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The Little Book of Life Skills: Deal with Dinner, Manage Your Email, Make a Graceful Exit, and 152 Other Expert Tricks
by Erin Zammett RuddyWith tips from leading experts in every field, The Little Book of Life Skills is the practical guide on how to solve the trickiest tasks in your day and make life a little easier. We all have areas of our lives that make us feel disorganized, unprepared, or stressed out. From creating a calmer morning routine to setting yourself up for a good night's sleep, and everything in between, there are easy and proven ways to do things better. Whether you need advice on how to end an argument, iron a shirt, or keep your inbox under control, Erin Zammett Ruddy has spoken to experts including Rachael Ray, Dr. Oz, Arianna Huffington, and condensed their wisdom into easy to follow steps for all of life's simple and not-so-simple tasks, such as: Working from Home EffectivelyKeeping a Houseplant AliveGiving Constructive FeedbackArranging the Perfect Cheese Board, and many moreThe Little Book of Life Skills offers simple strategies for being better grown-ups. It's the perfect guide for anybody who wants to get organized, be more efficient throughout the day, and finally learn the best way to fold that #$% fitted sheet.
Little Book of Log Cabins: How to Build and Furnish Them
by William S. WicksOver a century ago, when he first wrote this little guide, William Sydney Wicks (1854–1919) whimsically observed that while early man lived in nature out of necessity, modern man has taken to the woods by choice. Wicks was a highly successful architect whose imprint can still be seen throughout Buffalo, New York, in dozens of churches, hotels, libraries, houses, and other structures. For several years, he was also Buffalo's park commissioner. Wicks' lovely little how-to manual—complete with simple diagrams and step-by-step details—is the ideal dream book for people who think of someday building their own rustic cottage. It's a charming repository of practical shelters and make-it-yourself log furnishings that will inspire every home craftsman and everyone who yearns to get back to nature. Building instructions are accompanied by clear, accurate line drawings of simple log structures, lean-tos, fancy Adirondack cabins, fireplaces, stairways, furniture, beamed ceilings, and much more. A perfect guide for anyone who loves the outdoors, the Little Book of Log Cabins will provide a feast for browsing and for practical projects.
The Little Book of Natural Cleaning
by SphereHome is where the heart is... Home is the place where everyone should feel happy and at peace . . . and that means a house that is clean, safe and welcoming to all.Using traditional, natural cleaning methods to tackle everyday chores is not only a simple and effective way to help the environment, but also helps safeguard your family, friends and pets from germs and the potentially harmful side-effects of many modern cleaning products.THE LITTLE BOOK OF NATURAL CLEANING contains everything you need to know about cleaning with easy-to-find and inexpensive natural ingredients like lemons, bicarbonate of soda and white vinegar. Your home will soon be fresh, clean and safe for all the family.And whilst you #StayHome, don't miss these other great titles from Sphere Books: ** Distract Yourself: 101 Positive Things to Do and Learn Whilst You Stay Home **** The Bumper Book of Would You Rather? Over 350 hilarious hypothetical questions for ages 6 to 106 **** AA British Road Map Puzzle Book: Addictive map-based brain-games for anyone in lockdown ** ** Shelf Respect: A Book Lovers' Guide to Curating Book Shelves at Home **
The Little Book of Natural Cleaning (Home Sweet Home)
by The Little Book of Natural CleaningHome is where the heart is... Home is the place where everyone should feel happy and at peace . . . and that means a house that is clean, safe and welcoming to all.Using traditional, natural cleaning methods to tackle everyday chores is not only a simple and effective way to help the environment, but also helps safeguard your family, friends and pets from germs and the potentially harmful side-effects of many modern cleaning products.THE LITTLE BOOK OF NATURAL CLEANING contains everything you need to know about cleaning with easy-to-find and inexpensive natural ingredients like lemons, bicarbonate of soda and white vinegar. Your home will soon be fresh, clean and safe for all the family.And whilst you #StayHome, don't miss these other great titles from Sphere Books: ** Distract Yourself: 101 Positive Things to Do and Learn Whilst You Stay Home ** ** The Bumper Book of Would You Rather? Over 350 hilarious hypothetical questions for ages 6 to 106 **** AA British Road Map Puzzle Book: Addictive map-based brain-games for anyone in lockdown ** ** Shelf Respect: A Book Lovers' Guide to Curating Book Shelves at Home **
