Sunday, October 28, 2007

Home Work: Handbuilt Shelter - Holiday green gift guide for book lovers: part 2

Last week I started the weekly Holiday green gift guide for book lovers - the guide that will help you find the best green books to give as gifts this holiday season.

Today I am very excited to bring you the second part of the guide, which includes the recommendation of Nick Aster.

For those of you who don't know him, Nick Aster is the founder of Triple Pundit and media architect behind TreeHugger.com. He currently works for a major print and online magazine and occasionally blogs at Triple Pundit.

Nick's recommendation for this holiday's gift is:

Home Work: Handbuilt Shelter

Author: Lloyd Kahn

Publisher: Shelter Publications

Originally published in: 2004

What it is about: Building on the enormous success of his book 'Shelter', Lloyd Kahn continues his odyssey of finding and exploring the most magnificent and unusual hand-built houses in existence. Page after page, the book describes homes built from the soul, inventiveness free from social constraint, but created with a solid understanding of natural materials, structure, and aesthetics.

From yurts to caves to tree houses to tents, thatched houses, glass houses, nomadic homes, riverboats and more, each hand built dwelling finds itself at one with its environment, blending harmoniously with the earth, using organically sustainable material.

'Home Work' is featuring over a thousand photos, including three hundred line drawings, stories of real people building and living in their own houses, plus Kahn's recollections, reminiscences and observations gathered over the 30 years since his previous book, 'Shelter', was first published.

Why it's a great gift: Inspired guide to hand build homes and shelters. Everything from Strawbale to Yurts. I've spent hours paging through this book and fantasizing about what to do with the imaginary land I'd someday buy. A perfect book to put on display for guests.

I looked at the book at Google Book Search and it looks like a great book. Thank you Nick!

If you choose to give your friends or family this book as a present on the holidays, you are more than welcome to balance it out with Eco-Libris, add its sticker to the book and make it the perfect green gift for the holidays.

And just a reminder on past recommendations on our series:
Part 1 - The Man who Planted Trees by Jean Giono

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: a great green gift for the holidays!