“Besides quality of production (it’s printed entirely on heavy paper stock and features full-color photos throughout), [the book] excels in the simplicity of its presentation: the instructions are logical and well detailed, and they promote use of common tools and easily acquired materials. Highly recommended.”—Library Journal.
Almost 10 years after The Not So Big House came out, it's reassuring to see that houses really are starting to get smaller. Over the past year I've been interviewed time and again for articles describing a growing backlash against the mega-houses that have been built across the country in recent decades.
Houses aren't only getting smaller, they're also becoming less formal, a trend picked up by my good friend and coauthor (of Inside the Not So Big House) Marc Vassallo in his new book, The Barefoot Home. Marc hits the nail on the head when he says that we no longer need formal living and dining rooms--it just doesn't fit the way we live anymore. And we're spending just as much time enjoying the outside of our homes as we are the inside. In a barefoot home, you can feel like you're on vacation 365 days a year, a lifestyle that's much more in tune with the way we REALLY live today--at least when we're not at work.
I was lucky enough to be one of the very first readers to receive a copy of The Barefoot Home and as I leafed through it, I could almost feel the sand between my toes. Marc has assembled and described, in his inimitable style, 20 excellent examples of houses that are both Not So Big in form, and decidedly Not So Formal in function. As Marc recommends in his "barefoot manifesto," it's time to kick off your shoes, open up, embrace the sun, live outside as well as in, and adopt a barefoot state of mind. The lessons these homes have to offer are much needed by all who are disenchanted with "too bigness" in house design; and best of all, they're easy to implement, and often less expensive to boot. Anyone who is a fan of the Not So Big House series will almost certainly enjoy this book as well.
Book Description
As our personal and professional lives become more demanding and hectic, people have reacted with a more casual, relaxed, and open way of living at home. Kitchens are no longer just for cooking but serve as entertainment hubs; barbeques on the grill have replaced formal dinners. As our lives at home have become increasingly informal, the “barefoot living” lifestyle has emerged and there is increased demand to carry this attitude over into home design.
Relaxed, open, filled with light, and intimately connected to the outdoors, barefoot houses make living at home feel like being on vacation 365 days a year. The 24 houses featured in The Barefoot Home reflect today’s barefoot times. From a long, low house on the Kansas prairie to an adobe home in New Mexico and a New England cottage by the sea, these homes capture the essence of barefoot living.
Customer Reviews:
Surprised and delighted.......2007-09-27
We live in temperate Australia and hesitated long before buying this book. We have shelves of excellent architecture reference books from around the world and have been owner builders. Was it going to be just glam coffee table eye candy? The architect has worked with Sarah Susanka (Not So Big House etc), so we decided to take the plunge. This is a very good book. There is so much to look at, contemplate, re-visit. Brilliant resolution of details, houses that flow, small exquisite spaces, sound materials. We have had hours of enjoyment from this book and have been happy to share it with others to extend their knowledge of good architecture. Enjoy!
Barefoot -- informal style, for an informal life........2007-05-16
On first glance I agreed with many of the other reviewers: 'the book was slick', 'it was disingenuous', 'sure, if you live in a sunny climate, most, if not all, of the time'.
Then I went back and looked at the book again, and read the opening passage: he does not strive to be disingenuous, he tells us he himself doesn't live in a barefoot home, nor a barefoot neighborhood, but he is trying and the manifesto of the book is to entreat all of us to be more informal in our primary living space -- our homes.
Open the house up as soon as you can, get rid of all the stuff you don't need, make your home as casual as you can, and then enjoy it.
Think informal thoughts, and live in all the spaces available to you: the patio, the deck and never forget how good it feels to have sand between your toes!
He provides blue prints to the homes and he even lists the architects. Enjoy and live well!
Great Book!.......2007-03-26
This book is great for conversation and ideas. I leave mine on the coffee table for periodic inspiration...that of myself..and of others!
