I found myself becoming nostalgic looking through the pages of this book. Having grown up in Florida, I was stunned to see that the house I lived in had been a knock-off of one of Rudolph's houses. His early Florida houses were widely emulated for their clean lines and passive solar designs. It is an impressive collection, and illustrates the lighter side of Rudolph before he became caught up in the monumental forms that dominated the latter part of his career.

You might call him the John Lautner of Florida, creating a lifestyle as much as an architecture. You could see Travis McGee laying back in one of these houses, drinking a beer as he waits for the elusive flash of green. Rudolph really captured the spirit of Florida in the 40's and 50's. Simple, well-thought out designs that are as relavent today as they were then.

As the Case Study program got under way in southern California, Rudolph launched his own from his office in Sarasota on FloridaÕs Gulf coast. For two decades (with time off for U.S. Navy service) he created (first with Ralph Twitchell and then independently) a succession of airy pavilions that mitigated the steamy heat and filtered the brilliant light. In Ezra StollerÕs crisp period photographs these houses seem almost dreamlikeÑtoo graceful and pure to endure storms and the crass consumerism of waterfront development. And yet, despite the pressure of escalating land prices and the cult of gigantism, most of these houses have survived in their original form, and several have been lovingly restored. Every aficionado of mid-century modern should buy this elegant volume. (Michael Webb is the book reviewer for LA Architect magazine.)

Those luminous yellow eyes watching me, that's what I remember most clearly about this fascinating dark little tale. I checked out The King of the Cats from the public library when I was eight years old and staying with my grandmother. I've never forgotten it. An old man walking home through the louisiana bayou night sees a ghostly funeral procession of cats comes home to his tarpaper shack and tells his old wife about it. Watch their big tomcat's eyes as he tells the story. In these days of the blatant scary fiction of R.L Stine and Goosebumps The King of the Cats is subtle, beautiful, and foreboding in a sort of mesmerizing way that is truly uncommon in children's literature. I don't know if it is, but is has the feel of an old oral folk tale, worn smooth to its most basic elements by years of telling. At eight, I loved it, at twenty four, I still love it.