Found at Miami's library book sale. A book about chairs is exactly the type of micro-history books I like.

It's very interesting to learn more about how chairs come about. This book tells you to forget the quest for a comfortable chair. It just doesn't exist... Our anatomy just can't allow us to sit in a chair comfortably for a long time. In fact, chair-sitting cultures suffer a lot more back pain compare to those without the luxury of "back support". The author offers some suggestions on improving work and school environment, and there are pictures of funny looking chairs that supposedly are better designed, but even though this book is over a decade old, I am afraid not much have been improved, and most of the chairs I see today are poorly designed.

Putting into bookbox.

Passing the Biography of Things bookbox back to 6of8 today.

I picked up the book box from Melydia last weekend and I am hoping to get it back on the road soon.

This book is now back in the Biography of Things bookbox and on its way to quietorchid in Minnesota.

Any future reader or recipient of this book is encouraged to leave a journal entry here on the BookCrossing site to let prior readers know the fate of the book. You can make an anonyous entry without joining the BookCrossing movement, but if you are interested in joining, it is a free and spam-free community where your contact information is not shared with others. Best of all, members receive private messages via e-mail from books like this one when those books are journalled, allowing for long-term relationships between books and readers.

I had to smile when I saw this one in the box - I've been watching this season of Ellen's Design Challenge on TV, in which designers compete to make various furniture, including chairs. So I nabbed this one from the box! (Had to giggle at the cover-art, showing the chair with one claw-foot extended to reach for its escaping ball.)

Later: There was a lot more to this book than I expected when I started it! Oh, it has plenty of information on the development and design of chairs, with notes on different cultures and their seating habits. But then it shifts into an in-depth look at the physiological aspects of sitting in chairs, with the author railing against most of the modern seating designs from bucket seats in cars to office chairs to typical residential seating. There are lengthy passages about the advantages of his recommended seating styles with regard to reducing back pain and other joint ailments, and I admit some of those made sense.

One of the alternate-seating-style sections dealt with the "kneeling chair", in which a shin-rest takes some of the user's weight, and the body's center of gravity is more forward than in a typical chair. (I actually had one of these years ago, and found it surprisingly comfortable to sit in - but I also found that getting in and out of it was a bit awkward, and I eventually got rid of it.)

The author compares the squatting-on-the-floor alternative to seating, and clearly finds that preferable, but admits that people raised in Western culture - and on chairs - find it difficult to manage a comfortable, long-term squat, though that's something one could learn with practice. Just for fun I Googled for some squat-vs-sit information, and came up with this Huffington Post article, along with other intriguing discussions of how and why to squat or otherwise floor-sit. Makes me want to do the same, though I'll have to clear the stacks of books off of the floor before I have the space!

Near the end of the book, the author describes his ideal workspace in loving detail, and with some tantalizing aspects - though the idea of working on a computer terminal from a recliner doesn't seem quite right to me! The lighting, temperature, and variable-height work surfaces all sound good, though, and having options for comfortable floor-sitting could be good. Whether one agrees with all those design choices or not, the thoughtfulness behind it impressed me.

I left this book in the book-swap shelf inside the terminal at around 1; hope someone enjoys it! [I'm still kicking myself for releasing this book *before* I got to the giant chair at the Kittery ME art institute. I left another book there instead, but oh, what a missed opportunity! I forgot that chair was there until I wound up driving by it... Maybe a future finder could leave it there someday! Then again, the chair-sculpture is a comfy-chair, the kind that the author of this book really detests, so perhaps it's just as well {wry grin}.]

*** Released as part of the 2016 Keep Them Moving release challenge. ***

*** Released as part of the 2016 Heads, Shoulders, Knees, Toes release challenge, for the embedded "hair" in the title. ***