This book has a chatty, at times even gossipy tone, that makes it read like you're listening to a very knowledgeable friend.

What I find amusing, and enlightening, in the photographs is how English homes can be so unlike an American's idea of "rich people's decorating." The wallpaper can be faded and peeling, the slipcovers faded and shrunken, the furniture needs refinishing, the rugs are unravelling, and things don't always match well. An "accidental" style, rather. But it's elegant and comfortable in ways that rooms with brand-new "matchy-matchy" things never are. And the architecture, no matter how grand or modest the house, is always classy.

The English just have a way with style, which any Anglophile will recognize and love in this book.

An excellent guide to the english country style tradition. It stands out in a field that is already crowded with good works, and at this point is to be considerer a classic.

Knowing that I love English Country style homes, my husband gave this book to me as a Christmas gift. What he did not know was that I had ordered it at the same bookstore and had not been able to pick it up. When I opened it on Christmas morning, what a surprise! This book gives lovely accounts of living life in a true English Country house. With scores of rooms to inspire your own decorating it truly tells the English Country story. Opening this book is like taking a journey to a beautiful land in another time. I highly recommend it and have seen a copy in many, many homes in articles of decorating magazines. It seems everyone has a copy of this fabulous book.

Great books are rare. Well illustrated books sometimes even rarer. This book is both. This book is truly a goldmine of information for book lovers. It includes details on library lighting, accessories, great libraries of the world, library furnishings, book binders & restorers, book fairs in America & a comprehensive list of rare book dealers in both America & England. One of the chapters I loved the most was about Hay-On-Wye Booktown - a collection of 27 new & second hand book shops scattered up & down the narrow streets of a village along the border of England & Wales, with over 250,000 books. WOW !! Other chapters include an exclusive look inside the private libraries of some famous people, such as Paul Getty, Keith Richards, Robert Stern, the Duke of Devonshire - to name but a few. Finally, the price of the book is worth it, just for the look at some of the most glorious libraries around the world done in stunning full page colour photography. This book belongs in your library - Enjoy !

If you love books, if you love reading, whether you are a serious book collector, have a small library at home or at the office or even if you have a small shelf full of books at your bedroom you should have this book. With beautiful photographs and well written comments about English Country House Libraries, libraries designed by designers, writers'libraries, book collector's libraries and much more,in At Home with Books you will find visual delights, wonderful readings and a Resource Directory that will inform you about Rare-book dealers shops, Book Fairs, Library furnishing and illumination and more ( with web page directions about those topics)I think that every book owner should have a book like this one, buy it!

Where do you put hundreds, a thousand, even several thousand books? Here are some examples from book collectors, writers, and even a Rolling Stone.

"At Home with Books" highlights, with photos and text, more than two dozen offices, libraries, and studies in the U.S. and Great Britain, covering every kind of room where you might want to put a book. From large and impressive home libraries, where the books are more on display than they are for reading, to small offices, where ease-of-use is of key importance, to places where most people wouldn't even think of putting a lot of books, such as kitchens and hallways - nearly every kind of place where you might imagine a book is here.

Magnificent, stately rooms are included as well as the cramped quarters of a poet; the most post-modern designs imaginable to the most traditional. One of the more interesting parts in the book is the home library of Keith Richards, the guitarist for The Rolling Stones and, apparently, an inveterate reader. My personal favorite, though, was the author Frances Fitzgerald's library in her Manhattan apartment that she shares with her journalist husband. It was a room I could imagine putting my own books.

"At Home with Books" also includes useful information on how to care for your books, how to plan a layout for that future library you might build someday, and how to light your library. It has sections on bookplates and binding books, a resource directory on rare book dealers and the great libraries of the world. If you have any interest in books and the rooms they are found in, then look no further.

This book is not only about Marietta Tree, it is about her time and her environment. It is about the options se had as a woman of her class, and the consequences of the choices she made. She did not make the usual choices.

This well written book sheds light on the many aspects of a complex woman. The contrast between her somewhat puritanical streak - a result of her upbringing in the famous Peabody family - and her enjoyment of the high life is riveting. In the end the reader finds her to be likable but not without fault.

Diving into this book, as an avid art collector, one might expect to learn how different people work with the art they possess. This book though is really for those who are stricly ardent and almost excessive collectors who like to jam pack their residences with works galore. What is missing from this text is a careful presentation of how many different types of people display their art. There is too much focus on furniture, collecting passions and interest, and not enough focus on ideas. Overall, I found this book to be somewhat mono-dimensional in the concepts portrayed of how others live with their art. More a picture of what the authors had preconceived than a search for the spectrum of ideas.

This book is inspiring because it shows us the homes of many collectors of paintings.It is well written, but there are not enough new ideas that can be incorporated by the reader. Some of the collectors have little idea on how to display their paintings in a way that is pleasing and justifies the works. Many of the dispalys are cluttered and clautrophobic. Yet, there are some splendid homes that incorporate paintings spectacularly. The article on Dorothy and Herbert Vogel is very moving. These extra-ordinary people deserve a book just on them.

This is an extraordinary book. Clearly not intended as a scholarly exercise, the authors take us up close and personal with outstanding collectors and their art. These are people I would be unlikely ever to meet, and their personal views and how they are expressed through the works they surround themselves with provide a glimpse into the collecting mind. Many of the homes are wealthy, though some are artists who have accumulated works from their friends. The photos are spectacular, and give many ideas of how art can be integrated into one's home.

The content of this book is great, but the size of the book is ridiculous. When they say a little style book, they mean literally a little book. Yes, the book has style, but who want to look at a 4" x 4" book on style or decorating? Too much money for such a book.

Both author and photographer of "Under Live Oaks" are English, and their knowledge of the South is distinctly secondhand and second-rate. Seebohm even acknowledges needing a crash course in Southern architecture from a friend! Instead of genuine knowledge and insight, we are offered a gauzy gothic cocktail of Hollywood cliches. (Mix one shot of "Gone With the Wind" with a dash of "Suddenly Last Summer" and a gallon of "Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte.") For a beautiful and intelligent book on Southern architecture, try "Architecture of the Old South" by Mills Lane. For photos that shed some light on Southern myths and realities, try "William Eggleston's Guide."