Barefoot, if it's summertime.......2007-03-11
I don't exactly get the barefoot concept. If the author had seen these homes in the wintertime, would he still consider them barefoot homes? Barefoot seems far-fetched and contrived in this book.
This book is a nice compilation of casual homes mostly in the country or at the beach. It's similar to other books on getaway homes. Beyond that, I didn't see anything particularly new or inspiring. It almost seems like the author (or Taunton?) was more interested in pushing the barefoot concept than providing new ideas.
Designed for wilder, more remote locations.......2007-02-15
This book is beautiful, the writing lyric and inviting.
But in looking for ideas for building our coastal home, I found that the windows and outdoor living areas were meant for homes in secluded or tree-sheltered locations, not on a city lot as our will be.
I highly recommend this book for those with more remote building sites.
Product Description
An immigrant single mom from Brazil, Sonia, is stalked by men she thinks killed the progressive U. S. Senator Paul Wellstone in 2002. Spurned by the police, she seeks help from Jake, a reserved businessman who shares none of her beliefs about Wellstone but who falls for her Latin charms. Soon the two of them are fleeing for their lives across the frosty landscape of Minnesota, and Sonia needs all the guidance her patron saint can give.
Customer Reviews:
The Professor hits a home run.......2007-10-09
John Harrigan was one of my political science professors at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota. I read many of John's text books and articles. When he told me about his fiction project, I was intrigued. I bought John's book and read it over the Columbus Day weekend. What a treat. As with Garrison Keillor and David McCollough, I heard John's voice as I read the book. The twists and turns of the plot kept me at edge as I couldn't put the book down. I even imagined a movie along the same lines as a Grisham novel. I cannot wait to read another of John Harrigan's novels. Great job, John!
Book better than the blurbs by far!.......2007-08-31
Being familiar with how covers come to be attached to a book, I seldom judge a book by its cover. I will, however occasionally be enticed or turned off by the blurbs that accompany the book - on the back cover or inside the front. Merely reading the back cover copy actually turned me away from this book initially. And that would have been a shame, because this is one very good book, in almost every category one could imagine. One other small niggle--it's categorized as fiction or detective and mystery story; it's certainly fiction, but I think it's much more of a suspense novel (with a touch of romance thrown in for good measure) than anything else.
It is very well-written, and the author obviously knows of what he writes! The story is told in first person by the male protagonist, Jake (J. P.) Morgan, who is very sensitive towards the opinions and thoughts of the females he encounters in the telling of the tale.
Jake is a financial planner in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. One of his clients is Lars Johanson, a professor at Northland College of Arts and Sciences. After having invited Jake to a reception there, Lars doesn't appear, a somewhat surprising turn of affairs. However, one of his colleagues is there, and makes a startling conquest of Jake before he even realizes what has happened to him.
The beautiful Brazilian-born (but now U.S. citizen) Sonia Lindquist, teaches Art History at the school, but also works for a local gallery, specializing in art from South America. She is divorced (as is Jake) and has a young son, Rodrigo, who suffers from Williams Syndrome, which causes physical and mental problems, non-life-threatening, but difficult, nonetheless.
At the reception, Sonia tangles verbally with a new local philanthropist, a Mr. Radezewell, who promptly insults the memory and reputation of the very liberal U. S. Senator Paul Wellstone, who had recently died in a plane crash.
Jake falls hard for Sonia, and at first she reciprocates his feelings, but he, too, has a past that comes back to bite him--he's an alcoholic. He's been dry for five years, but can promise her no more than `one day at a time'. She wants more than that.
The day after the reception, Jake receives a note from Lars, directing him to a storage locker at the Mall of America, and asking Jake to secure the contents until Lars can explain. The contents consist of a million dollars in apparently unmarked and untraceable bills. After yet another day of hearing nothing from Lars, Jake heads to Lars' cabin in the north, and finds his mutilated body.
Almost immediately thereafter, Jake and Sonia find themselves being stalked, and banding together, they set out to find the missing items and decide the purpose of the money.
