The Home As Sanctuary:
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In a Spiritual Style: The Home As Sanctuary
by Laura Cerswinske

In this combination of interior-design picture book and spiritual primer, author Cerwinske (In the Romantic Style, 1990) shows the reader how to transform that drab extra room into a Hindu shrine--or perhaps a goddess temple, or maybe a bedroom evoking the spirit of Aphrodite. Wherever your spiritual yearnings take you, traditional or New Age, there's wallpaper to match. Once one overcomes a certain revulsion at the trivialization implied by the phrase spiritual style, it is possible to appreciate this collection of photographs and accompanying text for what it really is: a rather nice interior-design book that happens to employ art and artifacts that possess an often vague religious connotation. (Less spiritual readers will be surprised to note that an artful arrangement of family photos classifies as an ancestral shrine.) Interior design lives on trendiness, and spiritual matters have certainly become trendy. This book is the inevitable result, and as such, it is sure to attract curious browsers. Ilene Cooper

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