Maximum Style: Look Sharp and Feel Confident in Every Situation (Men's Health Life Improvement Guides)

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The Ultimate Fashion and Grooming Guide for Men

Outstanding summary for the Modern Man

Disappointing Collection of Useless Quotes from "Experts"

Slob Busters. Gives them the clue they needed.

Surprisingly terrific

Maximum Style: Look Sharp and Feel Confident in Every Situation (Men's Health Life Improvement Guides)
Perry Garfinkel , and Brian Chichester
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Dressing the Man: Mastering the Art of Permanent Fashion

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ASIN: 087596379X

Customer Reviews:

The Ultimate Fashion and Grooming Guide for Men.......2006-07-26

If your quest is to discover the secrets of true personal style, you will find plenty of answers in this book. Style is not only about clothing, is a mix of how you comb your hair, whether you grow a beard, how you care for your nails, what kind of aftershave or cologne you wear, how you react under pressure, whether you convey confidence, whether you merely walk into a room or make an entrance. Everything is important and this book can help you create your own personal style.

This book will be your personal image consultant.

Outstanding summary for the Modern Man.......2005-06-30

What a great book. After reading this book I feel like I want to just throw away all of my clothes and start fresh. It is a fun and noteworthy read. Enjoyable and lavishly illustrated. I really found this a wonderful book. It is not the kind of book that you would read in one sitting, but rather a book that you will refer to throughout your life. If you are a Cary Grant wanna-be this book is for you.

Disappointing Collection of Useless Quotes from "Experts".......2005-03-07

This books contains the basic information on style and fashion, but it is more a collection of quotes from various "experts." If you know nothing about fashion, grooming, etc, this book would be useful. But if you want to go beyond matching your T-shirt and jeans, then you should read something by Alan Flusser. Overall I was disappointed.

Slob Busters. Gives them the clue they needed........2004-12-05

Men are not big into self help. Maybe there is a guy out there that could get a promotion, a date with the apple of his eye, or you but his clothes and grooming are not going to cut it.

This is the clue he has been waiting for.

This book covers it all. The fasion do's and don'ts. It covers formal dressing as well as casual attire.

Grooming and hygene are covered which may be a blessing if you are in the next cubicle to someone who doesn't heed the call of soap and water.

The book is written like the magazine in short dabs so there is nothing to get bogged down with. Perfect reading on the train or in the throne room (bathroom to the common folk).

My verdict: Buy this and some of the other Men's Health Life Improvement guides and give them out as stocking stuffers or as part of the holiday grab bags. In an extreme occasion just leave it on his desk and let him get into it on his own. He shall thank you for it in the long run.

Surprisingly terrific.......2001-09-10

I own six books on men's style so far. The only other author to whom I gave 5 stars was Alan Flusser.

This book is expertly organized. The information is clear, and it is all rather thorough. It takes you from being and idiot (which I was) to being quite well informed (which I'd like to think I now am.)

If you are going to buy only one book on men's style, get this one! If you buy two, get this and _Style and the Man_.

Book Description

This abundantly illustrated book provides the first full account of houses built and inhabited by the English upper classes during the period of radical social change between 1480 and 1680. Architectural historian Nicholas Cooper explores hundreds of gentry houses, some well known and others less familiar, and considers their evolution in the light of economic, political, and social changes of the age.

Life in the English Country House: A Social and Architectural History

Average customer rating:

The Archaeology of the British
Very informative
This will become a fixture on your nightstand

Life in the English Country House: A Social and Architectural History
Mark Girouard
Manufacturer: Yale University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0300058705

Customer Reviews:

The Archaeology of the British.......2006-01-14

This book is brilliant. It reminded me of a paleontology book where the author looks at the shells of ancient marine fossils and reconstructs their lives from the shape of the shells.

From the structure of the English Country House Girouard recreates the lives of those who lived in them. Not just the Lord and Lady but all those who lived and worked there. How many people were in this room during dinner? How did the food get to the dining area (usually a long trek. This minimized the chance the kitchen would burn the place down but mimimized the chance dinner hadn't congealed). How many people (ladies in waiting, servants, servants of servants) were sleeping in the room together in 1500, 1700 or 1890? The idea that one would actually have any privacy is a very recent concept.

A fascinating reconstruction of what life was like not just for the head of the household, but for all who lived on the estate.

Very informative.......2002-02-19

Don't be put off at first by the black and white photos. This book has some color photos, and I was at first hesitant to purchase this book because it seemed to be mostly black and white photography.
However, once I began to read this book, all thoughts about photos went out of my head! This book is informative, intelligent and thorough. The author has studied his subject very well, and writes in a clear and easy to follow manner. I really do find the floorplans to be an invaluable tool towards understanding the buildings the author is describing.
I am currently using this book as a research tool for my novel, but I did buy this book just for the love of the subject and I was not disappointed.
I would recommend this book again and again to anyone with a love of history and architecture.

This will become a fixture on your nightstand.......2001-05-13

Mark Girouard, an architectural historian, has traced the roles of form and function in England's Great Houses in this densely illustrated, sensitively written book. Floor-plans, innumerable photographs and drawings (many of homes now destroyed), and portraits pepper the text, which is readability itself.

