brownstone of co-authors Lisa Sharkey and Paul Gleicher; a Venice Beach house in mirrored glass (featured on HGTV's "Extreme Living" this fall); and a Seattle house with regionally appropriate dining chairs made of metal recycled from a Boeing jet.

The focus in Domino: The Book of Decorating is more on achieving a comfortable, personalized style rather than an eco-friendly one. Packed with great photos, this delightful book devotes a chapter to every room in the house, including foyers and bathrooms—one of the best re-dos takes a loo from deal-breaker to simple, practical, beautiful—and kids' rooms. A charming drawing leads each chapter, followed by a description of the room's key item (sofa, table, bed); "steal this room" and mix-and-match suggestions, as well as ideas for small spaces. Finally a "Domino effect" spread charts the development of a feature room by showing the various elements—furniture, clipped magazine pages, swatch, memory of a store or room—that inspired the design. The book references websites and comes with a free subscription to the popular magazine.

What's in your wardrobe?

Valentino: Themes and Variations begins with a series of photos documenting the couturier's final collection, from seamstresses hovered over a single garment to the finale of evening gowns in his signature poppy red. Next comes Valentino's exquisite creations shown on silver…

LifestylesEnvironmentCrafts, Hobbies & Home

Green like me

Review by Deanna Larson

Quirky actor and environmentalist Ed Begley Jr. ("Living with Ed") was riding his bike to the Vanity Fair Oscar party long before green was cool. In Living Like Ed: A Guide to the Eco-Friendly Life Begley outlines his frugal but fun earth-hugging approach to living "simply so others could simply live." Just six compact sections – home, transportation, recycling, energy, garden and kitchen, and personal care – contain his simple to saintly changes for carbon-happy neophytes, from vegan shoes, solar cooking and recycled countertops, to solar heaters, electric bikes and "Ed's Transportation Hierachy." Each section features cost comparisons and amusing "real life" commentary by his Pilates-toned wife Rachelle. A guy with a wind turbine mounted on his roof has his share of granola-head friends, and sidebars about their innovative green products prove fascinating, if not consummate salesmanship to a captive audience. Sure, earnest Ed racks up a few carbon miles on studious arguments like what constitutes a true zero-emission vehicle, but he's so self-effacing and down-to-earth on a topic dominated by self-righteousness that it's hard to resent his halo.

Eco-conversion

Doug Fine (Not Really an Alaskan Mountain Man) may have been "raised on Gilligan and Quarter Pounders" but he demonstrates amazing resourcefulness trading his comfortable Thai-takeout-and-Netflix lifestyle to become an off-the-grid ranching goatherd in Farewell, My Subaru: An Epic Adventure in Local Living. Fine traveled from Burma to Tajikistan as an environmental writer and NPR correspondent, but finally settled down after buying the Funky Butte Ranch in southern New Mexico. He decides to eat locally, use less oil and power his life with renewable energy, but the following months test Fine's humorous resolve to "prove that green Digital Age living was possible." He survives drought, biblical floods and crackpot UN-hating neighbors as he gradually becomes "solarized" and converts a gas-guzzling monster truck into a vehicle that belches the disconcerting aroma of Kung Pao chicken. Along the way, readers will root for this dry sharp wit and his rosy green dream. Will his tiny "herd" of two rambunctious goats purchased on Craigslist turn Fine into the Mimbres Valley's ice cream man? Will this new singleton finally find love and satisfaction while raising organic rainbow chard and reducing his carbon footprint? Fine's funny struggle to become a better world citizen will entertain both the eco-aware, and those who doze peacefully in their home's formaldehyde fumes.

Green is the new black

Hemp shoes and a hair shirt? Mais non, says Christie Matheson in Green Chic: Saving the Earth in Style. Rejecting a recycled tire home for the pashmina mantle of ultra-hip BFF of Mother Earth, Matheson's recommendations for the elegant yet earth-friendly good life include beeswax candles, linen napkins, a cashmere sweater, lobster on the Maine coast and sleeping on organic cotton sheets at boutique hotels plus other wine and food, beauty, fashion, travel and party ideas. While the slightly snobby tone ("I don't mean tacky spider plants but nice ones. . . only drink coffee that is shade-grown, Fair Trade certified and organic. . .") targets the young and beautiful crowd too sexy to muss their fingernails planting trees, the book is useful for anyone scared to give up their luxuries while saving the planet.

Here's what you do

Lithe goddess Renee Loux (Living Cuisine, "It's Easy Being Green") radiates "personal and planetary health" in Easy Green Living: The Ultimate Guide to Simple, Eco-Friendly Choices for You and Your Home. Elevating the green conversation with serious science, Loux uncovers eco-disasters lurking throughout the home, from nonstick cookware and aluminum baking sheets to foam pillows, paint, dandruff shampoos and plastic sippy cups. Her illustrated tome features plenty of footnotes and charts about hazardous chemicals to bolster the argument but also provides hundreds of nontoxic, earth-friendly options for every room of the house, plus "Green Thumb Guides" to buying healthful cleaning, personal products and cosmetics, as well as recipes for homemade biodegradable cleaning solutions. Certain tips (baking soda not bleach cleanser, vinegar for dirty kettles) are common as mud, but other facts (bleached filters give coffee lovers a mouthful of dioxins with their daily java) make readers grateful Loux became a green detective.

Make a few simple changes without moving next door to Al Gore with "lists" for green living such as 365 Ways to Live Green: Your Everyday Guide to Saving theEnvironment. This small guide covers day-to-day ideas that make a difference while one is eating meals, maintaining home and garden, raising kids and pets, traveling to work or celebrating.

Organizations are resource guzzlers, so the illustrated True Green @ Work: 100 Ways You Can Make the Environment Your Business is a DIY manual for workers wanting to reduce their company's carbon footprint. The brief guide suggests simple tips (refillable pens and washable mugs) and more complicated and worthy efforts (industry advocacy and telecommuting) along with a smidgen of the truly nutty, like cultivating a worm farm on the break room countertop and requesting that a high-rise office building turn off the lights when the last worker leaves.

Planet in peril

Right now, half of the world's population is thirsty because they can't find clean water to drink. Blue Planet Run: The Race to Provide Safe Drinking Water to the World is the latest large-scale project by former Time and National Geographic photographer Rick Smolan and Jennifer Erwitt (Day in the Life, America 24/7). The "carbon neutral" oversized coffee-table book (with a foreword by Robert Redford) documents Blue Planet Run, a nonstop, around-the-world relay race held in 2007 to bring attention to the global water crisis (all book royalties will fund safe drinking water projects). It's also a thought-provoking visual tour of these global water issues by the world's top photojournalists, from the immense social impact of China's Three Gorges Dam to residents of a New Delhi slum fighting over the hose from a government water tanker truck and portraits of land purchased by oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens so the water underneath it could be sold to gasping Texas towns.

Entrepreneurial spirit and free-market forces are the answer to problems plaguing the planet, according to Earth: The Sequel: The Race to Reinvent Energy and Stop Global Warming. Aiming to "harness the great forces of capitalism to save the world from catastrophe," Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund, and writer Miriam Horn profile green energy innovators and investors in the "world's biggest business." They include Soviet ∧#233;migr∧#233; Alla Weinstein, who worked with the Makah tribe of the Pacific Northwest to harness ocean power, and Herculano Porto who helped halt the dangerous charge on the "Amazonian frontier" by changing the way people could profit from clearing rain forests. Reading like the best creative nonfiction, Earth: The Sequel makes a fascinating case for this "emerging new energy economy."

Quirky actor and environmentalist Ed Begley Jr. ("Living with Ed") was riding his bike to the Vanity Fair Oscar party long before green was cool. In Living Like Ed: A Guide to the Eco-Friendly Life Begley outlines his frugal but fun earth-hugging approach to living…

LifestylesCrafts, Hobbies & Home

Fresh spring plantings to spruce up your garden

Review by Kelly Seaman

Learn to Garden: A Practical Introduction to Gardening opens with a pair of chapters titled "The Garden You Want" and "The Garden You've Got," and can equip the new gardener with the skills needed to transform the one into the other. There are answers to questions a novice might be terribly curious about but afraid to ask: Why in the world is she tipping that nursery plant upside down to look at what's inside the pot? Why did he pick this plant instead of that one? How do I plant this tree now that I've brought it home? The book's how-to photo spreads are particularly welcome. Pruning, for example, is often a daunting business even for gardeners with experience. I like the way a series about thinning an overgrown shrub shows a newly vigorous plant in the final "after" shot; it's reassuring to see that it all can come out well in the end. Although revised for North America, Learn to Garden retains its native British accent. Think of it as putting a U.K.-trained expert at the reader's disposal.

PLAN ON IT
Sunset's Big Book of Garden Designs by Marianne Lipanovich offers a fine mix of show and tell. Photographs, watercolor-style illustrations and color-coded planting maps work together with compact commentaries on the designs and annotations to the garden plans. Those notes include plot measurements, plant names and the number of each variety required – all the information you'd need to recreate a design just as the book presents it. But you don't have to stop there. The designs are also well suited to be a springboard for your own reinterpretations of them. That adaptability makes the Big Book of Garden Designs useful for both the newcomer in search of straightforward guidance and the experienced plantsman or plantswoman able to ring the changes on a design.

LOOK AT THIS!
There are few quicker ways to make garden writers cranky than to heap praises on the lovely illustrations that accompany a piece they've written, especially if they didn't even have a hand in composing the captions. With Stafford Cliff's 1000 Garden Ideas: The Best of Everything in a Visual Sourcebook, though, we probably needn't worry about upsetting the author and book designer by privileging the pictures. The hundreds of photographs here, which depict multiple versions of almost any garden element you could imagine, were taken in gardens around the world, nearly all of them by the designer's own camera. That gives the project a remarkable coherence; in spite of its size, this collection couldn't be farther from the jumble of images you might find searching online for ideas for your garden. It's a visual education merely to think through one of Cliff's layouts – added value to a fabulous wish book. I dare you to look a page and not point and say, "That one, please."

REVOLUTIONARY COMPOST
If you think compost is what happens in that pile around the back, Barbara Pleasant and Deborah Martin would like you to reconsider. They're out to encourage you to blend "gardening" and "composting" so thoroughly that the distinction between the two vanishes. The Complete Compost Gardening Guide glories in the details – where to get good sawdust and coffee grounds, the pluses and minuses of a whole range of animal manures, what plants grow best in what sorts of compost – as it provides countless tips for making and using compost in dozens of different ways. Even if you don't sign up for the whole composting lifestyle, there's enough good information here for any gardener to extract a crop of wisdom.

Kelly Seaman will soon be searching for signs of spring in her New Hampshire garden.

Learn to Garden: A Practical Introduction to Gardening opens with a pair of chapters titled "The Garden You Want" and "The Garden You've Got," and can equip the new gardener with the skills needed to transform the one into the other. There are answers to…

LifestylesCrafts, Hobbies & Home

‘Garden’ is a verb

Review by Kelly Seaman

Gordon and Mary Hayward have one of those gardens, the sort you marvel at and wonder how in the world. Their answer, in its simplest form: time and effort. But that's just the point: Maintenance, they begin, is gardening. That spirit fills Tending Your Garden: A Year-Round Guide to Garden Maintenance. Photo essays put you right there with the Haywards and their assistants, documenting step-by-step how to keep a beautiful garden. The book is packed full of professional techniques, the sort of traditional skills handed down from gardener to gardener. To-do lists from their Vermont garden are keyed to seasons (early spring, late fall) as well as to specific months, for ease in adjusting the calendar to your part of the world. Spending time with this book might be the next best thing to digging in alongside the masters themselves.

Gordon and Mary Hayward have one of those gardens, the sort you marvel at and wonder how in the world. Their answer, in its simplest form: time and effort. But that's just the point: Maintenance, they begin, is gardening. That spirit fills Tending Your…

NonfictionCrafts, Hobbies & Home

Look it up: books with all the answers

Review by Trisha Ping

Not all questions can be put to rest with a Google search. While Internet advances have led many reference publishers to put parts of their guides on the web, there's a certainty to looking something up in a nice, heavy book the answer just seems to have more weight. This fall brings important updates to some of the reference industry's biggest contenders.

A matter of style

The University of Chicago Press has just released a new edition of The Chicago Manual of Style, the book that sets style guidelines for writers across America. For the first time, the editors of the manual consulted a panel of advisors, including editors at other university presses, launching detailed debates over even the most minute formatting questions. The result is the most extensive revision of the Chicago Manual in 20 years, and only the 15th in the guide's 97-year history. The new edition includes complete information on how to format journals, press releases and electronic publications (previous editions focused mainly on the traditional book), as well as a comprehensive chapter on English grammar. Other shocking developments: the preferred abbreviation for state names is now the two-letter postal code (e.g., AL) instead of the longer traditional abbreviations (e.g., Ala.), and the date format has changed from day-month-year to the much more prevalent month-day-year.

Documentation counts

Joseph Gibaldi and Phyllis Franklin's MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers is a time-tested resource for documenting sources. This year, the publication aimed at high school and college students releases its sixth edition. In addition to the usual updates of citation examples, the new edition offers a chapter on plagiarism, including advice on how to avoid unwittingly committing this offense (a section some of today's top authors may need to consult). There's also expanded information on the ever-changing field of electronic publications and a revised punctuation section.

For dictionary devotees

Those with a thirst for words will drink up Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. This 11th edition of America's best-selling dictionary has been 10 years in the making. Paired with a CD-ROM for easy use while working on a computer, the 11th edition contains 10,000 new entries, including "phat," "Botox," "psyops," "comb-over" and other words culled from our modern vernacular. Need additional proof that this isn't your grandma's dictionary? Each Collegiate Dictionary purchased includes a user code granting a one-year subscription to the online version of the dictionary. The thoughtfully designed site allows users to look up words, bookmark them for future reference and e-mail definitions to friends. It even includes pronunciation for more difficult entries. At last the ease of the Internet combined with the authority of a trusted name in reference.

Not all questions can be put to rest with a Google search. While Internet advances have led many reference publishers to put parts of their guides on the web, there's a certainty to looking something up in a nice, heavy book the answer just seems…

NonfictionCrafts, Hobbies & Home

Kenneth T. Jackson, editor

Interview by Alden Mudge

It’s not often that an encyclopedia is a popular success. “Usually you’ll see encyclopedias in multivolumes and priced for many hundreds of dollars, and clearly the marketing plan is to sell to libraries,” says Kenneth T. Jackson, editor in chief of The Encyclopedia of New York City during a call that catches him in San Francisco as he is heading home from Shanghai, where he has been during sabbatical leave from Columbia University.

But from the day in 1982, when Edward Tripp, the late, great head of Yale University Press, drove down from New Haven to discuss an idea for a book about New York with Jackson, a prominent urban historian with near-encyclopedic knowledge of the history of New York City, the plan was to create a book for the general reader that was both authoritative and quirky. The idea, Jackson recalls, was “to put it all in one volume, make it relatively inexpensive, and see if it would sell.”

The first edition of The Encyclopedia of New York City, published in 1995, has gone through seven printings, sold tens of thousands of copies, and spawned a host of imitators in cities and regions around the country. President Clinton took it along as a gift for his hosts during a trip to China. It was part of the bet between mayors when the New York Giants played the Baltimore Ravens in the Super Bowl. As reference books go, it has been a smash hit.

Another measure of its success are the hundreds and hundreds of letters Jackson has received from readers—New Yorkers and non-New Yorkers alike—offering opinions and suggestions about the book. Some requested factual corrections—“it’s on the northwest corner not the southwest corner.” Some suggested additions. Some excoriated Jackson for omissions. Joe DiMaggio, for instance, is mentioned a number of times in the first edition, but he doesn’t have an entry all his own. What? No entry for the Yankee Clipper? “I was hammered for leaving out Joe D,” says Jackson ruefully.

Well, DiMaggio fans, Yankee fans and New York City fans can rejoice. Joe DiMaggio has his own entry in the extraordinarily appealing new edition of The Encyclopedia of New York City. And so do hundreds of other people, places and events.

“Generally, you had to be dead to be in the first edition,” Jackson says. “Now we have more living people. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, and the Subway Hero [Wesley Autrey, a construction worker who leapt onto the tracks in 2007 to save a 19-year-old NY Film Academy student who had fallen after a seizure], for example. We have several entries on the World Trade Center 9/11 attack. There are a lot of things like the E-ZPass and the MetroCard that didn’t exist when the first edition came out and which are huge issues today. Clearly one of the biggest stories, maybe the biggest story in New York in the last 20 years, has been the spectacular decline in crime. I mean 75 percent. It’s not just a few percent; it’s massive. And that has happened mostly since the first edition appeared.”

The new edition is more than 200 pages longer than the first edition, contains over 5,000 entries and more than 700 luminous photos, maps, charts and illustrations. “Amazingly they [Yale University Press] are holding the price at the same place it was 15 years ago,” Jackson says of the $65 book. “I still don’t know how it’s as inexpensive as it is.”

According to Vadim Staklo, Yale University Press’ in-house editor on the project, Jackson himself played a major role in keeping the price of the new edition down. “Ken Jackson raised a significant amount of money, which for the most part went into editorial development. That’s where the huge cost is. He paid for permissions to use photographs. He paid for the hours that his team of editors devoted to this project. He paid for the compensation to the contributors.”

That may be more inside baseball than even the most avid Joe DiMaggio fan might like, but the hard work of putting together a 1560-page encyclopedia lies in ceaseless attention to detail. Working within a editorial framework he established in the first edition, Jackson orchestrated the work of roughly 60 assistant editors and 800 contributors, many of them prominent scholars and writers who, at 10 cents a word, wrote mostly for love of the project. “You’d have to live on a pretty limited budget to make a living writing for an encyclopedia,” Jackson says wryly.

The editorial team reviewed and revamped most of the entries from the first edition, added hundreds and hundreds of new entries, and removed some outdated entries. “We got rid of entries on things like law firms, which we found people didn’t look up. They changed so fast that people were really using the Internet for that.”

And speaking of the Internet, Jackson says, “The difference between an encyclopedia like this and the Internet is that when people go to the Internet to look something up they only get what they’re looking up. But so much of what you find in this book is serendipity. Say you’re looking up Sandy Kofax and near it is an entry on the Ku Klux Klan. Who thinks of the Ku Klux Klan in New York City? But there it is. There are so many things like that throughout the book, where you look up one thing and your eye falls on another.”

Jackson’s own eyes have fallen on every single word of the new edition, a prodigious accomplishment in and of itself. He has also written numerous entries for the book, drawing on his vast knowledge of the city after years of exploring it and teaching its history. For decades, Jackson has taught a course on the history of New York City that includes field trips by bus and subway to the far reaches of the city and an immensely popular all-night bike ride from Morningside Heights to Brooklyn. The class still usually draws more than 300 students. “The university prides itself on small classes, so it doesn’t really like the fact that it’s so large,” Jackson says. “But it’s a very large class. It’s huge.” Big and popular, much like The Encyclopedia of New York City itself.

“So many people have been through the New York City grinder,” Jackson says. “They come as a young person, they leave or retire and now live in Las Vegas or Florida or Vermont or wherever but they retain that feeling of having lived in New York. They know where the D train goes and the Shuttle. They know all these things and they feel a little piece of New York will always be inside them. That’s why I think this sells well even outside the city.”

After living and working for 42 years in New York, Jackson still retains his Tennessee drawl. But when he is enthusiastic, as he is about The Encyclopedia of New York City, he talks a mile a minute, like any good New Yorker. At the end of conversation, however, Jackson slows down to make a point. “Obviously you can say more or write more specialized books about this city. But there is no other book that does what this one does.”

And that, dear reader, is the unvarnished truth.

It’s not often that an encyclopedia is a popular success. “Usually you’ll see encyclopedias in multivolumes and priced for many hundreds of dollars, and clearly the marketing plan is to sell to libraries,” says Kenneth T. Jackson, editor in chief of The Encyclopedia of New…

LifestylesCrafts, Hobbies & Home

Ty Pennington

Interview by Stephanie Swilley

ÔTrading Spaces’ hunk hammers out a home repair guide Ty Pennington, the handyman heartthrob from the hit television show Trading Spaces, is looking for a little respect. He’s an adorable goofball, one of People magazine’s sexiest bachelors, and he keeps millions of women glued to the tube. But the guy famous for filling out a tool belt wants to do a little redesign on his own image.

“People don’t realize that I’m more of a designer than a carpenter,” he says. “I’m a cross between Martha Stewart and MacGyver, so I’m going to change my name to Stewart MacGyver.” Obviously Ty doesn’t take himself too seriously, and the wacky sensibility in his new book, Ty’s Tricks, was in full force in a recent BookPage interview. Peppering the conversation with “dude” and “awesome!” the Atlanta native with a surfer vocabulary shows an enthusiasm for home repair that’s infectious. In fact, we spent five minutes on the merits of a “killer toilet” from American Standard called the Tower of Power. “This thing is so bad ass,” he says. “I’m telling ya man, it’s incredible.” After reining in Ty’s tangents, we got back to the book he describes as “a home-work handbook for screw-it and do-it-yourselfers” that embraces the “cheap and easy” mantra. The first chapter shows off Ty’s renovation of his own home, a process that cost him a mere $10,000. A real fixer-upper, the design challenge on a shoestring budget brought out Ty’s talents and creativity, and the designer relishes letting readers into his house for a change.

“People will finally get to see me in a different light, not just the carpenter who makes you laugh. It’s more like, wow, this guy has some style and knows what he’s doing.” Even the Trading Spaces cast of designers was impressed with his work, Ty says with satisfaction.

The results are irreverent kitchen lights made out of plungers, a salad bowl sink and a faux bamboo forest but ingenious. Before-and-after shots show the amazing results of the modernized bachelor pad (along with a full page of the sudsy stud in the shower). The self-described “penny-pinching freak” loves “making something for nothing and making it really special. What I do is make crap, craptastic. Let’s be honest.” He describes his furniture style as “modern primitive, which is an oxymoron, which is so much like me. Really modern clean lines but it’s made in a primitive way.” His furniture has an Asian minimalist feel with a touch of Swiss Family Robinson thrown in. “It’s funny, in my brain I think I see things very simply, but I like to be surrounded by chaos at the same time. I’m kind of like the Zen eye in the middle of the hurricane.” Chapter two of the book gets into nitty-gritty plans for eclectic projects, which Ty says was key because “so many people come up to me and say, ÔDude, I hate your guts. My wife loves you. Just kidding. Dude, you gotta come over and build us some furniture.'” That house call isn’t likely to happen considering this carpenter’s busy schedule. Ty just finished taping 10 new Trading Spaces episodes; he also makes and sells incense holders and such on his website (www.

Tythehandyguy.com) and runs a furniture company called FU. Ty’s Tricks fills the gap where the show leaves off.

“You get such a positive reaction and realize that people are actually trying [to build] some of the stuff,” says Ty, but “there’s a lot on [Trading Spaces] that they don’t show. I guess they just find it boring or it gets edited out. And there’s so many tricks that I know.” Building a backyard treehouse as a kid started Ty’s passion for home repair, but he never expected to turn his handyman skills into a career. “It’s just something I’ve always fallen back on,” he says. “I never really meant for [carpentry] to be my long-term career goal.” He studied graphic design for a couple of years but quit to model in Japan. After 10 years of globetrotting, he moved back to Atlanta and started renovating a warehouse with his brother. Exactly one year later the call came for a crazy carpenter for a new TV show, and Ty knew it would be the perfect job. He loves showing off his creative side and at the same time being “my crazy little self.” Ty may be a ham, but he knows his place on the show. “I have to just kind of shut up and build whatever,” he says, while conceding that “if they’re going to do a room that’s completely hideous, by all means, I’m really going to help them out to make sure they never do that again.” Those “what were they thinking?” designs have helped Trading Spaces attract millions of viewers, earn an Emmy nomination and spawn a publishing powerhouse. So which of the show’s designers would Ty let loose in his home? “None of the above, just because I know them all too well. . . . But I guarantee that some would have to stick with yard maintenance.” “Hildi [Santo-Tomas] has definitely got a creative gene in her that’s insane. What’s great is that she knows it’s a TV show, so she pushes the envelope. You can’t keep doing the same room every time, like some designers; you gotta branch out and do some crazy stuff.” Ty may know what makes good TV, but fortunately his book focuses on the practical. “I want everything to be a project that you can put together yourself and you can change depending on your tastes, so that everyone can become part of the creative solution. That’s the only way I stay happy.” Is it just a matter of time before the master of beer budget transformations becomes the star of Trading Spaces II? “Who knows,” Ty says, “maybe I’ll become a designer on a show like that, and instead of $1,000, we’ll do it for $100.”