The Little Book of Trees (Little Books of Nature #4)
by Herman Shugart Peter WhiteA charming, richly illustrated, pocket-size exploration of the world&’s treesPacked with surprising facts, this delightful and gorgeously designed book will beguile any nature lover. Expertly written and beautifully illustrated throughout with color photographs and original color artwork, The Little Book of Trees is an accessible and enjoyable mini reference about the world&’s trees, with examples drawn from across the globe. It fits an astonishing amount of information in a small package, covering a wide range of topics—from tree anatomy, diversity, and architecture to habitat and conservation. It also includes curious facts and a section on trees in myths, folklore, and modern culture from around the world. The result is an irresistible guide to the amazing lives of trees.A beautifully designed pocket-size book with a foil-stamped cloth coverFeatures some 140 color illustrations and photosMakes a perfect gift
The Little Book of Zen Healing: Japanese Rituals for Beauty, Harmony, and Love
by Paula AraiAccessible and adaptable Japanese Buddhist rituals to infuse your life with purpose, healing, and gratitude when you need it most.How do we make and sustain meaning amidst the messy conditions of daily life? Personalized rituals can help us blossom like lotuses right in the mud of the present. On a pilgrimage she began after her mother&’s death, author Paula Arai encountered numerous Japanese Buddhists who taught her the remarkable power of ritual to heal—practices you can adapt to your own cultural and personal circumstances. Applying principles of Zen practice, she offers stories and insights that illuminate how to nourish and reap a healing bounty of connection, joy, and compassion. Examples include how to: Relate to a late loved one as a &“personal Buddha&” who supports you Create a home altar to serve as a safe space to be vulnerable, face intense emotions, and experience a depth of warm gratitude that melts fear and anger Engage in daily tasks with attentiveness, intention, and creativity such that they become opportunities for body-mind integration Develop family rituals to celebrate relationship and mark transition Approach illness and grief with a purposeful sense of connection to life-and-death in its wholeness Like Marie Kondo's Shinto principles for decluttering, Paula Arai uses rituals influenced by Japanese Zen for personal and relation nourishment and spiritual healing.
Little Free Libraries & Tiny Sheds: 12 Miniature Structures You Can Build
by Philip SchmidtThese building plans for mini-structures that let communities share books, music, seeds, and more “will make you want to grab a hammer and get to work” (St. Paul Pioneer Press).It started with one simple box attached to a post and filled with books. Now, around the world, millions of books have been shared in countless communities—as well as CDs, garden tools, food for those who need it, and more. This guide lets you join and expand on this growing movement with plans for twelve different structures that you can build—whether for personal use or as a neighborhood resource. Produced in cooperation with the Wisconsin-based nonprofit Little Free Library (LFL), this is the builder’s complete source of inspiration and how-to knowledge. Illustrated throughout with colorful step-by-step photography and a gallery of tiny structures for further inspiration, Little Free Libraries and Tiny Sheds covers every step: planning and design, tools and building techniques, best materials, and twelve complete plans for structures of varying size and aesthetics. In addition, professional carpenter Phil Schmidt includes information on proper installation of small structures and common repairs and maintenance for down the road. You’ll also find tips for getting the word out about your little structure once it’s up and running, and building a lively collection.Community togetherness has never been so important. Little Free Libraries and Tiny Sheds is one tool to help you build community in your neighborhood.
The Little Gardener: Inspire Children to Connect with the Natural World
by Julie CernyThe Little Gardener is an engaging illustrated guide for parents, grandparents, caregivers, and educators who want to help children explore the natural world through gardening. Part how–to, part teaching tool, and part inspiration, The Little Gardener is a thoughtful combination of detailed instructions, tips, anecdotes, and seasonal activities designed to connect gardeners to natural systems. With fun projects, useful charts, and creative journal prompts, The Little Gardener shows gardeners of all ages how to envision and build their garden together by making the process an adventure to be treasured, with much to learn along the way.
