Promote good health and general well-being, improve your sex life and interpersonal relationships, and realize your personal and professional aspirations by arranging and decorating your home. Described by the author as "a Shiatsu massage for your whole being," Feng Shui is the ancient Chinese art of designing your surroundings in order to channel the positive energies of the universe and promote success in life, health, wealth, and happiness. Begin by studying the basic principles of Feng Shui: the concepts of chi energy, yin and yang, the Five Elements, the Eight Directions, and Nine Ki astrology, and learn to use the tools of the art. Next, examine the structure and shape of your home as well as its setting, and determine how these affect your life favorably or unfavorably. See how to furnish and decorate each room in the house in the best possible way. Guidance is given in choosing colors, fabrics, plants, mirrors, lighting, artwork, and other decorative elements. Arrange the seating in the living room to promote family harmony and sociability. Select table settings that will improve mealtimes. Situate your bed to enhance your communication skills, cure insomnia, or heighten romance. Regardless of how you want to improve your life, using Feng Shui you can get the forces of nature to work with you rather than against you. Ward Lock 160 pages (all in color), 7 3/4 x 10.
As defined by Brown, Feng Shui is "a complex integrated system of theory and practice" based on the "underlying premise that everything in your surroundings" can enhance or block energies. Developed by the Chinese over 4000 years ago, this discipline is becoming increasingly popular in the Western world as a new approach to interior design. Brown and Shurety take a similar approach to the subject, providing well-illustrated guides to the principles of Feng Shui and its use in interior design. With its charts and sample room layouts showing how to apply the principles, however, Brown's book is more accessible. Webster takes a more helpful-hints approach, examining the house as a whole and then room by room while offering a list of Feng Shui tips for achieving a desired effect. For a basic, overall approach, Brown's book is the best, although each of these is useful if there is a strong interest in this design approach.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
When multinational corporations the size of British Airways adopt an Eastern philosophy in practice, it is time to take notice. Such is the case with feng shui, the art of designing home and office to promote success. Since the discovery of the concept by the media in the early 1990s, books on the topic have become numerous. But Brown, author of The Principles of Feng Shui, has exorcised the mysticism from his explanation, preferring, instead, a how-to approach. Filled with charts that reinforce all his teachings, his book leads novices carefully through their paces, outlining yin and yang, chakra, and other basics, then discussing a home's structure, shape, and materials. Plus, he identifies problems, including clutter, which slows chi (energy); lack of natural light (for which one should substitute daylight bulbs and ivy plants); and I-shaped rooms, which cut chi (a mirror should be used in the narrow part). Though many people may scoff at the potential benefits of feng shui, to just as many other people, it's a sure thing. Barbara Jacobs