Here is where the suspense begins to build, as they must find ways and means to continue their search while staying alive. Rodrigo is sent to his grandparents in Rio, while Jake and Sonia discover the underbelly of American society in which money will buy nearly anything, including false IDs, untraceable guns and various other nefarious items.
It's a crackling good story that always makes sense. Every now and then, a marvelous fragment of a sentence grabs you and won't let go. For example: on page 229, `when cultures mix, exciting things happen.' and from page 247 `he ran into the bullet'.
As Jake and Sonia stumble around searching for the solution to the problem, she calls it a `jaytoo', or workaround. What a wonderful title that would have made. Totally unique, too. The Jaytoo.
Woven throughout are wonderful references to older Broadway musicals, old songs and the entertainers who made them famous. It adds a great amount of character delineation as Jake explains, and she struggles to understand, given their differences in age and ethnic background.. The story also provides an excellent introduction to Williams Syndrome, for those of us without previous knowledge of the symptoms and effects, as well as an insider's view of alcoholism and the constant struggle to get through just `one day at a time'.
I do take exception to his minor grumble about Title Nine, however; men had it their way for 20 or more centuries. Certainly, we women should have at least part of one!
Fabulous book - I recommend it highly! In fact, I do hope Mr. Harrigan writes more of them.
Exciting, Thrilling, A bright new voice!.......2007-05-22
It is with great pleasure that I finished reading John Harrigan's The Patron Saint of Desperate Situations with a huge smile on my face. The book had me on the edge of my seat. I simply could not put it down. Patron Saint marks the arrival of a bright new voice in suspense fiction.
Sonia and Jake meet by chance. They have no idea that their lives are entertwined in a way neither of them can control. As they both realise the kind of problem they are in, their desperate situations only seem to get heavier and heavier, to the point where they soon become the suspects of a murder investigation.
The thing to appreciate about this novel is how vivid and real the characters are. Sonia is flawed and so real she nearly crawls out of the page. Harrigan also has a great voice when it comes to writing dialogue. It is very real, very engaging.
Although I would have liked it if the two ongoing narratives verged more, I have to admit that this one really had me thinking. I can't wait to see what Harrigan has in store for us next.
A good choice for a good read!.......2007-05-16
A conspiracy. Romance. Lots of local color. And fast paced.
First novelist John Harrigan debuts with a "The Patron Saint of Desperate Situations" and a welcome it is. The conspiracy concerns the death of liberal Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone. The romance is between our narrator, a successful professional financial adviser (and recovering alcoholic) named J.P. Morgan (Right! But he prefers to be called Jake) who meets early on Sonia, a Brazilian ex-patriot, divorcee, and mother of a young boy. Set entirely in Minnesota, and more particularly the Twin Cities (Minneapolis and St. Paul), Harrigan flavors the novel with plenty of local spots, niceties, and stories that lend deeply to the landscape and atmosphere of his story.
As this is a compelling story of murder and mayhem (to go along with the romance), Harrigan treats us to a plot that moves along at breakneck speed. The death of Sen. Wellstone, however, merely overhadowis the storyline. A suspicious death of Jake's best friend, with what appears to be connecting links to Wellstone turns into more than that. And because the friend had left notes (and possibly more) with Jake, the real murderers will stop at nothing to retrieve the incriminating evidence the friend possessed. From this point on, the pace only accelerates and by the time the conclusion hits us, the climactic scene is almost Hamlet-esque (with all those bodies lying around in Act V!).
"Patron Saint" is a good read. Harrigan spices the narrative with tidbits of art history, jazz, and even some dining delights. Here's to Harrigan's second novel! [...]
Solid, Entertaining.......2007-05-05
Disclaimer - I received a copy from the author who asked for a review (thanks, John). Reading is a holistic experience encompassing elements like title, cover, font, characters, plot, mood, language and dislogue. In this case I mentally gave an A+ to the title (perfect) but an F to the cover. It shrieks "Harlequin", a put off for many readers. Then there is the plot - can it capture the attention of the average reader? In this case, the answer would have to be "No".
