Michael Pollan. (2013). A Place of My Own: The Education of an Amateur Builder. Random House Publishing Group.

Michael Pollan. 2013. A Place of My Own: The Education of an Amateur Builder. Random House Publishing Group.

Michael Pollan, A Place of My Own: The Education of an Amateur Builder. Random House Publishing Group, 2013.

Michael Pollan. A Place of My Own: The Education of an Amateur Builder. Random House Publishing Group, 2013.

OverDrive Product Record

images

• cover:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/0111-1/{1396275F-52B8-4B34-82D7-B8211819DB6F}Img100.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• thumbnail:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/0111-1/{1396275F-52B8-4B34-82D7-B8211819DB6F}Img200.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover150Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/0111-1/139/627/5F/{1396275F-52B8-4B34-82D7-B8211819DB6F}Img150.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover300Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/0111-1/139/627/5F/{1396275F-52B8-4B34-82D7-B8211819DB6F}Img400.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg

formats

1. • identifiers:
     1. • type: PublisherCatalogNumber
        • value: 132197
     2. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9780307829153
   • name: Adobe EPUB eBook
   • id: ebook-epub-adobe
2. • identifiers:
     1. • type: ASIN
        • value: B00BE2568E
     2. • type: PublisherCatalogNumber
        • value: 132197
   • name: Kindle Book
   • id: ebook-kindle
3. • identifiers:
     1. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9780307829153
     2. • type: PublisherCatalogNumber
        • value: 132197
   • name: OverDrive Read
   • id: ebook-overdrive

mediaType

eBook

primaryCreator

• role: Author
• name: Michael Pollan

title

A Place of My Own

dateAdded

2017-08-18T16:26:00-04:00

contentDetails

1. • href: https://link.overdrive.com/?websiteID=141&titleID=1228751
   • type: text/html
   • account:
     • name: Sacramento Public Library (CA)
     • id: 1151

sortTitle

Place of My Own The Education of an Amateur Builder

crossRefId

1228751

subtitle

The Education of an Amateur Builder

id

1396275f-52b8-4b34-82d7-b8211819db6f

starRating

3.9

OverDrive MetaData

isPublicDomain

False

formats

1. • fileName: APlaceofMyOwn_9780307829153_1228751
   • partCount: 0
   • fileSize: 3041624
   • identifiers:
     1. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9780307829153
     2. • type: PublisherCatalogNumber
        • value: 132197
   • rights:
     1. • type: Copying
        • value: 0
     2. • type: Printing
        • value: 0
     3. • type: Lending
        • value: 0
     4. • type: ReadAloud
        • value: 0
     5. • type: ExpirationRights
        • value: 0
   • name: Adobe EPUB eBook
   • isReadAlong: False
   • id: ebook-epub-adobe
   • onSaleDate: 3/6/2013
   • samples:
     1. • source: From the book
        • formatType: ebook-overdrive
        • url: https://samples.overdrive.com/place-of-my-139627?.epub-sample.overdrive.com
2. • fileName: APlaceofMyOwn_1228751
   • partCount: 0
   • fileSize: 0
   • identifiers:
     1. • type: PublisherCatalogNumber
        • value: 132197
     2. • type: ASIN
        • value: B00BE2568E
   • name: Kindle Book
   • isReadAlong: False
   • id: ebook-kindle
   • onSaleDate: 3/6/2013
   • samples:
     1. • source: From the book
        • formatType: ebook-overdrive
        • url: https://samples.overdrive.com/place-of-my-139627?.epub-sample.overdrive.com
3. • fileName: APlaceofMyOwn_9780307829153_1228751
   • partCount: 0
   • fileSize: 0
   • identifiers:
     1. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9780307829153
     2. • type: PublisherCatalogNumber
        • value: 132197
   • name: OverDrive Read
   • isReadAlong: False
   • id: ebook-overdrive
   • onSaleDate: 3/6/2013
   • samples:
     1. • source: From the book
        • formatType: ebook-overdrive
        • url: https://samples.overdrive.com/place-of-my-139627?.epub-sample.overdrive.com

