Judith Clancy

This was a beautiful coffee book that also acted like a tour guide. It fell a little short of being effective for either genre. The photographs of Kyoto were gorgeous and tried to capture the beauty of Japan and its people, but left me hanging with the history. I would have loved more background information on the various sites. But it brought back wonderful memories of my childhood growing up in Japan and viewing some of the sites mentioned in the book.

The pictures were pretty, but the writing wasn't terribly exciting--I didn't actively enjoy reading the text, and I didn't get a great sense of how one garden might differ from another. I suspect (as is often the case for me, if not for others) this was yet another example of TMPNET (too many photos, not enough text).

(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of show more 4s). I feel a lot of readers automatically render any book they enjoy 5, but I grade on a curve! show less

1st ed. 250 copies were in special slipcases signed by both authors.