Every Room Tells a Story: Tales from the Pages of Nest Magazine

Rating:
Summary: Best of Nest
Review: Amounts to little more than a "Greatest Hits" of Nest Magazine. If you, like me, can't bring yourself to shell out 10 bucks for the intriguing but fluffy mag, buy this book and save money!

Rating:
Summary: No waist-up publication
Review: As editor Joseph Holtzman warns us, the houses in this book "have private parts. Nest is no waist-up publication." The book is indeed saucy-and, often, downright sexy-but it isn't just a nudge-and-giggle affair. In widely varied and gorgeously illustrated essays, it explores relationships between our homes and our inner lives with uncommon intelligence, wit, and imagination. While design is the unifying thread, topics range from a Tibetan yak-hair tent to the set of I Love Lucy. Carl Skoggard's elegant prose perfectly compliments the lush images.

Rating:
Summary: Get the old back issues instead
Review: First, who ever heard of NEST magazine? I think the book's subtitle ought to say something more substantial, because NEST magazine isn't even known by 99.9 percent of consumers. I've perused it at a local bookstore. Second, just go to the library and look at back issues to see these previously published homes instead of spending money on the book.

Rating:
Summary: Displeased
Review: Had Amazon allowed me to preview even a single page from inside the book, I never would have bought it. A curiosity, a novelty, a cultural speciman, it may be. But as far removed from helpful or even interesting as one can get.

Rating:
Summary: Nest helped me to appreciate both jails and castles
Review: Having been lucky enough to spend one week in a "deep-South" county jail for hitch hiking on expressways (back in the 70's) ... then released with no charge! I loved the Nest article on the cells. I bought Nest for our guests in Chateau-Bois-Briand because of its sophistication and originality. Most of our guests are "road-warriors" and "trouble-shooters" who enjoy reading this kind of books, sipping a Cognac next to the fire-place in a 600-years old castle.
Viewpoints and pictures are so unusual that you never get bored. Nest is a reference. This is why I would advise to buy it, either as a magazine or as a book like this one. You will never throw it away.

Rating:
Summary: Nest helped me to appreciate both jails and castles
Review: Having been lucky enough to spend one week in a "deep-South" county jail for hitch hiking on expressways (back in the 70's) ... then released with no charge! I loved the Nest article on the cells. I bought Nest for our guests in Chateau-Bois-Briand because of its sophistication and originality. Most of our guests are "road-warriors" and "trouble-shooters" who enjoy reading this kind of books, sipping a Cognac next to the fire-place in a 600-years old castle.
Viewpoints and pictures are so unusual that you never get bored. Nest is a reference. This is why I would advise to buy it, either as a magazine or as a book like this one. You will never throw it away.

Rating:
Summary: Every Room Tells a Story: Tales from ... Nest Magazine
Review: Holtzman is the John Waters of interior design: ironic, iconoclastic, an impresario of the outrageous. His publication is die-cut and drilled (I thought Grant Mudford was going to punch him out for piercing his images when the two met at an LA reception for nest) but never dull. This editor has progressed far beyond conventional notions of good taste, juxtaposing stately homes and prison cells, trailers and Carlo MollinoÕs Turin apartment in a surreal collision of styles. As a minimalist I put down this book with a shudderÑthe riotous excess brought on an attack of claustrophobiaÑbut others may love it. (Michael Webb is the book reviewer for LA Architect magazine.)

Rating:
Summary: Design with intelligence and insight!
Review: It is refreshing to discover a design book that is thought-provoking and intellectually stimulating. Every Room Tells a Story is not simply a republication of former issues of NEST. Rather, new material--both visual and textual--affords powerful insight into the creative artistry behind NEST. No one who reads the magazine will be surprised to hear that the writing is superb--entertaining, insightful, revealing. Every Room occupies a unique position in design books: it not only looks at design for its own sake, it delves deeper to explore anthropological and psychological elements behind choices of decor. Any reader interested in the diversity of the human experience will fall in love with this book. I recommend it most highly!

Rating:
Summary: I recommend this book very highly
Review: Nest has been a true godsend in the otherwise discouraging world of disposable-vehicle-for-consumption magazines. Not only does nest have more visual appeal than the slickest of fashion or design magazines, it also has content: articles ranging from the scholarly to the surreal, but always well-written; photography by the likes of nan goldin and richard barnes. Anyone who is interested in architecture, design, photography, or simply the peculiarities of human behavior- in fact, anyone who is interested in anything at all- would enjoy reading nest.
For those who don't know the magazine, this book is a great introduction to the first twelve issues. And for those who are already fans or even devotees, the book provides wonderful insights into the design and editorial process of the magazine's creators. It also contains material from the first issue, which is impossible to find used.
This book will inform, educate, entertain and astonish you. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Rating:
Summary: A disappointment
Review: Poorly designed, nothing more than reprints of selected pages from each issue. If Nest is going to do a book, I want to see a "Nest"-y type book featuring the same wit and creativity that characterizes the magazine, not some self-congratulatory, half-baked reprint. Buy the back issues instead, don't waste your money.