Infinite Spaces: The Art and Wisdom of the Japanese Garden; Based on the Sakuteiki by Tachibana no Toshitsuna Hardcover – Illustrated, April 26, 2013

I own a number of Japanese Gardening books, since I'm a landscape designer, and this is one that really helped me understand the macro concepts involved in Japanese Garden Design.The book is basically a series of well-thought-out and well-chosen quotes about Japanese Gardening, the philosophy, and how to do it, interspersed with gorgeous color photos of large-scale Japanese Gardens. I love the layout of the book and the way you can read and digest the book over a few days without getting bogged down in excess detail or too much text. The photos accompany the text well.It's not my favorite book on Japanese Gardening (get Serene Gardens for that) just because the photos are of such large gardens. I design home gardens, not giant estates, so while I could be inspired by the general concepts, there weren't concrete ideas I could take from it - few pathways, gates, fences, privacy screens, small-space plantings, etc.If you want to learn the philosophy behind Japanese Gardening in a fun and easy way while getting inspired by gorgeous photos, then this is a great book. If you're looking for concrete instruction or photographs that you can pull ideas from for your home garden, look elsewhere.

I like the beautiful photos of the Japanese gardens shown in this book. For further and in depth study of Sakuteiki, I recommend the translation work of Jiro Takei & Marc P. Keane (Sakuteiki - Visions of the Japanese Garden).For other books on Japanese gardens, I recommend books by Marc P Keane (Japanese Garden Design), David and Michiko Young (The Art of the Japanese Garden), Geeta K Mehta and Kimie Tada (Japanese gardens - Tranquility, Simplicity and Harmony).

This was part of a Christmas gift for my 78 year old mother who suffers anxiety. After Christmas dinner she sat down to glance through the book, and stated that she already felt calmer. Now she looks through it each night before bed. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

The photos are nice, but nothing special, and the quotes from Sakuteiki are all taken out of context and printed in large text, one or two quotes for each (often unrelated) photograph, in a sort of Hallmark card style. There are many better books to choose from, but if you collect books on Japanese gardening, this one may be of interest simply due to its odd format.

Although small in size, the content in this work make it worth owning. Beautiful images and thoughtful copy complete the package.

Great book with simple explanations of a Japanese garden and what to look for in creating one.

This is simply a picture book and not much else. Not very helpful if you are looking to create your own Japanese garden.

Very nice small book.

Excellent

le livre est bien mais on parle d'espace infini et un si petit format devient décevant et ne semble pas convenir avec le titre !