ÔTrading Spaces' hunk hammers out a home repair guide Ty Pennington, the handyman heartthrob from the hit television show Trading Spaces, is looking for a little respect. He's an adorable goofball, one of People magazine's sexiest bachelors, and he keeps millions of women glued to…
LifestylesCrafts, Hobbies & Home

Grace Bonney: The design revolution is at hand

Interview by Cat, Deputy Editor

It all began in 2004—a writer in Brooklyn created a blog to fill with her design ideas, never expecting it to become an online sensation. Today, Design*Sponge is one of the most popular sources of DIY inspiration.

It was only a matter of time before Grace Bonney, the genius behind D*S, released her first book, Design*Sponge at Home, which, like the blog, is filled with gorgeous photographs and easy instructions. With Bonney’s brilliant uses of space, color and texture, every room has the chance to be a showstopper.

What is your favorite aspect of the blog come to life in the book?
I really love the way we’ve managed to cross-reference so many different homes, skills, styling tips and projects in one book. For me, the best part of a blog is how you can link to so many different pieces of information in one post, so I wanted to find a way to carry that through to the book, and I think we did. I love that you can open the book to a home tour and then flip to different pages to learn how to make something you see in the home, learn more about its history, or see a flower arrangement inspired by the home’s color palette.

What was the biggest challenge in moving from a blog format to a book format?
For me it was most difficult to make the edits. I’m so used to having an infinite amount of room to publish online, so having to narrow things down (and lose some really special pieces that just wouldn’t fit) was a real learning experience for me. But I’m glad I did–in the end it really helped me solidify what Design*Sponge’s style and aesthetic is all about.

How did you choose which projects went into the book?
Just like the site, I chose based purely on my gut. I looked for homes, projects and makeovers that grabbed me and made me smile, want to learn more or inspired the best kind of jealousy. I wanted people to have those same gut level responses every time they turned the page.

I looked for homes, projects and makeovers that grabbed me and made me smile, want to learn more or inspired the best kind of jealousy.

In the book’s foreword, Jonathan Adler calls D*S a revolution. Do you consider your blog and book a part of a revolution?
That was an incredibly kind comment and kicked off a serious bout of blushing and appreciation on my end. I don’t often sit back and look at the work I do at D*S, but I think if I step back for a moment and look at our contribution to the community, I think our team has done something really special. There’s been a huge groundswell of change within the design (and publishing) community in the last 10 years and I’m proud to have played a part in it.

How has Brooklyn shaped D*S?
Brooklyn informs everything I do on a day-to-day basis. It’s the place I call home and the energy that exists here is hard to find elsewhere. People (artists and art-appreciators alike) here are so driven to follow their passion it’s hard not to get caught up in that and really follow your heart. Without that sort of community around me, I’m not sure how hard I would have pushed to do all the projects I have over the past seven years. But when you’re surrounded with so much talent it’s the best sort of inspiration to do your best.

What is the most daunting part of DIY, and what advice can you give inexperienced DIY-ers?
I think DIY projects can seem daunting when you’ve never really thrown yourself in and gotten your hands dirty. But it’s really about pushing past that fear and not being afraid to make mistakes. My advice is to spend as much time as it takes to set up a clean work space, get your supplies in order and prepped and clean as you work. Just like cooking, when your space is clear and your mise en place are right at your fingertips, things flow easily.

What is the one thing every room must have?
Texture. I always feel sad when I walk into a space and everything is cold and smooth. I want to feel some sort of warmth in a space to bring it to life and texture does that in a snap. A quilted throw, a knitted pillow or a great wool rug can really add dimension to a space without spending a ton of money.

If you could move into anyone’s home, who’s would you move into?
I’d move into one of the many Neutra homes in Silverlake (Los Angeles)—anyone’s will do. I love the way he integrated moving exterior walls into each space so the outdoors and indoors blended seamlessly.

What was your best ever yard sale/thrift store find?
Our old TV credenza was a serious online thrift score. It was part of an estate sale on eBay and was originally a $1,000+ piece, but I got it for $200. I sold it when we moved earlier this year, but it was one of my favorite pieces of furniture for years.

What’s next for you and for the blog?
I’m most excited to hit the road for the book tour! We so rarely get to break out from behind our laptops and meet people, so this is a huge treat for us. To interact with and meet our readers is going to be the biggest reward for all the hard work we put into the book.

Grace Bonney answered some questions about the little design blog that changed everything.

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