Architect's Guide to Feng Shui, Exploding the Myth

Rating:
Summary: Worthless Crap! Total Waste of Money!
Review: I purchased this book, hoping that it would help my architect use the principles of Feng Shui in the design of my new home. After reading it myself, I saw that this book is not at all what it purports to be. In fact, it seems to be little more than a vehicle for the author's own self-aggrandisement. I was duped and I wasted my money. I hope that this con artist of an author will spare us any further writings!

Rating:
Summary: Packed With Useful Information
Review: If you've surfed the net trying to find competent material about feng shui, no doubt you've stumbled upon Cate Bramble's expansive site that debunks fake feng shui, or what Cate calls, McFeng Shui. Bottom line: she tell it like it is. In her book, Architect's Guide to Feng Shui, Cate continues her mission. The first part helps the reader understand Chinese cosmology (yin/yang, 5 element theory, etc.) and the study of form (size and shapes of buildings, mountains, and waterways in the vicinity), and how these subjects ultimately relate to good building design. She backs up the Chinese belief system with modern facts and statistics. Cate also stresses "green" or environmentally sound issues. Although the book is best understood by those who have been previously exposed to classical feng shui teachings, if read slowly and thoroughly, even the novice will benefit by it.

Rating:
Summary: Hypocrite
Review: Poorly written, but that's no surprise.

I first came into contact with Bramble on her website and HAD to check out her book because the website was so offensive.

While Bramble criticizes every western Feng Shui practitioner who has been moderately successful at publishing, she is trying to inflate her own image. Get it...cut everyone else down so she looks better in comparison.

The result is that her own work is pathetically commercial, exactly what she criticizes everyone else for. And she doesn't even seem to realize it herself. Or if she does, she just expects to bully the reader into thinking she is right.

Look at her website www.qi-whiz.com. Notice how much hatred is flowing from her typewriter? How can someone with so much hate be any good at anything with a spiritual component? It's like asking George Bush to give the Pope his last rights.

Don't buy this book. Visit her website and decide for yourself is this person's emotional instability is something you want to incorporate into your life-long home.

Rating:
Summary: An interesting topic poorly presented
Review: This book purports to rubbish non Classical feng shui but finishes up talking about green issues and electro-magnetic pollution. Neither of these things are part of Classical Chinese feng shui, which is about orientation, timing, direction and the movement of ch'i and water and these things effects on the people who live a specific location.
Cate Bramble falls into the trap of retailing New Age nonsense as if it were real feng shui, whilst chiding other people for doing just that.
It would have been helpful if the book contained real background material on Chinese building techniques and materials, like Evelyn Lip, but in a more organised way. Then the reader could see where feng shui applies to modern architecture. But Cate unfortunately does not do this in any depth.

Rating:
Summary: Not a 'How To'
Review: This book was written with the premise of helping professional architects to interface with Feng Shui practitioners and the advise/suggestions they might put forward on building or remodeling plans. It offers some insight into what Feng Shui considers in making evaluations of a building or building site, and at it's best attempts to convey the realization that much of Feng Shui seeks to direct planning in the way of basic common sense. It is quite direct in it's opinion of the errors of the "New Age" variations of Feng Shui, those not based on the Five Element Theory, broadly categorized as "Mc Feng Shui".
This is all well and good as background data, but is so general as to be useless in evaluating any specific site or plan. Did I mention that this book is definitely not a "How To" book. Do not look here for any insight into the particulars that are needed to actually calculate any aspect of Feng Shui. At best, this book will help you cram for your next cocktail party display of erudition to better impress your friends and rivals.

Rating:
Summary: Does Bramble Rhyme With Ramble?
Review: Yes, it does and, in this case, it's not a coincidence. Techniques or methodology? Not here folks. Hoping to find some useful tidbits amid the chaotic ramblings of this book-lite, my search proved futile. Bramble spits, rants and rambles on about all the wrongs of FS, but rarely offers insight on what she considers "right". Also, her supposed "research" is a mere regurgitation of previously published facts and theories - the sheer number of which serve as a smoke screen for her own lack of in-depth knowledge or original thoughts. The "conclusions" she arrives based on others' writings have as much to do with logic as little baby rabbits have to do with bungee jumping. Add to that her left turn into tree hugging and ilk of that sort, and my impulse was to "put the book down and back away slowly".

Sad this soapboxer is held up as a modern day FS poster child by some genuinely knowledgeable FS masters. A self-proclaimed FS expert, she does much more harm to the reputation of FS than those she accuses of new age feng shui. Additionally, I believe she does more toward turning people away from a valid practice than she does toward helping educate people in FS.

Bramble's website slogan reads "Feng Shui facts without the psychobabble". Perhaps a more concise and apt slogan, which also sums up my review of this publication, would be just plain "Psychobabble".