The Practical Encyclopedia of Feng Shui Hardcover – January 1, 2001

Best book ever, if only just to pick up and look at the pictures, not to mention the numerous great ideas about decorating, de-cluttering, and making living more comfortable. Through the years since I purchased this book, I never tire of looking through it for ideas, especially when I move, which I've done often. It makes a wonderful gift, also, with its compact size, its heavy weight, its thick, glossy pages, and its colorful photographs.

This book has motivated me to get rid of the clutter in my house which helps get rid of the clutter in my brain...ha, ha

I saw this book in a doctor's office and almost took it! When I found this book was still available I had to have it!

I have just started learning about Feng Shui. Before I was interested in it but thought it was much too complicated and dificult for someone who just wants to do it for fun. It does look hard at first when you take numbers and direction into consideration. But it's not, the basics of Feng Shui are very simple and with a book like this you will learn in no time!Hale goes over the Bagua, the funky octagon shaped diagram you've probably seen before but didn't know what it was! Well it's a tool for Feng Shui and it's called a Bagua. Each side represents an element, color, and a part of your life like work, money, romance, etc. He breaks the Bagua down and makes it very easy to understand. Think of the room you want to "Feng Shui". Then imagine an invisible octagon on the floor of this room, each side representing something. How do you know which side goes where? Hale makes that easy.You discover what your "Kua" number is by adding the numbers of the year of your birth until you reach a single digit. Then for men you take this number and deduct it from ten. For women you don't deduct but you add five instead. Once you have this number you can discover what directions are best for placing your bed, your desk, things like that. Hale provides a list and all you need is a compass. Your head should point in this direction and your desk should face this direction. Once you know which direction is best for you, you can start with that "side" of the Bagua. Then the other areas of the room, what place is what, fall into place! And you can decorate accordingly and he offers suggestions and explains symbolism. There are lots of tips and taboos in this book, like windchimes stimulate the good "Chi", no mirrors reflecting the bed, always have the door in sight, no open shelving facing the bed or desk.This is turning out to be much easier than I thought and very fun. I highly recommend Hale's lovely book which is large and very illustrated so you can understand what he is talking about. He shows you how to feng shui a bedroom, entire house, garden, office, everything! Just a really pretty book with good ideas.

The Practical Encyclopedia of Feng Shui Gill Hale's Practical Encyclopedia of Feng Shui is first a complete volume describing the environmental science of feng shui. Readers learn what it is and how to use it to experience quality life in every pursuit.An introduction provides a brief summary on three major approaches to feng shui--the environmental approach, the compass approach and the intuitive approach, then goes into the principles of feng shui, the energy types, the elements, the animals and Chinese astrology. Space is also devoted to finding your magic number, the symbolic bagua, and finally feng shui in the modern world. If all this seems a little hard to inculcate, don't worry, in the subsequent chapters, putting the principles into practice is carefully explained for all aspects of the home, home office, garden and the working office. Business trips are touched on as well.A comprehensive index puts you on track and colorful photos and diagrams show proper layouts.Feng shui is such a vast study that no single book can capture all of the details, but this volume gives the essence and is a great addition to the feng shui library.Recommended.

This is a good book to get started into Feng Shui with. It contains many ideas, pictures, diagrams and suggestions to solve many basic feng shui problems. However, it didn't seem to address enough in some areas. For instance, my home faces south, yet almost every diagram for arrangment of garden features is for a north facing home, I'm left not really knowing what to do with my yard, how do I handle feng shui principles for my south facing property? Additionally, ideal gardens and homes are lavish, expensive things, and there isn't much for someone on a more limited budget to do with thier yard.Many charts for figuring interactions between people, directions, ideal arrangements are also given, but again, little information to fix whatever may already exist.The book itself is easy to go through to get ideas from the many beautiful pictures, but the print is rather small for a typical hardback book. Even with perfect vision, I had to hold the book too close and strain too much to read it. Overall a good start, somewhat overwhelming with so much information at once, and it left me feeling like I needed to consult an expert in Feng Shui for the next step.

This is a beautiful coffee-table book on Feng Shui, with literally hundreds of excellent color photographs, drawings, diagrams and other illustrations to help make visual sense of the concepts. One of its greatest assets is that it generally supports the excellent writings of Sarah Rossbach and Master Lin Yun on the subject, while some other illustrated volumes I've seen completely contradict them. Gill Hale knows his subject and writes with common sense and authority. The book is arranged logically, with chapters on clarifying your personal preferences (or type), placement of the home on the property, treatment of each major room, a major section on Feng Shui in the garden, the uses of water, color, sound and other enhancements and cures, and a concluding section on Feng Shui in the workplace. It features a wealth of design ideas that can be incorporated into real-life settings without costing a fortune.

Good book

I started appreciating the feng shui since I had this one now. Good resource book for more productive and healthy life. Helps you put good luck into your life and appreciates how positive spirit works around. A well reserched book.

This book was an excellent buy for someone who is interested in learning more about Feng Shui and how its principles are implemented. With great pictures and illustrations to help understand the theories set, it's a pleasure to read and ponder on your own living space and how you can improve it.Although it does go into great depth on Garden feng shui, which may be unnecessary for some, as not all of us possess such lavish and large garden spaces, I still consider this book to be well worth it's money. :)

This perfectly new book, ended up being damaged by the postman. Rather than to leave it by the door (as instructed) the postman has decided to fold the book and force it through the narrow letter box! Luckily only the back cover ended up being damaged. So the book itself was perfect, but be aware of the postman.