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books Archives - Page 2 of 3 - The Year of Mud

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…

Jul 23
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Book Review & Giveaway: Just Enough

By Media
Just Enough Book: Azby Brown

Read ahead to enter your name in a giveaway for this book

Here is part one of our book review and giveaway series, in collaboration with Tuttle Publishing. In this post, you’ll find my review of the fascinating book, Just Enough, and details for how you can enter to win your own copy. It’s quite simple… read ahead for more!

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Jul 20
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Giveaway Update: How to Win One of these Sweet Books

By Media
Japanese Carpenty Book, Tuttle Books

Soon you’ll have the chance to win one of these books

I’m happy to announce that Tuttle Publishing has kindly donated two very sweet books to The Year of Mud, and a couple of lucky readers will have the chance to get a copy of their own in the coming two weeks. I’ve got sitting beside me here a copy of The Genius of Japanese Carpentry: Secrets of an Ancient Craft and Just Enough: Lessons in Living Green From Traditional Japan, two excellent book titles. The first explores the incredible craft and history of temple building in Japan, and the second is a portrayal of life in Edo Japan, when Japanese society learned to cope with ecological limits and live in better balance in all aspects of daily life.

Click ahead to find out how you can win a copy of either of these books!

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Feb 19
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Seeking A Handmade Life

By Resources, Media
Bill Coperthwaite Yurt House

Bill Coperthwaite’s yurt home in Maine

“The main thrust of my work is not simple living, not yurt design, not social change, although each of these is important and receives large blocks of my time. But they are not central. My central concern is encouragement – encouraging people to seek, experiment, to plan, to create, and to dream. If enough people do this we will find a better way.”

This is a quote from Bill Coperthwaite, whose book A Handmade Life: In Search of Simplicity I have just recently finished reading. The book is, for lack of a more creative word, an interesting one, sprinkled full of a life’s worth of knowledge and insights, yet strangely lacking in what I thought would be the obvious subject — living a handmade lifestyle. The book is both idiosyncratic and universal, simple yet dense, and encouraging yet only pointing in a general direction.

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Feb 05
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Paradise Lot: Creating Eden in the Suburbs

By Resources, Gardening, Homesteading, Permaculture

ParadiseLot-bookAs I enter a new phase in life with the goal of obtaining raw land to create my own slice of homesteading delight, my appetite for books and stories about permaculture, especially of a more personal account is ever greater. This is a fortunate time, as the number of books over the past decade have only been increasing as people have had more time to take permaculture principles to the field, garden, and home with new results to share. Landowners and prospective owners should consider themselves lucky to not have to go in quite as blind as before with books like Paradise Lot, by Eric Toensmeier and Jonathan Bates.

Actually, in this case a landowner could mean anyone with even a tiny backyard to their name, as this dynamic duo have created an unbelievable patch of perennial goodness on a mere 1/10th of an acre. Their experiment and book are a testament to the idea that even supremely ravaged land in suburban deserts can be transformed into thriving ecosystems, providing an abundance of soil, food, habitat, and ultimately reward.

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Jan 29
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Death is Life: Gene Everlasting Book Review

By Resources

GeneEverlastingThe next time I feel desperate about the state of affairs in the world, I should turn to this book for a quick and thorough pick-me-up. Which is ironic, I guess, because the real theme of the book (as you might guess from its title) is death. Death and dying are usually not a welcome topic of conversation.

However, Gene Everlasting is an evocative opportunity to step into the well-worn shoes of our favorite contrary farmer/writer Gene Logsdon and consider what it’s like to have lived 80 years on this crazy green earth, possibly waiting for death around the corner, questioning immortality, but discovering what it means to savor life in all of its colorful moments, big or small, happy or sad.

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Nov 24
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Swedish Carving Techniques Book Now For Sale

By Resources, Woodworking
Wille Sundqvist, Carver & Author of Swedish Carving Techniques

Wille Sundqvist working away

Here’s just a quick update on the Taunton Press reprint of Wille Sundqvist’s Swedish Carving Techniques — it’s now for sale through their website. Ragweed Forge also has copies for sale for slightly less than MSRP — check it here.

As a side note, I love the above picture of Wille Sundqvist at work — the man is now in his upper 80s, but it doesn’t look like he’s stopping anytime soon.

Finally, a great quote from Bill Coperthwaite, another great individual worth mentioning at a later date: “I want to live in a world where people are intoxicated with the joy of making things.”

Nov 21
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Swedish Carving Techniques Book to be Reprinted!

By Resources, Woodworking
Swedish Carving Techniques Book: Wille Sundqvist

This praised spoon carving book is finally due for a reprint

One of the most highly praised and sought after spoon and bowl carving books in recent times is Wille Sundqvist’s Swedish Carving Techniques. I am terribly excited to have found out that the book is due to be reprinted, and will be available for sale from Taunton Press in mid-December of this year. A mere few weeks away, really. The book’s going rate for even a used copy is typically upwards of $120. I believe the new reprint will cost between $30-35, which is greatly appreciated.

UPDATE: The book is now for sale directly through the publisher, in limited quantities. At $24.95, it’s a steal!

Needless to say, I am extremely excited about this bit of news, as I have been searching the internet for a copy for a reasonable sum for months.

Nov 06
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Earthen Floors Book Due Spring 2014

By Earthen Floor, Media, Resources

Earthen Floors Book

Exciting news on the natural building book front — Earthen Floors, a book all about installing and living with earth-based floor systems, is due out April 1, 2014. Written by two very experienced natural builders, Sukita Reay Crimmel and James Thomson, the book is the first of its kind dedicated solely to the art of making inexpensive, durable, and beautiful floors made mostly of sand, clay, and fiber. There are a host of books that touch upon the topic of floors, but few that delve very deeply into the nitty gritty details. This will be a welcome addition to the natural building library.

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Sep 30
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Can’t Get Enough of those Curvy Beams: Minka

By Traditional Building
Minka: Traditional Japanese Farmhouse

A minka, or traditional Japanese farmhouse with massive, curvy beams on display

For some reason or another, ever since I was young, I’ve been drawn like a magnet to the various products of Japanese culture. What those products are have changed throughout time, whether it was films, or food, etc. Lately, I have been somewhat secretly obsessing over minka, or traditional Japanese farmhouse architecture, with its signature massive beams, wood joinery, huge thatch roofs, sliding shoji doors… Beautiful buildings that seem impossibly well-crafted by long-gone builders with nothing but hand tools and human muscle at their disposal.

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