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A Place of My Own: The Architecture of Daydreams |  | Author: Michael Pollan
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Category: Book
List Price: $16.00
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as of 3/14/2010 11:39 CDT details
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Seller: KYBOOKS
Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 3375
Media: Paperback
Edition: Reprint
Pages: 352
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.4 x 1
ISBN: 0143114743
Dewey Decimal Number: 690.837
EAN: 9780143114741
ASIN: 0143114743
Publication Date: December 30, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Michael Pollans unmatched ability to draw lines of connection between our everyday experiences whether eating, gardening, or buildingand the natural world has been the basis for the popular success of his many works of nonfiction, including the genre-defining bestsellers The Omnivores Dilemma and In Defense of Food. With this updated edition of his earlier book A Place of My Own, readers can revisit the inspired, intelligent, and often hilarious story of Pollans realization of a room of his owna small, wooden hut, his shelter for daydreamsbuilt with his admittedly unhandy hands. Inspired by both Thoreau and Mr. Blandings, A Place of My Own not only works to convey the history and meaning of all human building, it also marks the connections between our bodies, our minds, and the natural world.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 8
 looking at building from all angles January 3, 2009
RamblingReviewer
57 out of 57 found this review helpful
I'm so glad this book is once again readily available; I keep wanting to give it to friends and it had become hard to find. Pollan undertook the project of building himself a modest shelter, and used that as a jumping-off place to consider--always entertainingly--a dazzling array of related subjects. The book is a joy to read, a disquisition on everything from design considerations (site, view, feel), to descriptions of the nitty-gritty of basic shelter construction (why you don't see windows that swing inward, the right way to hammer a nail), to reflections about historical, cultural and technological influences on the evolution of structures, the divergence between design and construction that produced the profession of architect and the craft of builder and the tension between the two. Pollan's graceful writing is informed by his inquiring intellect and his wide-ranging fund of knowledge. There is something thought-provoking on nearly every page.
An intimate tour of a writer's most sacred place: the house of their dreams April 11, 2009
Michael Tiemann (Chapel Hill, NC United States)
33 out of 34 found this review helpful
I was astonished to see that there are *any* less than stellar reviews for this book, so let me speak in defense of Michael Pollan's sophomore effort: You Must Read This Book!
For those who loved The Omnivore's Dilemma, this book describes the process by which the cradle of that great work was itself brought to life. As a person married to an author, and as a person who himself writes more than the average American, Pollan's process of articulating his own dreams (and fears) for his own writing house literally brought tears to my eyes, so profound his subject and so universal its truths. It is a brilliant synthesis of abstract and concrete--the construction of a physical space *so that* greater mental heights can be imagined and obtained.
For those who celebrate the way that Pollan has helped us restore some measure of our own humanity by helping us reconnect with what is true about food (and by learning how to avoid what is false about edible food-like substances), let only those who are truly roofless cast the first stone against this book! For the rest of us, whether we own, rent, or live more transiently in some sheltering construct, this book teaches the truly multi-dimensional ways that dwellings come to be, and how the manifold relationships that condense into built forms continue to express those relationships, even to those who are not yet born.
For those who love Pollan's ways with words, this book is full of fridge-worthy sentences and page-worthy paragraphs.
For those who enjoyed meeting Joel Salatin in "Part III: Grass" of the Omnivore's Dilemma, in this book we meet the prototype from the building trade, Joe Benney. Indeed, I'd be willing to bet that without Joe's training in the manual arts, Michael would never have made it past the first handshake with Mr. Salatin of Polyface farms.
For those who complain "this book is nothing new", fooey. Yes it was first published more than a decade ago, but as a book I had not read, it was new to me. The new paperback format is far more friendly to me and my traveling lifestyle. And the new preface provides an opportunity for Pollan to complete some factual and cultural arcs that were anticipated by the foundations he laid in 1997. (In that way, every finished building is really the start of a new, unimagined next building.)
So...I loved it, and I suspect that if you have ever dreamed about building a place for your own dreams, you will love it, too!
Wonderful May 25, 2009
Raph84 (South West, OH)
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
I picked up this book after reading Omnivore's Dilemma. This book is the Omnivore's Dilemma for architecture and building. I found it to give a fantastic overview of the history of architecture, the difficulties in translating the architect's plans into something realistic (paring things down to form over function), and the realities of making a structure from the ground up.
This book however is not a manual of how to build. If you are interested in building or creating things out of scratch it will be very happy with this book. This might better be titled the philosophy of building.... a place of one's own.
not about food January 26, 2009
Shiduri
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
This has little to do with most of his work, other than discussing personal experience.
I found it amusing, and very helpful in enlarging my perspective when involved in my own construction project.
 Not for those in building profession July 6, 2009
the color yellow (maryland)
19 out of 28 found this review helpful
I love Michael Pollan's books-- I think he's a great researcher and is very good at presenting that information. However, any time he writes about his own experiences this annoying voice and character emerges-- that of a geek, perhaps-- and it's definitely not someone you want to spend a few hours with.
I'm in the architecture/building profession, so many things Michael discovers in this book about architecture and building is not news to me. That said, I LOVE reading about the design process and why clients/architects/contractors make decisions and what ensues from those decisions. I wish there could have been more of this, plus more drawings/photos and pictures. I loved every moment spent with the architect and the handyman/builder. I wish it could have been more of them, less whiny/geeky Pollan. I wish that Pollan had not tried to wax rhapsodic everytime he picked up a hammer or chisel. He tries too hard to build connections with Walden and devotes too many pages to his "knowledge" gleaned from a superficial study of architectural history and theory. (And a bizarre homage to the architectural skills of Thomas Jefferson, which really doesn't fit.) There are really two (or three), disjointed books here. This book could have been better written by the architect.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 8
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