The book follows a chronological path from the Mediaval Household to the present day. The text isn't dry at all. Delicious details abound: Bess of Hardwick pacing her Great Chamber of Hardwick Hall, waiting for the royal visit that never came in the instantly-dated house she'd built for this very purpose, ... The origin of the phrase "backstairs intrigues" (both political and sexual).... the slow but persistant birth of the aristocratic ideal of "privacy"--and how it affected dining halls....the rise of the great dilettante libraries (and the rooms to house them).....and the advent of the freakish innovation of indoor plumbing (and a picture of the Duke of Wellington's elaborate WC) are just a few tidbits.

Mr. Girouard doesn't neglect the "downstairs" portion of a Great House, because he's interested in the whole institution as a functioning unit. Some of the most intriguing photos are of beloved servants' portraits, and the almost Shaker-like beauty of a working kitchen or laundry. Included, also, is a printed "Summary of Livery Men's Duties, Etc., Etc.", of Hatfield House, and darned if it doesn't sound like instructions for empoyees at an indifferent New York hotel!

Customer Reviews:

Great reading for the "stately home" fan.......2006-04-27

Tourism in Britain started with pilgrims seeking out the tomb of Thomas ? Becket at Canterbury, expanded with a renaissance of topographers and antiquarians poking into odd corners of the country, and broadened again with the arrival of foreign visitors in London on the Continental Grand Tour. But the heart of this lovely book is the practice in the 18th and 19th centuries by owners of stately homes of allowing visitors to inspect the premises when they (the owners) were not in residence. (Think Elizabeth Bennett's first encounter with Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice.) The Victorians also loved mysterious and romantic locations like Stonehenge and the Roman baths at Bath, and they loved to listen to (and frequently accept uncritically) the bizarre legends associated with them. (No, Julius Caesar did not build the White Tower!) Like all books I've read that were published by the National Trust (without which most of these tax-heavy properties would probably have been torn down decades ago), half the enjoyment is in the hundred-plus illustrations and the seventy color plates. A beautifully produced addition to English social history.

Average customer rating:

Glorious Castles

Great Irish Houses and Castles
Jacqueline O'Brien
Manufacturer: Harry N. Abrams
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Architecture | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books

General | Home Design | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 0810933659

Customer Reviews:

Glorious Castles.......2000-07-09

Irelands landscapce of beautiful rolling hills and flowing rivers plays in perfectly with the unimaginable Manor houses that it hosts. The 308 pictures in this book show many of the most historic and beautiful homes in Ireland. If the history of architecture intrests you, this is a must buy book.

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A Country House Companion
Mark Girouard
Manufacturer: Yale Univ Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Wives and Daughters: Women and Children in the Georgian Country House

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Great Women
An interesting tour through three centuries of women

Wives and Daughters: Women and Children in the Georgian Country House
Joanna Martin
Manufacturer: Hambledon & London
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1852852712

Book Description

Wives and Daughters Women and Children in the Georgian Country House Joanna Martin A detailed and personal account of women's lives in eighteenth century aristocratic society ountry houses symbolized the power and taste of eight-eenth century Britain. Told through the stories, journals, and personal letters of the women of the powerful Fox family, Wives and Daughters is a window into the daily lives and ex-periences of women of eighteenth-century aristocratic society. Combining personality, historical setting and detail, and readability, Joanna Martin traces the lives of fifteen indivi-dual women in their four country houses through several genera-tions, allowing the reader to see them in society as well as at home in private. Taking an intimate and personal look at courtship, marriage, childbirth, education, houses and gardens, reading, hobbies, travel and health, this book is a new and engrossing account of women's lives, concerns, activities, and feelings in this fascinating time. Joanna Martin was brought up in a country house (Penrice Castle in Wales) and is a professional genealogical historian. She is the author of William Fox-Talbot at Penrice and the editor of A Governess in the Age of Jane Austen. She lives in Suffolk. History 1-85285-271-2 $29.95 $44.95 Canadian 61 /8 " x 91 /4 " / 336 pages Includes 35 bw illustrations Hambledon London June

Customer Reviews:

Great Women.......2006-01-18

Joanna Martin is already author of two books, Fox Talbot and Glamorgan and A Governess in the Age of Jane Austen. She is also an extremely talented professional genealogist. In her latest book she applies the scrutinising eye of a true professional to an interrelated group of families, focussing on the lives and loves of their female members.

Women have been neglected by history for centuries. The last decades have seen a massive refocusing of interest, thanks not least to the rise of women in the previously male-dominated world of publishing. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, published in 2004, made headlines, correctly, for including many biographies of women in its previously very masculine halls of fame. Throughout history, it was women who looked after households, from cottages to stately homes, including the Wessex mansions, Redlynch; Melbury; Bowood and Lacock, that feature prominently in this book, and in its beautiful illustrations.

