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Book Review: The Foundations of Bonsai - Harry Harrington
I recently finished with Harry Harrington's book: The Foundations of Bonsai and will do a quick review for anyone who may be interested. A little background first: Mr. Harrington is a bonsai artist located in the UK and runs the website bonsai4me.com - where I am sure many of us have picked up species information. This book was on sale through stonelantern.com in various packs, I picked it up with Harrington's Inspirations Vol 1. My understanding is that Foundations is a work curated from Mr. Harrington's personal notes and information found on bonsai4me.com and was originally available as an ebook for $6. The cover price of the hard copy is $24.95 and the quality of the book itself is such that I wouldn't think twice about this price should I have found it on the shelf of a physical bookstore. The cover is of heavy stock paper, the book is weighty at 120 pages and feels good in the hand.
The book is broken up into 23 short chapters covering all of the basics of the hobby. While general topics such as watering and tools are discussed, Mr Harrington also touches on more nuanced topics such as timing and propagation. Each section is accompanied by beautiful photos illustrating either the concept at work, or a tree that incorporates that concept. The concepts are presented in a straightforward manner and the entire work is an easy read. Some of my favorite parts were the pictures in which the reader is shown the various stages of bud swell and examples of long internodes and how those internodes became elongated. It seemed to me that the author was very purposeful in putting pictures next to concepts discussed just in text elsewhere.
I wish that I had found this book when I was first starting out. So far, of the beginner books I have read, Foundations is the most straightforward to get you going in the hobby. I saw trees detailed in this book that looked like the trees I had starting out, as well as world class Bonsai. I feel that much material targeted toward the beginner features concepts on trees the average beginner will never touch in their entire Bonsai lifespan, many trees in this book seemed attainable. Mr. Harrington also puts an emphasis on the timing of techniques, while not telling the reader a firm schedule of maintenance, he explains how to begin developing the essential skill of "reading" or "listening" to your trees to decide when maintenance should be performed.
While I found this book an enjoyable read, and I revisited some concepts with a new eye, this book is not the only one you should have on your shelf by any means. It is instead a fantastic springboard to bring the beginner around to a concept and allow them to further delve into any of the individual topics in more detail with confidence. I would highly recommend this book to anybody starting out in their first year of the hobby, but those who have been kicking around the forums and been doing their own research may benefit more from the authors other works, Bonsai Inspirations 1 and 2.
I recently finished with Harry Harrington's book: The Foundations of Bonsai and will do a quick review for anyone who may be interested. A little background first: Mr. Harrington is a bonsai artist located in the UK and runs the website bonsai4me.com - where I am sure many of us have picked up species information. This book was on sale through stonelantern.com in various packs, I picked it up with Harrington's Inspirations Vol 1. My understanding is that Foundations is a work curated from Mr. Harrington's personal notes and information found on bonsai4me.com and was originally available as an ebook for $6. The cover price of the hard copy is $24.95 and the quality of the book itself is such that I wouldn't think twice about this price should I have found it on the shelf of a physical bookstore. The cover is of heavy stock paper, the book is weighty at 120 pages and feels good in the hand.
The book is broken up into 23 short chapters covering all of the basics of the hobby. While general topics such as watering and tools are discussed, Mr Harrington also touches on more nuanced topics such as timing and propagation. Each section is accompanied by beautiful photos illustrating either the concept at work, or a tree that incorporates that concept. The concepts are presented in a straightforward manner and the entire work is an easy read. Some of my favorite parts were the pictures in which the reader is shown the various stages of bud swell and examples of long internodes and how those internodes became elongated. It seemed to me that the author was very purposeful in putting pictures next to concepts discussed just in text elsewhere.
I wish that I had found this book when I was first starting out. So far, of the beginner books I have read, Foundations is the most straightforward to get you going in the hobby. I saw trees detailed in this book that looked like the trees I had starting out, as well as world class Bonsai. I feel that much material targeted toward the beginner features concepts on trees the average beginner will never touch in their entire Bonsai lifespan, many trees in this book seemed attainable. Mr. Harrington also puts an emphasis on the timing of techniques, while not telling the reader a firm schedule of maintenance, he explains how to begin developing the essential skill of "reading" or "listening" to your trees to decide when maintenance should be performed.
While I found this book an enjoyable read, and I revisited some concepts with a new eye, this book is not the only one you should have on your shelf by any means. It is instead a fantastic springboard to bring the beginner around to a concept and allow them to further delve into any of the individual topics in more detail with confidence. I would highly recommend this book to anybody starting out in their first year of the hobby, but those who have been kicking around the forums and been doing their own research may benefit more from the authors other works, Bonsai Inspirations 1 and 2.