keywords

1. • value: Cultural Studies
2. • value: Biography
3. • value: Urban planning
4. • value: Historical
5. • value: place
6. • value: anthropology
7. • value: Inventions
8. • value: language
9. • value: Conservation
10. • value: book club
11. • value: culture
12. • value: Nature
13. • value: society
14. • value: Nonfiction
15. • value: Writing
16. • value: philosophy
17. • value: Cultural anthropology
18. • value: Construction
19. • value: carpentry
20. • value: photography
21. • value: Museums
22. • value: Autobiography
23. • value: homes
24. • value: Engineering
25. • value: Evolution
26. • value: psychology
27. • value: geography
28. • value: linguistics
29. • value: Building
30. • value: Architecture
31. • value: Environment
32. • value: Design
33. • value: Ecology
34. • value: Essays
35. • value: houses
36. • value: cultural history
37. • value: DIY
38. • value: Technology
39. • value: walking
40. • value: memoir
41. • value: Sociology
42. • value: social
43. • value: Personal Memoir
44. • value: book club recommendations
45. • value: psychology books

creators

1. • role: Author
   • fileAs: Pollan, Michael
   • bioText: Michael Pollan, recently featured on Netflix in the four-part series Cooked, is the author of seven previous books, including Cooked, Food Rules, In Defense of Food, The Omnivore's Dilemma and The Botany of Desire, all of which were New York Times bestsellers. A longtime contributor to the New York Times Magazine, he also teaches writing at Harvard and the University of California, Berkeley. In 2010, TIME magazine named him one of the one hundred most influential people in the world.
   • name: Michael Pollan

imprint

Random House

publishDate

2013-03-06T00:00:00-05:00

isOwnedByCollections

True

title

A Place of My Own

fullDescription

A captivating personal inquiry into the art of architecture, the craft of building, and the meaning of modern work
"A room of one's own: Is there anybody who hasn't at one time or another wished for such a place, hasn't turned those soft words over until they'd assumed a habitable shape?"
When Michael Pollan decided to plant a garden, the result was the acclaimed bestseller Second Nature. In A Place of My Own, he turns his sharp insight to the craft of building, as he recounts the process of designing and constructing a small one-room structure on his rural Connecticut property—a place in which he hoped to read, write, and daydream, built with his own two unhandy hands.
Invoking the titans of architecture, literature, and philosophy, from Vitruvius to Thoreau, from the Chinese masters of feng shui to the revolutionary Frank Lloyd Wright, Pollan brilliantly chronicles a realm of blueprints, joints, and trusses as he peers into the ephemeral nature of "houseness" itself. From the spark of an idea to the search for a perfect site to the raising of a ridgepole, Pollan revels in the infinitely detailed, complex process of creating a finished structure. At once superbly written, informative, and enormously entertaining, A Place of My Own is for anyone who has ever wondered how the walls around us take shape—and how we might shape them ourselves.
Praise for A Place of My Own
"A glorious piece of prose . . . Pollan leads readers on his adventure with humor and grace."—Chicago Tribune
"[Pollan] alternates between describing the building process and introducing informative asides on various aspects of construction. These explanations are deftly and economically supplied. Pollan's beginner status serves him well, for he asks the kind of obvious questions about building that most readers will want answered." —The New York Review of Books
"By shrewdly combining just the right mix of personal reflection, architectural background, and nuts-and-bolts detail, Michael Pollan enables us to see, feel, and understand what goes into the building of a house. The result is a captivating and informative adventure."—John Berendt, author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
"An utterly terrific book . . . an inspired meditation on the complex relationship between space, the human body and the human spirit."—Francine du Plessix Gray
"A tour de force . . . [Pollan] writes gracefully and humanely. He is a true carpenter-craftsman of prose."—Phillip Lopate

reviews

1. • premium: False
   • source: Chicago Tribune
   • content:

     "A glorious piece of prose...Pollan leads readers on his adventure with humor and grace."

2. • premium: False
   • source: John Berendt, author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
   • content: "A captivating and informative adventure."
3. • premium: False
   • source: Francine du Plessix Gray
   • content: "An utterly terrific book...an inspired meditation on the complex relationship between space, the human body and the human spirit."
4. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     March 3, 1997
     Pollan, a freelance writer, columnist (House & Garden) and editor (Harper's) with no knowledge or experience as a carpenter or builder, decided he wanted a place of his own to write inDan elegant "hut" with electricity but without plumbing to be built somewhere behind his house in rural ConnecticutDand he would build it himself. His aim was "to get away from words," and he signed on a sympathetic professional architect from Harvard Square and a not always patient carpenter. His account of the adventure, which in fact is very involved with words, follows the project from its theoretical stage, choosing the exact site (which characteristically included research into classical Roman, Ming dynasty Chinese, 18th-century British and contemporary "scientific" concepts of site selection), drawing the plans (something of a crash course in contemporary architectural theory) andDfinally leaving theory in the dustDdigging the footings, raising the uprights, laying the roof (perhaps the most entertaining section), cutting in windows and threading the electrical wires. Pollan has a self-admitted weakness for overanalysis, but it is a human failing that should appeal to anyone drawn to his book in the first place. Thoreau gets mentioned a lot, as do Jefferson and Frank Lloyd Wright, but as the project moves toward completionDmore expensively, of course, than he ever expectedDPollan comes to appreciate some very nontheoretical distinctions, such as the difference between windows that swing inward and ones that swing outward. The result is a very special armchair adventure.

5. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     February 1, 1997
     Wanting to have a place of his own where he could think and write, Pollan decided to erect a small structure in the woods behind his house. Fancying himself a modern-day Thoreau, he wanted to build his "dream hut" with his own hands, even though he had no carpentry skills or experience. We learn very little about how to build a small structure; the majority of this book is devoted to Pollan's pretentious musings about a variety of architectural theories and about his interaction with the architect and carpenter who helped him (wasn't this supposed to be a simple structure?). Although it cost Pollan $125 per square foot and took him two and one-half years to build, ultimately it is the reader who works the hardest. Libraries serving those with a strong interest in architecture will want this title; other libraries should skip this book.--Jonathan Hershey, Akron-Summit Cty. P.L., Ohio

6. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     February 15, 1997
     Author and former "Harper's" editor Pollan, a writer fast approaching 40 and fatherhood, spent two and a half years (Saturdays mostly) building a writing hut in the woods behind his Connecticut house. Its taking shape is a springboard for exploring architecture, construction, and the concept of home. Not so much a how-to as a how-and-why-it-happened, this account details quickly and clearly everything from ancient construction techniques to postmodern architectural theory to the on-site politics among Pollan and his two guides ("Virgils," he calls them): Joey, the surly local handyman, and Charles, an old college friend and architect who occasionally gets zealous. Pollan's success, despite a confessed lack of skill or understanding, is heartening to others hoping to do something similar. His melding theory and practice, when, for instance, he considers roofs, foundations, windows, and walls as both objects and metaphors, makes this book particularly interesting to those content to study architecture from afar--which translates into a rather large group of readers. ((Reviewed February 15, 1997))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1997, American Library Association.)

popularity

202

links

• self:
  • href: https://api.overdrive.com/v1/collections/v1L1BWwAAAA2I/products/1396275f-52b8-4b34-82d7-b8211819db6f/metadata
  • type: application/vnd.overdrive.api+json

id

1396275f-52b8-4b34-82d7-b8211819db6f

starRating

3.8

images

• cover:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/0111-1/{1396275F-52B8-4B34-82D7-B8211819DB6F}Img100.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• thumbnail:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/0111-1/{1396275F-52B8-4B34-82D7-B8211819DB6F}Img200.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover150Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/0111-1/139/627/5F/{1396275F-52B8-4B34-82D7-B8211819DB6F}Img150.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover300Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/0111-1/139/627/5F/{1396275F-52B8-4B34-82D7-B8211819DB6F}Img400.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg

isPublicPerformanceAllowed

False

languages

1. • code: en
   • name: English

subjects

1. • value: Architecture
2. • value: Nonfiction

publishDateText

03/06/2013

otherFormatIdentifiers

1. • type: ISBN
   • value: 9780679415329

mediaType

eBook

shortDescription

A captivating personal inquiry into the art of architecture, the craft of building, and the meaning of modern work
"A room of one's own: Is there anybody who hasn't at one time or another wished for such a place, hasn't turned those soft words over until they'd assumed a habitable shape?"
When Michael Pollan decided to plant a garden, the result was the acclaimed bestseller Second Nature. In A Place of My Own, he turns his sharp insight to the craft of building, as he recounts the process of designing and constructing a small one-room structure on his rural Connecticut property—a place in which he hoped to read, write, and daydream, built with his own two unhandy hands.
Invoking the titans of architecture, literature, and philosophy, from Vitruvius to Thoreau, from the Chinese masters of feng shui to the revolutionary Frank Lloyd Wright, Pollan brilliantly chronicles a realm of blueprints, joints, and trusses as he peers into the...

sortTitle

Place of My Own The Education of an Amateur Builder

crossRefId

1228751

subtitle

The Education of an Amateur Builder

publisher

Random House Publishing Group

bisacCodes

1. • code: ARC003000
   • description: Architecture / Buildings / Residential
2. • code: ARC004000
   • description: Architecture / Design, Drafting, Drawing & Presentation
3. • code: ARC009000
   • description: Architecture / Methods & Materials