There are so many things to like about Kevin McCloud's 43 Principles Of Home. This is a book absolutely packed with ideas and in which McCloud presents his manifesto for a more thoughtful and responsible lifetyle - I'm avoiding the term 'sustainable', because like McCloud, I think it's overused and often rather meaningless.

As on his TV series Grand Designs, McCloud is able to mix romanticism with pragmatism, the Big Picture issues with the design minutiae. 43 Principles moves through ideas such as carbon emissions and embodied energy, the characteristics of common construction metals, from choosing taps and handles to town planning and the preservation of historic buildings to buying authentic goods and the importance of context and design narrative. The 43 Principles presented throughout the book are both philosophical and practical, and while this is not a DIY book anyone carrying out home renovations, or with an interest in sustainable design, will find plenty to mull over.

I loved the style of this book. It is intellectual and conversational, and written with a lot of humour and wit. McCloud discusses modern design and environmental issues against a background of architectural history and philosophy, social history, gadgetry and technical detail all while displaying an infectious enthusiam.

43 Principles is fantasically laid out with coffee table book styling, wonderful thick, tactile pages and a range of great illustrations including photography, sketches and diagrams.

This is a wide ranging, comprehensive and very readable book, but perhaps most importantly it's thought provoking and suggests workable solutions to all manner of modern lifestyle issues. ( )

This is a weighty tome of a book. An interesting, occasionally infurating tome, begging to be read in electronic form, for portability's sake. Built like a coffee table book with photographs that lack annotation (feh and grrr) and a lot of white space and large print this could be compressed but it's size and solidity seems to give it a certain gravitas. I liked it, but there were times when he came across as a bit pretentious. Seriously the interviews with the dead? Whinnowed from their writings? Why not just present the writings?

Overall he presents a lot of food for thought, a book to make me think, a book that fails to see how people without a certain level of income can cope with being more green. A book that left me with more questions than answers and a certain level of despair. ( )

Monograph Library - shelved at: B11:McCLOUD