Little House in the Suburbs: Backyard farming and home skills for self-sufficient living
by Deanna Caswell Daisy SiskinsSelf-Sufficiency in the Suburbs!Gardens, goats and chickens in the suburbs? Absolutely!The easy-to-follow advice in this book will show you everything you need to know to enjoy an abundant, independent life on food and products grown in your own back yard. You may feel like you have superpowers the first time you prepare a meal using only ingredients you grew in your garden. And is there anything you can't do after you lather up with a bar of soap that you made in your own home? This book is full of recipes and tips that will help you discover the joy of self-sufficiency. Do''t worry; suburban gardening doesn't mean you have to rip up your yard, or risk being ostracized by neighbors or your municipality or homeowners association.Inside you'll find:Gardening instructions for any-size yard and any skill levelA complete overview of keeping chickens, mini-goats and bees in the suburbsMore than 40 food recipes featuring ingredients from your garden or animalsCanning techniquesRecipes for natural deodorant, toothpaste, lip balm and other beauty products Step-by-step soapmaking instructions and soap recipesNatural cleaning recipes for kitchens, bathrooms, surfaces and laundryGift basket ideasCommunity-building ideas including babysitting co-ops, meal swaps, and barter systemsAdvice on how to keep the peace with family, neighbors, and officials if your self-sufficient plans meet resistance
Little House Living
by Merissa A. AlinkFrom the immensely popular blogger behind Little House Living comes a motivational homemaking book, inspired by Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House on the Prairie, featuring creative, fun ways to live your life simply and frugally.Shortly after getting married, Merissa Alink and her husband found themselves with nothing in their pantry but a package of spaghetti and some breadcrumbs. Their life had hit rock bottom, and it was only after a touching act of charity that they were able to get on their feet again. Inspired by this gesture of kindness as well as the beloved Little House on the Prairie books, Merissa found that a life of self-sufficiency and simplicity could be charming and blissful. She set out to live an entirely made-from-scratch life, the "Little House" way, and as a result, she slashed her household budget by nearly half--saving thousands of dollars a year. She started to write about homesteading, homemaking, and cooking from scratch, and over the next few years developed the recipes and DIY projects that would one day become part of her now beloved website, LittleHouseLiving.com. As whole foods became staples of the family diet, Merissa realized the dangers of putting overly processed ingredients not only into our bodies, but on or near them as well. In addition to countless delicious, home-cooked meals, she developed natural, easy-to-make recipes for everything from sunscreen to taco seasoning mix, lemon poppy hand scrub to furniture polish. With their simple ingredients, these recipes are allergen friendly and many are gluten-free. With over 130 practical, simple DIY recipes, gorgeous full-color photographs, and Merissa's trademark charm in personal stories and tips, Little House Living is the epitome of heartland warmth and prairie inspiration.
Little House Off the Grid
by Michelle Mather Cam MatherLike so many other city-dwellers, Cam and Michelle Mather longed for a simpler, quieter life in the country. When they found a century-old farmhouse on 150 acres of land that was in their price range, they jumped at the chance to make their move. The fact that the home was "off-grid" with no power or telephone lines connecting it to the outside world seemed like a bonus!Twelve years later their life in the country is not quite as simple as they had envisioned, but it is peaceful. There were more challenges than they could have anticipated, as well as more rewards.Along the way they installed more solar panels, erected a wind turbine, and upgraded and replaced all of the major components of their off-grid electrical system. They installed a solar-thermal hot water system; figured out how to have a phone, internet, and satellite TV; and kept their home heated with wood cut from their own property. They also carved out a garden and began growing much of their own food.They acquired new skills and knowledge, but, most importantly, they learned to appreciate the value of good neighbors, good books, and good manure.Cam Mather is a writer, publisher, and video producer who knows how to equalize batteries and pinch suckers off of tomato plants.Michelle Mather looks after the editing, the website, and the dwindling bank account and keeps Cam calm during times of crisis.
