What do you think?
Rate this book
The Feng Shui Doctor: Ancient Skills for Modern Living
Paul Darby has an international reputation as a Feng Shui master who specializes in practical solutions to everyday problems in the home or workplace. With The Feng Shui Doctor , he has created a complete how-to manual that helps us optimize energy flow and create a healthy, peaceful environment. Offering concise principles to follow, he tackles questions such How can we enhance our well-being by organizing the elements of a room according to the principles of chi? What if a space is radically out of step with the chi and cannot be changed without inordinate expense? How should we decorate different rooms to ensure that they are serving our deepest inner needs? Full of creative suggestions, this guide will transform your home.
- GenresNonfiction
244 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2007
2 people are currently reading
13 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 4, 2016
I purchased this book years ago but was never inspired to properly read it until I finished reading both KonMari Method books last month. Therein, feng shui is briefly mentioned a couple times, and, as I am now in the midst of wholeheartedly performing my KonMari tidying marathon, I thought reading this feng shui book would give me some good ideas for how to reorganize my house once I was done decluttering it.
At the beginning of The Feng Shui Doctor it is explained that the book was designed to be a quick reference, able to be carried around everywhere and referred to at any time. It’s certainly built to meet such a demand, small dimensions to fit in any bag and generally sturdy construction with thick pages and cover (except my copy’s cover, already being a used book when I obtained it, became detached as I reached the last few pages; nothing a bit of glue and some bulldog clamps won’t resolve, though) but I don’t feel this is a book that I personally will keep around now that I’ve finished reading it. I’m not saying the book has failed in its purpose--indeed I think many people would find this an excellent reference--but all of the information that I found most useful is not anything that I won’t be able to internalize and recall from my own mind (or at least take simple note of and find again in Google Docs) whenever it’s needed.
When I started reading this book, I was wary of anything too mystical. It’s not that I don’t enjoy learning about mysticism, it’s just that I have no intention of applying mystic ideas to my home organization and decoration. I’m looking only for practical advice that has solid reason behind it. Luckily, this book assuaged my doubts immediately. The author even included a line specifically explaining that feng shui can only create a good environment, it can’t magically make things happen for you. There was so much practical advice that I found almost the entire book to be of use to me. There were, admittedly, some things that I just won’t bother to do--like making sure certain colors are in certain parts of my house or moving all my books so that they overhang and mask the horizontal lines of the bookshelves--but I estimate these types of recommendations did not make up more than half of the contents of The Feng Shui Doctor. I was excited to find a great deal of useful, down-to-earth suggestions such as not keeping knives out in the kitchen (the mystical reason: unlucky, knives slice chi, etc; the practical reason: even when kept in a knifeblock, knives are dangerous, and keeping them in a cupboard also keeps them from getting dusty and dirty), don’t seat anyone with their back facing a window at the dinner table (natural instinct kicks in, making the person feel exposed), and keep the front porch lights on when it’s dark, at least until bedtime (this is especially good for me, because I work nights and come home in the dark! So I was already doing this, to be honest, ha ha).
Although I won’t be keeping this book with me forever, I still found it very helpful, interesting, informative, its advice practicable, and its reasoning understandable. I highly recommend it for anyone who has no foreknowledge of feng shui and would like a basic overview as well as those who would like a way to carry around the feng shui basics with them. This was a great place for me to start so I can only imagine it will work just as well for anyone else.
At the beginning of The Feng Shui Doctor it is explained that the book was designed to be a quick reference, able to be carried around everywhere and referred to at any time. It’s certainly built to meet such a demand, small dimensions to fit in any bag and generally sturdy construction with thick pages and cover (except my copy’s cover, already being a used book when I obtained it, became detached as I reached the last few pages; nothing a bit of glue and some bulldog clamps won’t resolve, though) but I don’t feel this is a book that I personally will keep around now that I’ve finished reading it. I’m not saying the book has failed in its purpose--indeed I think many people would find this an excellent reference--but all of the information that I found most useful is not anything that I won’t be able to internalize and recall from my own mind (or at least take simple note of and find again in Google Docs) whenever it’s needed.
When I started reading this book, I was wary of anything too mystical. It’s not that I don’t enjoy learning about mysticism, it’s just that I have no intention of applying mystic ideas to my home organization and decoration. I’m looking only for practical advice that has solid reason behind it. Luckily, this book assuaged my doubts immediately. The author even included a line specifically explaining that feng shui can only create a good environment, it can’t magically make things happen for you. There was so much practical advice that I found almost the entire book to be of use to me. There were, admittedly, some things that I just won’t bother to do--like making sure certain colors are in certain parts of my house or moving all my books so that they overhang and mask the horizontal lines of the bookshelves--but I estimate these types of recommendations did not make up more than half of the contents of The Feng Shui Doctor. I was excited to find a great deal of useful, down-to-earth suggestions such as not keeping knives out in the kitchen (the mystical reason: unlucky, knives slice chi, etc; the practical reason: even when kept in a knifeblock, knives are dangerous, and keeping them in a cupboard also keeps them from getting dusty and dirty), don’t seat anyone with their back facing a window at the dinner table (natural instinct kicks in, making the person feel exposed), and keep the front porch lights on when it’s dark, at least until bedtime (this is especially good for me, because I work nights and come home in the dark! So I was already doing this, to be honest, ha ha).
Although I won’t be keeping this book with me forever, I still found it very helpful, interesting, informative, its advice practicable, and its reasoning understandable. I highly recommend it for anyone who has no foreknowledge of feng shui and would like a basic overview as well as those who would like a way to carry around the feng shui basics with them. This was a great place for me to start so I can only imagine it will work just as well for anyone else.
December 13, 2008
This book is a great way to step into the art of Feng Shui. The advice is very very practical. It is a good read with plenty of Paul's gentle humour. There's no 'you must do this...or that'.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews