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| A Place of My Own: The Education of an Amateur Builder | 
 enlarge | Buy New: $90.14
Buy Used from $90.14
Avg. Customer Rating:  (based on 18 reviews)
Sales Rank: 53010
Category: Book
Author: Michael Pollan
Publisher: Delta
Studio: Delta
Manufacturer: Delta
Label: Delta
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 336
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.3 x 0.9
ISBN: 0385319908
Dewey Decimal Number: 690.837
EAN: 9780385319904
ASIN: 0385319908
Publication Date: February 9, 1998
Release Date: February 9, 1998
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 a classic March 26, 2006
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
this book is elegantly written, erudite and entertaining. I'd recommend it highly both to the carpenter who would like to know more about the ancient roots of construction and to the armchair traveller types. It examines the dynamic between builder, client and architect in a manner reminicient of but definitely different from the classic Tracy Kidder "House".
Where's my hammer? January 4, 2006
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
As an accident prone, hurry-up amateur, I appreciated Pollan's candid stance. He is such a fine writer (I found his book on gardening, Second Nature, to be the most pleasurable I have found in the genre), that I felt as though my carpentry skills were improving along with his. And in some way they were, for his details on the process are precise and relevant. Pollan takes it easy, too, and he meanders, but his aim is true, and few words are wasted. One can take or leave his digressions, but there is no denying they complement the main text. I read this book quickly, in three days, and each night after finally putting it down, I looked up at the ceiling from under my covers and visited in imagination his "roof over two bookcases" in progress. I feel, thanks to this journey, more certain than ever that I will get around to building a place of my own.
Great book October 25, 2005
11 out of 12 found this review helpful
I had no idea what was this book about, I just knew that Michael Pollan wrote this amazing meat article for the NY Times a few years ago and decided to buy all his 3 books (a 4th one coming out).
This one (A place of my own) is about him building a studio in the woods behind his house, with architect designs and carpenter's help. I learned tons on house building ... the most interesting thing though is that this book encompass an history lesson on any parts of the house (how were things built before, why were they built that way, what do we do now) ...
Michael read and quotes several other books about architecture, relations between human and the habitat ... thanks for opening my eyes !
about carpentry, and so much more April 1, 2005
8 out of 10 found this review helpful
Regardless of whether we think about it consciously, architecture affects us all. We are shaped by the spaces we inhabit, even as we exercise control over them. In _A Place of My Own_, Michael Pollan writes with cheerily self-deprecating humor and a palpable sense of wonder at the process of creation. He touches on topics ranging from sociobiology to deconstructionist theory as he describes both the physical process of putting up a little outbuilding in the woods near his Connecticut home and the psychological changes he undergoes while he works.
As in his books _Second Nature_ and _The Botany of Desire_, Pollan's writing flows effortlessly. His meticulous attention to detail is never overbearing, and his insights are thoughtful and well-supported. Moreover, _A Place of My Own_ is a fun read. What more could you want?
 Dangerously Inspiring January 24, 2004
16 out of 17 found this review helpful
I have not harbored any life-long ambition to build my own home, but now, about a year after reading "A Place of My Own," I find myself building a house. It's not all Michael Pollan's fault, but I'm not letting him completely off the hook either. Michael Pollan loves words and spends the majority of his time in the world of words and abstractions. The tale of his inexplicable desire to create something as real-world as a building with his own hands makes for a very seductive invitation into that world for someone who feels most at home in the realm of the abstract but nurtures a growing admiration for the so-called "blue color" folks whose knowledge and expertise reside in their strong and weathered hands as much as it does in their noggins. While the book in no way operates on the level of a "how-to" manual, now that I've started down that owner-builder road I'm encountering landmarks familiar to me from reading "A Place of My Own," like the tension-bordering-on-hostility that exists between architects, those artisans of the abstract, and builders, who inherit the sometimes unenviable task of turning fanciful "funny-paper" blue-prints into tangible structures of concrete, wood, and glass.
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