Little House on a Small Planet: Simple Homes, Cozy Retreats, and Energy Efficient Possibilities
by Shay SalomonCarpenter and construction manager Salomon presents readers with ideas for saving money, protecting the environment, and improving their livelihood by smart living in small spaces. The author profiles dozens of people around the world whose methods of scaling-down vary as widely as their locations--from single mothers in cooperative housing to homeowners converting to multi-use bathroom/lofts, adding home business spaces, or building from scratch. Floor plans; b&w and color images; and practical advice on legal matters, energy efficiency, creativity, and the importance of common spaces supplement the stories.
The Little Lark Still Sings: A True Story of Love, Change & an Old Tuscan Farmhouse
by Victoria SmithIn this memoir of life abroad, a married couple discovers the charms and challenges of Italy when they buy their Tuscan dream home.Happily married for two decades, Victoria and Larry decide to move to their favorite hilltown in Tuscany. But what begins as a romantic adventure soon becomes a drama of change and perseverance. Alongside Italy’s wonders—its beauty, art, architecture, food, and history—come the challenges of daily life in a foreign culture, surviving the chaos of construction, navigating narrow roads, longing for friends, stumbling with language, and so much more. As these struggles undermine Victoria’s confidence which, in turn, wears on Larry’s patience.Though they share a dream, they discover their personal goals are different. His are to study and write, hers are to create the perfect Italian home and make friends. He needs quiet time; she needs his help. From the joys and near disasters of renovating an ancient stone farmhouse to celebrating their first Italian dinner party, Victoria learns about Italy, herself, and their marriage. In The Little Lark Still Sings, she shares their humorous and character-stretching experiences with uplifting insight and wisdom.
A Little Piece of Earth: How to Grow Your Own Food in Small Spaces
by Maria FinnA hip, eco-friendly guide with fun and easy projects for all levels. Eating locally has so many benefits--for the planet, for your health, and for your taste buds--and you can't get much more local than your very own backyard. But is planting a garden too big a commitment? Then this book is for you. A Little Piece of Earth is all about starting small, with more than fifty self-contained, doable projects. Whether you have a yard, a terrace, a rooftop, or just a windowsill, there are plenty of ideas and inspirations to choose from. Harvest your own precious vanilla pods from a pot indoors. Grow savory shiitakes on a small log in your kitchen. Build a miniature vineyard trellis on your deck or build a raised bed on your patio. Recipes for using your homegrown bounty are sprinkled throughout. Charming illustrations guide you through step-by-step, and there's a complete resources section. This is about making dirt work for you, taking some control over your food supply, and, most important, enriching your life with the quiet, simple pleasures of produce raised organically with your own hands.
Livable Cities from a Global Perspective
by Roger W. Caves Fritz WagnerLivable Cities from a Global Perspective offers case studies from around the world on how cities approach livability. They address the fundamental question, what is considered "livable?" The journey each city has taken or is currently taking is unique and context specific. There is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all approach to livability. Some cities have had a long history of developing livability policies and programs that focus on equity, economic, and environmental concerns, while other cities are relatively new to the game. In some areas, government has taken the lead while in other areas, grassroots activism has been the impetus for livability policies and programs. The challenge facing our cities is not simply developing a livability program. We must continually monitor and readjust policies and programs to meet the livability needs of all people. The case studies investigate livability issues in such cities as Austin, Texas; Helsinki, Finland; London, United Kingdom; Warsaw, Poland; Tehran, Iran; Salt Lake City, United States; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Sydney, Australia; and Cape Town, South Africa. The chapters are organized into such themes as livability in capital city regions, livability and growth and development, livability and equity concerns, livability and metrics, and creating livability. Each chapter provides unique insights into how a specific area has responded to calls for livable cities. In doing so, the book adds to the existing literature in the field of livable cities and provides policy makers and other organizations with information and alternative strategies that have been developed and implemented in an effort to become a livable city.