A Google search on "Wellstone murder" got 118,000 hits. In Conpiracy Land, assassination chatter is downright normal with residents firmly convinced ("inside sources...") that evildoers caused the accident by a host of nefarious means - EMP, long-range sensors, inside payoffs. The problem is that outside Minnesota he was unknown. His legacy is (sadly) that tacky funeral cum political rally. He waxed more Populist than hard Leftist and his colleagues put up with his pantry of unpopular causes, humorously suggesting they were as much a matter of publicity as conviction.
Anyhoo, his plane crashed and Sonia, our Brazilian bombshell, is convinced that it was an iside job after overhearing comments by a business man. Caricature is a hallmark of mysteries (we like regularity) so there's the evil rich guy, the liberal crusader, the noble foreign outsider with a handicapped child, the befuddled male who is drawn in despite himself, the odl friend who betrays, etc. Some romantic actions made no sense - Sonia's anger at her rescue (twice) because our hero shot someone. Why leave him now after danger has passed? And worse, why return at the end so that we could have a "and they all lived happily ever after" conclusion?
The twin tales never really merged. A quirky investigation into a possible assassination would have been a good thriler on its own. So would a story about stopping a powerful businessman and his machinations to develop virgin land for greedy purposes. Their linkage was tenuous at best and seemed forced. The other problem was authenticity - parts of the story (the Minnesota parts) rang true, others sounded like classic Novelese, that filler language seen in mysteries. The second half was a huge improvment with the chase scenes, romance, final confrontation and at last, the discovery of the REAL secret. At the end, all the characters recede into the background, forgotten, except for the young boy. Rodrigo's childlike innocence remains with the reader, haunting, asking for more.
Customer Reviews:
Informative, but dry.......2007-07-27
This book should be read by any Prima fan, not because it's such a great read, but because so very little has been written about this versatile performer. A scant few pages were devoted to Prima in Nick Tosches's "Unsung Heroes of Rock and Roll" and a brilliant profile by David Kamp appeared in the December, 1999, issue of Vanity Fair. While volumes have been written about Sinatra and the Rat Pack, the life of Louis Prima has been sadly neglected. "Just a Gigolo," as far as I can determine, is the only full-length biography of this charismatic entertainer, whose career spanned five decades. Make no mistake about it, Prima was much more than a wisecracking showbiz personality. He wrote, or co-wrote, a number of hits, including "Sunday Kind of Love" and "Sing, Sing, Sing," immortalized as the quintessential swing classic by Benny Goodman during a Carnegie Hall concert which had hordes of young fans dancing in the aisles. An insatiable womanizer, Prima was married no less than five times, in addition to the countless assignations he enjoyed with everyone from star-struck groupies, dubbed the "Prima Donnas" by the press, to such established actresses as Lucille Ball, Jean Harlow, and Martha Raye. After a slump which lasted several years, Prima launched a major comeback in the Fifties when, accompanied by his then-wife, Keely Smith, and backed by the super-charged Sam Butera and the Witnesses, he appeared as the lounge act in the Casbar Hotel in Las Vegas. What was supposed to be a two-week engagement lasted five years, with Prima reemerging as a major player in the entertainment industry. Their performances soon became the talk of the town, known for their energy, spontaneity, and Prima's witty ad libs. "I must have seen a thousand shows," one fan recalled, "and no two were ever alike." Sadly, in large part due to his philandering, Louis and Keely divorced in 1961. But that didn't stop Prima. The following year, at the age of fifty-two, he met, married, and professionally teamed up with a twenty-year-old aspiring singer named Gia Maione. All of this could have been woven into a great book. Unfortunately, while it is well-researched and informative, Mr. Boulard's narrative, in my opinion, is quite bland. This book is not half as exciting as its subject or his music.
