Reviewd at http://fotofacade.com/?p=1110

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Product Description

Ever wondered why the floors in our terraced houses are different heights? Or what the landscape round where you live looked like before it was built on? And did you know you can date a building by its window sills? A LUST FOR WINDOW SILLS tells us why and how. Harry Mount takes us on an engrossing tour of the nation's architecture, exploring the quirks, foibles and tiny details that make our buildings unique, and revealing the fascinating stories and anecdotes behind them along the way. We see every historic building style in Britain in one hour's walk across London, from the Norman apse of St Bartholomew's in Smithfield to the National Gallery's Sainsbury Wing, via Gothic in Holborn, Sir Christopher Wren in the City and the Knights Templar at Temple. A trip up the M4 reveals some of our greatest country houses, while a visit to Stonehenge, Avebury and Silbury Hill is a journey back to the Bronze Age. This book is a lively, entertaining and affectionate portrait of our history and the Britain we live in today.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #21692 in Books
• Published on: 2008-10-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 374 pages

Review
'Brilliant, offbeat celebration . . . Harry Mount offers an uncluttered survey of British architectural history and clear, memorable explanations. It is packed with intelligent tips . . . Mounts is an irreverent entertaining guide' --Thomas Marks, DAILY TELEGRAPH

Review
'It's a stroll, a jaunt, possibly a meander, taking the reader through all the architectural periods, around most building types and down numerous strange-smelling alleys. In his previous book, AMO, AMAS, AMAT, Harry Mount succeeded in introducing Latin to an audience that had not known that it was equal to the classics. Here he does the same for architecture. Clearly he is passionate about it; the enthusiasm rubs off'

Review
'A bright-and-breezy guide to British architecture. It is well informed and impressively referenced'

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Customer Reviews

A Lust for Intelligence
Mount is to be congratulated on producing a study which is lucid and funny, and equally useful to the amateur fan as well as the architectural expert. His great gift is to make what is (too often) solemn great fun. He did it with Latin; now he has done it with buildings.

A perfect Christmas present
Just when the world seems to be collapsing in economic ruin, Mount gives us a book-full of reasons to take pleasure in what we see around us. I'll be buying several copies to give to people this Christmas - and I expect to see this charming, clever, hugely entertaining tome popping up in people's homes for years to come. Mount has staked a powerful claim to be the James Lees-Milne of our time.