Live Beautiful
by Athena CalderoneThe celebrated design expert and creator of EyeSwoon shares an inspiring look at how creatives arrange and decorate their homes. Beautiful design isn’t just pleasant to look at; it improves the quality of our lives. In Live Beautiful, EyeSwoon creator Athena Calderone taps into her international network of interior decorators, fashion designers, and tastemakers to reveal how carefully crafted interiors come together. She also opens the doors to two of her own residences. With each homeowner, Athena explores the spark of inspiration that started their design journey. She then breaks down the details of the rooms—like layered textures and patterns, collected pieces, and customized vignettes—and offers helpful tips on how to bring these elevated elements into your own space. Filled with gorgeous photography by Nicole Franzen, Live Beautiful is both a showpiece of exquisite design and a guide to creating a home that’s thoughtfully put together.
Live Happy: The Best Ways to Make Your House a Home
by Dave Wilson Kortney WilsonFrom the beloved couple behind Masters of Flip, a warm and inviting guide to making wherever you are feel like homeHome isn’t just a place to sleep and eat. It’s a haven—a place of refuge from the world, of connection with the people (and pets) you hold most dear, of celebration of life’s biggest moments and of recuperation from the exhaustion of the day. Kortney and Dave Wilson have built their careers and a beloved HGTV show, Masters of Flip, around creating houses that people instantly recognize as home. They build colour, joy and family into the design of every house they flip in Nashville, Tennessee, because those priorities are what shape their lives. Live Happy offers hundreds of fresh, fun ideas for how readers and fans of Masters of Flip can inexpensively and creatively build joy into their lives and their homes. From the reason you should always live close to the ice cream shop to the definitive philosophy for dealing with your junk drawer, it will help you make a new house into a home or inject new life into your forever home. It will go beyond design to personal connections, with stories of how Kortney and Dave found each other, built new dreams together and manage to have a happy marriage (and business!) while raising three amazing children. Full-colour and heavily illustrated, Live Happy will feature over 200 photos drawn from Kortney and Dave’s family and design projects. Think of it as The Wisdom of Sundays meets Domino with a shot of The Magnolia Story. Through it all, Kortney and Dave’s voices will be in hilarious and heartfelt conversation in the way fans have come to know and love on Masters of Flip.
Live, Laugh, Laundry: A calming guide to keeping your clothes clean – and you happy
by Laura MountfordIn this essential guide to all things laundry, much-loved online cleaning expert Laura Mountford shows us how we can all do our laundry better, so that we feel happier and calmer every day. With self-care tips to incorporate into your routine and beautiful line drawings throughout, in this book you'll find:- A guide to must-have products & laundry symbols- Instructions on how to wash any clothing/fabric- Troubleshooting for common mistakes- Tips for being more eco-friendly & saving money- and much more!Helping you feel less overwhelmed and full of new ideas that will make you excited to put on your next wash, Live Laugh Laundry is the soothing and useful guide we all need to the life-changing magic of laundry.'My laundry routine has helped me hugely on difficult days - I'd love for it to do the same for you.'
Live More, Want Less: 52 Ways to Find Order in Your Life
by Mary CarlomagnoGet rid of clutter and live a more meaningful life. From taking control of an overflowing closet to creating clear and achievable life goals, Mary Carlomagno shows you how to strip away the nonessentials and make room for serenity, change, creativity, and even enlightenment. Offering a practical week-at-a-time approach, Carlomagno helps you shed not only the unnecessary things that are cluttering up your day, but also the habits and mindsets that keep you from reaching your fullest potential.
Live More with Less: Upgrade your life without costing the Earth!
by Kate LuckinsDrop the eco-guilt and create the sustainable lifestyle you want!Sustainability leader Dr Kate Luckins knows how striving for eco-perfection sets us up for failure. She encourages everyone to act on climate change by living their own shade of green instead.Live More with Less is a practical and optimistic guide to balancing planet friendly habits with our imperfect reality. It's filled with entertaining anecdotes from sustainability leaders and everyday eco-heroes, as well as handy tips to reduce consumerism and your mental load. It steps you through elevating your wardrobe, cutting your grocery bills and restoring the joy of Christmas with ease. This book is for anyone wanting to make confident, sustainable choices to upgrade their life - for good.