Answered my questions.......2005-04-03
A very good, easy reading, informative book. With my renewed interest in Louis Prima I was wondering about his early life, who the wives were bk(before Keely) and if he had children and how many. This book answered all my questions. It is definitely an in depth biography and well worh reading. For all of his critics(if they're still living) I would just like to say that 27 years after his death his music is still thrilling old fans and gathering new ones. Kudos Mr. Boulard!
GREAT BOOK ON A GREAT TOPIC.......2003-01-19
The ONLY biography of a legend--Louis Prima!
His life before and after his fantastic
years with Keely Smith.A must read for fans.
A PRIMA PRIMER (OF SORTS).......2003-01-18
Louis Prima may well have been one of the most underrated entertainers of the 20th century, and his life story certainly warrants a biography. And this is a good beginning. This volume, part of the "Music in American Life" series published by the University of Illinois Press, explores the Prima phenomena, but author Boulard relies too heavily on secondary sources. (The Keely Smith interviews offer some insight.) Prima was a wild man, but the wild streak is so ... tame. The photos are rather appealing (especially the ones with Smith), but to publish this tome without an index is unforgivable.
An entertaining and informative read.......2000-07-31
As a newcomer to the music of Louis Prima, I found this book informing and useful. Boulard's writing moves along at a fast pace; though I consider myself a neophyte in the world of jazz history, Just a Gigolo gave me all the essential information I needed to have a well grounded understanding of the man behind the music. I would recommend this book as a welcome addition to any music enthusiast.
Book Description
15 of this legendary bandleader's best, featuring his huge hit "Jump, Jive an' Wail," which has become the unofficial anthem of the 1990s swing revival. Also includes: Baby, Won't You Please Come Home - I've Got the World on a String - I've Got You Under My Skin - Just a Gigolo - Pennies from Heaven - Sing, Sing, Sing - That Old Black Magic - and more.
Customer Reviews:
Superb! But who plays guitar to Louis' act anyway?.......2006-03-13
Seriously, this is a great volume to have to accompany his albums. There will only be one Louis.
Bad chords for guitar.......2006-03-03
It's not useful for guitar player, the arrangment for guitar is often not correct. Not a good product for guitar.
Average customer rating:
|
On Stage
Louis Cdjas 331 Prima
Manufacturer: JASMINE RECORDS
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ASIN: 6308635995 |
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Sing, Sing, Sing (Jazz Band Series)
Manufacturer: Alfred Pub Co
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Sing, Sing, Sing: Featuring Solo Tom-tom (Pop Young Band)
Manufacturer: Alfred Pub Co
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- The Gate Behind The Wall: a Pilgrimage to Jerusalem
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The Gate Behind the Wall: A Pilgrimage to Jerusalem
Samuel C. Heilman
Manufacturer: Jewish Publication Society of America
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A Walker in Jerusalem
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ASIN: 0827605552 |
Customer Reviews:
The Gate Behind The Wall: a Pilgrimage to Jerusalem.......2000-07-28
What an awesome book. I loved it. I have always wanted to know more about Orthodox Judaism and the study of Torah. Samuel Heilman beautifully portrays his own search with rich text and description. This is a book to feast on. I will read it again and again. I learned so much and the images and ideas have encouraged me to continue my own search. Thank you Mr. Heilman for sharing this adventure with your readers. You have given me words when before I had none.
Books:
- Lineage, Life and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot
- Los rostros del camino/the Faces of the Path
- Macedonia Investment & Business Guide (World Investment and Business Library)
- Madagascar Country (World Business and Investment Opportunities Library)
- Marshall Islands Business & Investment Opportunities Yearbook
- Mauritania Business & Investment Opportunities Yearbook
- Messages Of The Governors Of Michigan: Felch, Greenly, Ransom, Mcclelland, Parsons, Bingham, Wisner, Blair, And Crapo
- Mohammad Daoud, Personality, Ideas and Policies: A Study in Contemporary Afghan History (In Persian)
- Morocco Oil & Gas Industry Business Intelligence Report (World Business Library)
- My Life With Ishmael
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