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Book Reviews

Apr 03
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Our Straw Bale House in ‘Small Homes’

By Strawtron, Book Reviews, Timber Framing, Straw Bale Building
small home book - lloyd kahn

Lloyd Kahn’s latest, Small Homes: The Right Size

Lloyd Kahn of Shelter fame has a new book out, titled Small Homes: The Right Size, and I feel much gratitude that our straw bale & timber frame home is featured within its pages. Lloyd’s books have been a big source of inspiration for me these past 10 years. Flipping through Shelter, Home Work, and Builders of the Pacific Coast have been powerful influences and have helped me to feel connected to the worldwide movement of folks creating beautiful, unique, hand-built homes.

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Jun 27
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The Art of Natural Building

By Resources, Book Reviews

art of natural building bookAs the temperature rises, so do our activity levels. Summertime can be hysterically busy as we juggle all of the projects and work commitments that we’ve taken on. This year is no exception. We’re at the brink of several exciting things here… but I digress. I know I’m being vague, but I’ll have more to say about all of that soon.

During our downtime at home, the newly released The Art of Natural Building has been inspiring lots of conversation. This new book release is a much improved second edition to the original published way back in 2001. The 2015 edition is a major and well-organized overhaul, containing a diverse spread of essays and articles about natural building materials and techniques, building history, best practices, and personal stories.

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May 04
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A Man Apart: Inside the World of Bill Coperthwaite

By Design, Book Reviews, Homesteading
Bill Coperthwaite

Coperthwaite striking an iconic pose in his canoe

Bill Coperthwaite is an icon among the likes of the Nearings and Harlan and Anna Hubbard, an individual known for his simple living ethos, yurt design and construction, advocacy of craft and creativity, and his 50 year journey living on a remote homestead on the Maine coast. He lived without a telephone, without road access, without many of the physical things we often deem “necessities” in this era, yet he was a highly influential teacher and role model until his untimely death in 2013 at the age of 83.

In A Man Apart, husband and wife Peter Forbes and Helen Whybrow document their two decade relationship with Coperthwaite in his later life, sharing a powerful portrait of a man difficult to categorize. It’s part tribute, part biography, part memoir, and full of meaningful insights and lessons for all of us about what it means to live your life according to your values.

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Apr 05
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One of the Best Natural Building Books of the Past Few Years

By Book Reviews, Straw Bale Building

Natural Building Companion Book“Natural building is about relationships. We choose to work with natural materials not just because they are ‘natural,’ but also because their use is the logical conclusion of a process in which we seek to develop and sustain as many relationships and connections as possible within the context of the development of a building. The process of natural building acts as a web, connecting us back to ‘place’ and all those who help make that place.”

These are some of the closing remarks from Jacob Deva Racusin and Ace McArleton in their excellent natural building guide, The Natural Building Companion. This is one of the best natural building books of the past few years, not just for insights like the one above, but for the wealth of practical information, diagrams, and design ideas contained within, particularly useful for folks living in wet and cold winter climates. This is a significant niche that is often ill-covered in other similar building books, and Racusin and McArleton fill in with some much needed ideas.

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Mar 07
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Book Giveaway: America’s Covered Bridges

By Book Reviews, Traditional Building

ACB Jacket.inddCovered bridges are a big source of nostalgia and fascination for many folks in America. Fewer intact examples litter the countryside today than ever before, but once upon a time they were a critical part of early transportation infrastructure. At the time they were built (and today, too), they were engineering marvels, often built by formally uneducated people with simple technology (and definitely nothing in the way of calculators, computers, or load tables.)

Less than 1000 covered bridges remain in service today, but during the two hundred years of covered bridge heyday, over 15,000 were built. America’s Covered Bridges: Practical Crossings, Nostalgic Icons is a beefy hardcover illuminating the source of fascination of the covered bridge in the American landscape.

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Nov 05
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The Art of Japanese Architecture: Book Giveaway

By Book Reviews, Traditional Building
Shinto Gate: Usa Jingu

A Shinto gate (torii), in front of another larger temple gate, remodeled in 1592

Tuttle Books has been kind enough to donate another fascinating book to The Year of Mud, and an extra copy will go to one lucky reader. Check out my review of The Art of Japanese Architecture, by David and Michiko Young, and comment below to enter the free giveaway to get your own copy of the book.

The Art of Japanese Architecture is a sweeping look at the evolution of building styles in Japan over thousands of years, from the earliest settled cultures through the modern era.

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Aug 05
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The Genius of Japanese Carpentry: Review & Giveaway

By Media, Book Reviews
The Picture Hall, Yakushiji Temple Complex

The Picture Hall, at the Yakushiji temple complex

Here is part two of our book review and giveaway series, in collaboration with Tuttle Publishing. In this post, you’ll find my review of Azby Brown’s The Genius of Japanese Carpentry, and details for how you can enter to win your own copy. This is an engrossing book about traditional temple construction in Japan. Read ahead and enter!

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Aug 02
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Congrats to Our Winner & Another Giveaway Coming Soon

By Media, Book Reviews

japanese-timber-framingAfter reading all of the comments on the review and giveaway post for Just Enough, I want to send everyone copies of the book to enjoy. Unfortunately, there’s only one… and the lucky winner is Nadine. Congratulations, Nadine!

Lucky for everyone else, we still have one more giveaway coming up soon! We’ve got a copy of The Genius of Japanese Carpentry to give away next week. This too is a really excellent, and inspiring book, full of information about traditional temple construction and timber framing techniques in Japan.

Please check back soon to enter. It will be just as simple as last time. The image to the right is a little sneak peak of what to expect from the book…

Aug 02
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Congrats to Our Winner & Another Giveaway Coming Soon

By Media, Book Reviews

japanese-timber-framingAfter reading all of the comments on the review and giveaway post for Just Enough, I want to send everyone copies of the book to enjoy. Unfortunately, there’s only one… and the lucky winner is Nadine. Congratulations, Nadine!

Lucky for everyone else, we still have one more giveaway coming up soon! We’ve got a copy of The Genius of Japanese Carpentry to give away next week. This too is a really excellent, and inspiring book, full of information about traditional temple construction and timber framing techniques in Japan.

Please check back soon to enter. It will be just as simple as last time. The image to the right is a little sneak peak of what to expect from the book…

Apr 26
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Should Humans Eat Meat?

By Book Reviews
Cattle on Farm

Is eating meat benign, extravagant, or something else…?

If there’s one thing that Simon Fairlie’s Meat: A Benign Extravagance reinforces, it’s just how utterly complex the issue of food can be. Especially when it comes to the meat debate. Is eating meat “bad”? Is veganism an appropriate response to decreasing our environmental impacts and greenhouse gas emissions? Just where the heck did some of these popular numbers about carbon emissions and raising animals come from, anyway? Should humans eat meat?

Fairlie does a respectable job of breaking down all of this and much, much more in his book, and though there still isn’t a totally 100% absolute answer by the end (when do absolutes ever exist?), there is definitely a sign pointing in a pretty good direction of what sustainable agriculture can look like, and what is included in it. And some folks will either be pleasantly surprised or disappointed by the message, depending on their proclivities.

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