Lives of Houses
by Hermione Lee Kate KennedyA group of notable writers—including UK poet laureate Simon Armitage, Julian Barnes, Margaret MacMillan, and Jenny Uglow—celebrate our fascination with the houses of famous literary figures, artists, composers, and politicians of the pastWhat can a house tell us about the person who lives there? Do we shape the buildings we live in, or are we formed by the places we call home? And why are we especially fascinated by the houses of the famous and often long-dead? In Lives of Houses, a group of notable biographers, historians, critics, and poets explores these questions and more through fascinating essays on the houses of great writers, artists, composers, and politicians of the past.Editors Kate Kennedy and Hermione Lee are joined by wide-ranging contributors, including Simon Armitage, Julian Barnes, David Cannadine, Roy Foster, Alexandra Harris, Daisy Hay, Margaret MacMillan, Alexander Masters, and Jenny Uglow. We encounter W. H. Auden, living in joyful squalor in New York's St. Mark's Place, and W. B. Yeats in his flood-prone tower in the windswept West of Ireland. We meet Benjamin Disraeli, struggling to keep up appearances, and track the lost houses of Virginia Woolf and Elizabeth Bowen. We visit Benjamin Britten in Aldeburgh, England, and Jean Sibelius at Ainola, Finland. But Lives of Houses also considers those who are unhoused, unwilling or unable to establish a home—from the bewildered poet John Clare wandering the byways of England to the exiled Zimbabwean writer Dambudzo Marechera living on the streets of London.With more than forty illustrations, Lives of Houses illuminates what houses mean to us and how we use them to connect to and think about the past. The result is a fresh and engaging look at house and home.Featuring Alexandra Harris on moving house ● Susan Walker on Morocco's ancient Roman House of Venus ● Hermione Lee on biographical quests for writers’ houses ● Margaret Macmillan on her mother's Toronto house ● a poem by Maura Dooley, "Visiting Orchard House, Concord, Massachusetts"—the house in which Louisa May Alcott wrote and set her novel Little Women ● Felicity James on William and Dorothy Wordsworth's Dove Cottage ● Robert Douglas-Fairhurst at home with Tennyson ● David Cannadine on Winston Churchill's dream house, Chartwell ● Jenny Uglow on Edward Lear at San Remo's Villa Emily ● Lucy Walker on Benjamin Britten at Aldeburgh, England ● Seamus Perry on W. H. Auden at 77 St. Mark's Place, New York City ● Rebecca Bullard on Samuel Johnson's houses ● a poem by Simon Armitage, "The Manor" ● Daisy Hay at home with the Disraelis ● Laura Marcus on H. G. Wells at Uppark ● Alexander Masters on the fear of houses ● Elleke Boehmer on sites associated with Zimbabwean writer Dambudzo Marechera ● Kate Kennedy on the mental asylums where World War I poet Ivor Gurney spent the last years of his life ● a poem by Bernard O'Donoghue, "Safe Houses" ● Roy Foster on W. B. Yeats and Thoor Ballylee ● Sandra Mayer on W. H. Auden's Austrian home ● Gillian Darley on John Soane and the autobiography of houses ● Julian Barnes on Sibelius and Ainola
Lives of the Great Gardeners
by Stephen AndertonEntertaining and accessible—the lives of the men and women, many of them multitalented artists, who created some of the world’s most extraordinary gardens, and whose legacy continues to inspire Throughout history, great gardeners have risen from all walks of life. Some have been aristocratic amateur gardeners, others professional designers with an international practice. Some have come to garden-making from sculpture or painting; some have been hands-on nurserymen or botanists. What they all have in common is the ability to take an idea and develop it to meet the needs and aesthetics of their times. The book is organized into four thematic sections. Gardens of Ideas moves from the politically allusive gardens of eighteenth-century England to Charles Jencks’s Scottish garden inspired by twenty-first-century cosmography. Gardens of Straight Lines explores the lives of the great formalist gardeners, from Le Nôtre at Versailles to the rational English minimalism of contemporary designer Christopher Bradley-Hole. Gardens of Curves opens with that great exponent of the English landscape garden, “Capability” Brown, and moves on to the extraordinary Brazilian designer Roberto Burle Marx. Finally, Gardens of Plantsmanship arcs from the father of naturalistic planting, William Robinson, to the sweeping prairie-style of Piet Oudolf. With images of gardens as they were originally seen, together with portraits of their makers and an outstanding text by the award-winning gardens writer for The Times, this book will appeal to garden lovers everywhere.
