Product Description

Jane Cumberbatch's vision is for a more balanced and simple, natural, and focused way of life. Jane Cumberbatch's Pure Style Living is a book about how to make the home a more sensual and practical environment in which to life, from choosing colors for walls to cooking a simple supper with fresh ingredients. The book is packed with affordable, inspiring, and achievable ideas that will help you to make the most of your home, even on the tightest budget. There is also a substantial visual directory and a list of suppliers to help you put together all the elements needed to create the Pure Style look.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #718495 in Books
• Published on: 2001-08-08
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 408 pages

Amazon.com Review
Books about pared-down minimalist décor--most of them featuring the much-ridiculed all-white-box room with one lonely straight-backed chair in the center--are plentiful. Few people can actually live in those rooms, though, and for those who prefer a little color in their lives, there's Jane Cumberbatch's Pure Style Living.

The first third of the book is dedicated to the "sources" of the author's style: the vibrant yellow-orange of a cut melon, the texture and deep rust of freshly dug red potatoes, the orderly rows of a plowed field, the satisfying sturdiness of a heavy, purely functional piece of furniture. Next is a somewhat ephemerally organized section called "Live," in which Cumberbatch's ideas of the simple life are fleshed out with huge photographs of simple and practical kitchen gardens, bedrooms, autumn picnic spreads, slipcovered sofas, and distraction-free home office spaces. There are a few easy projects, like making a table runner or a bulletin board, planting bulbs, canning marmalade, or whipping up a raspberry fool (the author is British and so are the recipes). A breezy bit about al fresco dining is particularly inspiring. The final third of the book, "Directory," is, essentially, a well-designed version of that literary masterpiece known as the IKEA summer catalog, lacking only the prices. It's a guilty pleasure, perhaps, to leaf through the pages and pages of essential items--good sherry in the pantry, vintage watering can in the garden, cork flooring in the workroom--but a pleasure nonetheless. --Liana Fredley

Review
Hers is an affordable achievable dream based on things that are easily available and one that Cumberbatch has promoted in the face of fashion fads for a decade or more. It is pretty, rustic, and contemporary, a sort of realistic Martha Stewart. (Elle Decoration)

About the Author
With her vision of a simpler, more natural life, Jane Cumberbatch has acquired a following as an international arbiter of interior style through her best-selling books Pure Style (published in 8 languages and 12 countries), and Pure Style Outside. A former home editor on House and Garden, Jane has worked for the last 12 years as a contributing journalist and styling director on leading publications including Elle Decoration, Homes and Gardens, and Good Housekeeping. Jane's distinctive and simple look has been used in the home furnishing departments and catalogs of many companies such as Habitat, Laura Ashley, and Spiegel. Jane's experience of creating simple, functional and timeless spaces stems from the years she spent restoring an 18th Century house in London, and building an airy white home in Spain. Juggling the demands of family life and three energetic children, Jane divides her time between her Spanish home and her converted warehouse in London. Her homes have been featured in many interior design publications in England, Europe, and America.

Pia Tryde's photographs have appeared in many lifestyle books. Her work also regularly appears in international magazines.

Customer Reviews

Down-to-Earth Living Style
"What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?"
~W.H. Davies

Jane Cumberbatch has a vision for a simpler existence that is more balanced and natural. She enjoys making her home more sensual, while also encouraging a practical environment in which you can really live. She is the mother of three children who thinks of her home as the heart of her daily life. To her, it is a place where she can connect with her real self.

The ideas in this book are affordable and there are a few moments of pure inspiration.

The contents include:

Recipes
Sources
Living
Nature
Scents
Texture
Eating
Architecture
Function
Order
Fabrics
Color
Work
Gardening
Playing
Washing
Sleeping
Flooring
Painting

This book is more about living simply than creating complicated projects. This is a book about how to make a home more stylish, sensual and peaceful.

There are useful ideas like how you can grow your own produce, recycle items you would normally throw away or how to use fewer chemicals and maybe even make your own compost heap.

I found the text inspirational and thought provoking in many ways. It is creative and evokes a feeling of crisp ideas, nostalgic memories from childhood and an awakening to the senses. Pictures of hanging clothes on a clothesline or sweeping a porch barefoot almost make you long for simpler times.

The pictures pour themselves over the pages with sheer beauty. This is a book you will want to sit and read while comfortably snuggling on your couch (which you wish looked like the pink one on page 190 where a child is peacefully sleeping) with a down comforter and a cup of tea. The pictures are interspersed with text in the first section. This is a combination of visual and intellectual appeal which I found to be almost unique in its form.

There are cute ideas like a bowl of soup decorated with a heart crouton and herbs which I really thought was delightfully fun. The pictures of making a raspberry fool look absolutely sinfully delicious. You just want to put a spoonful of raspberries in your mouth or enjoy the process of folding berries into cream.

Then there are ideas for scenting your bedlinen with fragrances or protecting your clothes with natural cedarwood blocks. There is a visual directory of ideas. The last section compliments the first as it gives you ideas on the materials needed to achieve the natural atmosphere described in the first section.

There are ideas for building a fire on a damp blustery day or how to bring nature into your home to increase tactile sensations.

While the ideas in "play" are not necessarily that original, you may have forgotten how as a child you carved out potato art to make potato prints. There is a cute way to decorate a tree with heart shaped pastry.

To find the recipes you have to turn to page 393 where you can find "mini" recipes for Chestnut soup, roast chicken with lemon and herb butter, chicken stock, sautéed carrots, mince pies, chocolate truffles, orange and almond cake and heart-shaped biscuits.

After reading this book I had this almost ecstatic feeling of just peaceful oneness with the earth and home. My thought it is due to the combination of visual and intellectual appeal.

A treat for the senses! Highly recommended for new home makers or for anyone who wants to immerse themselves in dreams, thoughts and creative ideas for a few hours. Another idea would be to read this book out in the sun with the breeze blowing through your hair.

A free-flowing book of inspirational ideas. It is brilliant in its simplicity!

~TheRebeccaReview.com

A Definite Must Have!
I've been a fan of Jane's since Pure Style and was eagerly awaiting by Amazon delivery of her new Pure Style Living. I was not disappointed. While this may be marketed as a home design text, it is really a philosophy of contemporary living combining gracious style with a remembrance of all those things that make you feel warm, cozy and comfortable. Her approach to living is fresh and her ideas can easily be incorporated into your everyday life - they are simple and affordable and a welcome change to a contemporary world full of just "too much stuff." I'd definitely love to have lunch with Jane!

OK for a Browse
Liberal use of white space and highlighted key words try to lend weight to the flimsy text of this lifestyle book. Unfortunately there is barely enough content for a series of newspaper columns.
The photos are first rate, but don't rescue the book.
Example: Under SEASONAL PRODUCE, the author says "Buy fresh produce locally and in season for better taste and texture." The illustrations filling most of that page are a series of colorful photos of tomatoes, cabbage, mushrooms, etc.
The interior shots and garden scenes would fit very well in a book on English country homes. These are lovely.
Tacked on at the end is a page with 13 recipes. Another appendix includes 13 pages of address for buying linens, accessories, lighting, etc. Only in a few places in the book are project instructions included (table runner, felt and ribbon bulletin board, comforter cover).
Mostly the text is banal and Martha Stewart has nothing to fear from this author.