The Well- Lived Life

by Dominique Browning

Few magazines can lay claim to a century of history or to having published work by so many extraordinary and distinguished photographers and writers as House & Garden. Now, straight from the pages of this well-loved periodical, The Well-Lived Life presents a lavish chronicle of a country and a culture coming into its own, documenting America's continuing education in matters of house, home and garden over the course of the twentieth century. Selecting high points from the magazine, this book surveys the growing confidence and imagination reflected in American interiors and entertaining over the last century - the dinners, picnics and parties of a country dedicated to welcoming others - and the changing definition of home. It also illuminates the joys - sedentary or sporting - Americans have always found in the out-of-doors. The Well-Lived Life surveys the landscape of our lawns and gardens, from rigid formality to wild, blowsy beauty, and takes a close look at blooms and their ability to charm, seduce, amaze and inspire. It also travels to the places we build to get away from it all - the cabins, cottages and summer palaces where we shed the formality and stress of everyday life. Above all, this volume illustrates the abiding affection we have for how and where we make our lives. Featuring such legendary photographers as Irving Penn, Horst P. Horst, John Rawlings, Andre Kertesz, Lord Snowdon, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Ezra Stoller and George Hoyningen-Huene.

250 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2003

About the author

Dominique Browning writes a monthly column called Personal Nature for the
 Environmental Defense Fund website. She is a regular contributor to the New
 York Times Book Review and also writes for O, Body + Soul, Wired, and
 Travel & Leisure, among other publications. Before House & Garden she 
worked at The Edison Project, Mirabella, Newsweek, Texas Monthly, and Esquire. She is the
 author of Around the House and In the Garden, and Paths of Desire:
 The Passions of a Suburban Gardener. She is the mother of two sons;
 her new house and garden are on the coast of Rhode Island.


Reviews

[JayeL]

July 2015: not available on audio at Mechanics' Institute

[Michael Heath-Caldwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting large book on interior design.