Lives of the Trees: An Uncommon History
by Diana WellsDiana Wells, author of 100 Flowers and How They Got Their Names now turns her attention to something bigger—our deep-rooted relationship with trees. As she investigates the names and meanings of trees, telling their legends and lore, she reminds us of just how innately bound we are to these protectors of our planet. <P><P>Since the human race began, we have depended on them for food, shade, shelter and fuel, not to mention furniture, musical instruments, medicine utensils and more. Wells has a remarkable ability to dig up the curious and the captivating: At one time, a worm found in a hazelnut prognosticated ill fortune. Rowan trees were planted in churchyards to prevent the dead from rising from their graves. Greek arrows were soaked in deadly yew, and Shakespeare’s witches in Macbeth used “Gall of goat and slips of Yew” to make their lethal brew. One bristlecone pine, at about 4,700 years old, is thought to be the oldest living plant on earth. <P>All this and more can be found in the beautifully illustrated pages (themselves born of birch bark!) of 100 Trees.
Living Architecture, Living Cities: Soul-Nourishing Sustainability
by Christopher Day Julie GwilliamIt’s widely accepted that our environment is in crisis. Less widely recognized is that three quarters of environmental damage is due to cities – the places where most of us live. As this powerful new book elucidates, global sustainability is therefore directly dependent on urban design. In Living Architecture, Living Cities Christopher Day and Julie Gwilliam move beyond the current emphasis on technological change. They argue that eco-technology allows us to continue broadly as before and only defers the impending disaster. In reality, most negative environmental impacts are due to how we live and the things we buy. Such personal choices often result from dissatisfaction with our surroundings. As perceived environment has a direct effect on attitudes and motivations, improving this can achieve more sustainable lifestyles more effectively than drastic building change – with its notorious performance-gap limitations. As it’s in places that our inner feelings and material reality interact, perceived environment is place-based. Ultimately, however, as the root cause of unsustainability is attitude, real change requires moving from the current focus on buildings and technology to an emphasis on the non-material. Featuring over 400 high quality illustrations, this is essential reading for anyone who believes in the value and power of good design. Christopher Day’s philosophy will continue to inspire students with an interest in sustainable architecture, urban planning and related fields.
Living Art
by Olivier GiugniOlivier Giugni, the renowned floral artist, presents stunning portraits of his sumptuous creations in a variety of private homes, along with detailed descriptions of their design and placement--and recipes for a dozen of his signature arrangements.Life is color and color is life. This is the mantra of Olivier Giugni, founder and owner of L'Olivier, the sleek floral design atelier in Manhattan. Far from Brignoles, the Provençal village where he grew up, Olivier reimagines the warmth, whimsy, style, and bursts of color from his native France in a singularly contemporary fashion, and in doing so, he has become one of the New York area's most beloved and acclaimed floral designers.Created from a breathtaking range of organic and sustainable material, Olivier's work becomes living sculpture, drawing from and reflecting back the signature elements of its surrounding environment. True to this vision, his gorgeous, lush arrangements of dramatic flowers and plants inspire and transform every space they occupy.In Living Art, Olivier walks readers through the homes of eighteen of his clients as well as his own, pointing out how their art, furnishings, and design preferences engage in a call-and-response with his unique arrangements. Along the way, Olivier's creative thought process is revealed, showing how composition, color, texture, and fragrance can have a subtle yet decisive impact on the energy of a room, enhancing and elevating mood and moment.Living Art's spectacular images illuminate this master florist's aesthetic approach in an accessible way. A gift for experienced arrangers or novices just learning to work with flowers, the book includes recipes for twelve of Olivier's unique arrangements, offering novel ways to style flowers, plants, and foliage--from cascade to orchid garden to bouquet. The poetic, playful creativity featured in Living Art will move and spark the imagination of all those who are passionate about flowers.