It was women who brought up children; hired and fired servants; nursed the sick and dispensed charity. As Joanna emphasises too, it was they who wrote voluminous letters concerned to no small degree with family affairs. But these writings also ranged over the vastly more intellectual areas, including the latest books; gardening techniques; remedies and political gossip, all traditionally supposed to be the realm of men.

Where archives of such records survive, historians and genealogists alike can have a fieldday. So it is here with the records of the great Whig dynasty of Fox Strangways. Under the shadow of the Earls of Ilchester, a host of women lived their lives and left wonderful records for posterity.

The interconnected families Joanna studies are famous for its men, including Charles James Fox the radical politician and William Henry Fox Talbot the pioneer of photography. But if ever the phrase `behind every great man there's a great women' were proved true, it is here. And who better to study a group of interconnected families, and understand and explain how they intermarried and what significance their alliances had on themselves and the world about them, than an experienced genealogist?

Ultimately this book goes way beyond the `narrow' boundaries of the families on which it focuses and tells us all a great deal of relevant information about the social history of the Georgian period. There's a great deal here worth reading simply for its interest and amusement. Joanna is wonderful in her treatment of diseases and cures in her subjects' writings. Did you know that, in the 18th and early 19th century, `delicate' children were deliberately infected with measles to toughen them up? One of the Talbot boys, Kit, survived this extraordinary practise, though he later wrote that the after-effects of measles `nearly carried me off'. Amusing too is Thomas Talbot's reaction to a home-remedy of burnt cork mixed with quince marmalade for diarrhoea. It worked at first, apparently, but then the complaint returned with a vengeance. `I don't mean to try any more experiments', he commented ruefully, `unless absolutely needful'.

If your ancestors were not themselves great Georgian hostesses, they probably worked for them or were married to their tenants - or suffered from their remedies. There's lots here for everyone.

An interesting tour through three centuries of women.......2004-08-26

The author is so lucky! Descended from the women she writes about, she has access to all their letters and diaries and many of their personal possesions. She takes all this and paints a fascinating portrait of some very interesting women living in a very interesting time.

I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 because it is obviously the work of an amateur historian. She has great sources, and she makes them very accessible to the reader... but sometimes I felt that she did not really analyze them all that thoroughly, nor does she draw connections to the wider world. In addition, she mentions, in a rather offhand manner, that her Victorian ancestors "organized" the papers that she is using... the Victorians were infamous for destroying family records that painted an unflattering view of long-dead family members or did not support the strict Victorian code of morality. Martin does not mention her opinion of whether such vetting occured: it may seem like a minor detail, but it had me wondering for the rest of the book if some important details about these fascinating women might be missing, though the author seemed to think not.

If you liked "Aristocrats," you MUST read this book, because this book shares several characters with that one. This is a fun, easy to read introduction to Georgian upper-class women.

The World of the Country House in Seventeenth-Century England

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A flawed but essential survey

The World of the Country House in Seventeenth-Century England
J. T. Cliffe
Manufacturer: Yale University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0300076436

Book Description

This engaging book takes us back to the domestic world of the landed gentry in seventeenth-century England. J. T. Cliffe explores the interior and exterior of country houses and discusses their social and economic role. He provides colorful details about the lives of squires and their families, the duties of servants and others who lived in the houses, and the scandals that embroiled some households.

Customer Reviews:

A flawed but essential survey.......1999-10-13

Cliffe presents an extensive survey of family and public records from a number of sources. The Public Record office is the source of many of the more interesting tidbits, but no less significant are the private records of descendants of his subjects, for example, the Earl of Verulam, Lord Cobbold, Lord Daventry and a Major J. R. More-Molyneux. He shows very little inclination to editorialise, preferring to let the sources speak for themselves. Where he dare to conject, the impression is that it is on the basis of the wealth of detail that he has not managed to fit in rather than imagination. This is all very well and properly academic, but it does mean that there are many gaps and unanswered, or poorly answered questions that arise.

He deals with the first such in his introduction. Here he explains his aim, "a study of the country houses of the gentry, their inhabitants, including servants and other employees, and the activities which went on around such houses" (vii). This is a laudable endeavour, after all, as he points out, the nobility have had their fair share of historical attention already. The question is, who are the gentry? We all know who and what the nobility are and there is a legal status conferred upon the nobility (such that the duelist Lord Mohan could expect to be judged by his peers rather than a court of law). There is no similar legal definition for the gentry, as one contemporary lawyer, John Seldon once observed, "What a gentleman is, `tis hard with us to define" (vii).

Cliffe's definition is "families owning landed property which were headed by baronets or knights or men described as `esquire' or `gentleman' in such official documents as heraldic visitation records, subsidy rolls and hearth tax returns." (vii) This is a workable, if broad definition but it is a conclusion that Cliffe reaches after only one paragraph. In later chapters he hints at arguments and court cases concerning the definition of gentlemen and it seems to me there might have been material enough for a whole chapter on the subject.

Book Description

"...fascinating...Cram-full of primary sources, skillfully organized, this is a valuable work of social history. It is also an entertaining, compelling first-hand account of the Irish Ascendancy through four centuries that, without romanticizing its subject, nevertheless realizes vigorously its unique flavour."--House & Garden.

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