Free Download of eBooks on Garden Design and History by Tom Turner in October 2008

London, UK (PRWEB) September 1, 2008 -- To celebrate Gardenvisit.com's 10th birthday, two eBooks are being offered for free download in October 2008 only. They are: The Principles of Garden Design (normally £9.50/$17.50) and 24 Historic Styles of Garden Design (normally £7.50/$13.50). They were written by Tom Turner, whose book on Garden History has come top on Amazon.com since publication in 2005.

http://www.gardenvisit.com/ebooks

The Principles of Garden Design uses 130 photographs to explain the core principles of designing gardens which are useful, well-made and beautiful.

24 Historic Styles of Garden Design uses 230 photographs to give a crisp summary of 4000 years of garden history. It starts with the temples and courtyards of Ancient Egypt and finishes with the gardens of the 21st century.

Tom Turner, a well-known landscape architect and garden historian, said:

"These eBooks explain the features of the great historic garden styles - and how the next generation of gardens should be designed." Winston Churchill made a wise remark which applies to gardens and politics: 'The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you can see.'

For more information or review copies of the eBooks, please contact:

Sarah Turner phone +44 207 207 3782 mobile + 44 7968 044349

The download arrangements for the eBooks as follows: (1) Journalists: please send requests for review copies from your business email to sarah@gardenvisit.com (2) The eBooks are available for immediate purchase from the Gardenvisit.com website. (3) During October 2008, only, there will be an active links for free download by the public on the Gardenvisit.com homepage. (4) People can signup online now to be reminded when the books are available. The dates are:

1-15 October 2008: The Principles of Garden Design available for free download (ISBN 978-0-9542306-2-3, 45 pages, 130 illustrations) The eBook explains the 3 classic design principles: gardens should be useful, gardens should be well-made and gardens should be beautiful. The normal retail price of this eBook is £7.50.

15-31 October 2008: 24 Historic Styles of Garden Design available for free download (ISBN 978-0-9542306-3-0, 84 pages, 230 illustrations) The eBook gives simple and clear explanations of the use and form of the 24 best-known historic styles of garden design, extending from the temples and courtyards of Ancient Egypt to the Modern and Postmodern styles of the 21st century. The normal retail price of this eBook is £9.50

http://www.gardenvisit.com/ebooks

Gardenvisit.com has also published: Indian gardens, (£15.50 eBook, 2008) the first English translation of Marie-Luise Gothein's classic Indische Garten (1926) and a chapter from the world's first book on landscape architecture: Gilbert Laing Meason's Landscape architecture of the great paintings of Italy, 1828 (£4.50, eBook, 2008).

Gardenvisit.com is the oldest and largest website of its kind. It was established at the height of the Dotcom era (October 1998) with the aim of helping people find the best gardens to visit and explaining the art of garden design: 'How to find good gardens' and 'How to design good gardens'. Gardenvisit.com also has a large section on the 'sister art' of landscape architecture, answering the same 'How to' questions for good public 'landscapes': where to find them and how to plan them.

Statistics: The Gardenvisit website has details of 2,326 top gardens in 54 countries and the full online text of 27 books, including the Complete works of Humphry Repton and Gertrude Jekyll's Colour Schemes for the Flower Garden. This amounts to over 3m words and 12,000 illustrations. The website was redesigned in 2007 on a Web 2.0 model with provision for User Generated Content and Google maps with aerial photographs. Garden visitors can write reviews of gardens they have visited. Manufacturers can have a free listing in an online directory.

The website editor, Tom Turner, teaches garden design at the University of Greenwich and is the author of:

Garden history philosophy and styles 2000BC to 2000AD (Spon Press, 2005, ISBN-13: 978-0415317498)

City as landscape: a post-postmodern view of design and planning (Spon Press, 1996 ISBN-10:0419204105)

English garden design since 1650 (ACC, 1986, ISBN-10: 0907462251)

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