Bohemian Manifesto: A Field Guide to Living on the Edge [Hardcover]

Laren Stover (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 2, 2004

Bohemianism is a way of life, a state of mind, an atmosphere. It is not a trend, its a timeless movement. It is about living beyond convention. BOHEMIAN MANIFESTO explores and joyfully celebrates the creativity, the originality, and the splendor of a lifestyle and spirit shared by free-thinking, free-living artists, poets, writers, sculptors, musicians, and intellectuals. This is the first book to distill and categorize all the ingredients of Bohemian life. In a witty and engaging style, Laren Stover examines the contents of a Bohemians closet, bathroom, and bookshelf. She explains the allure of absinthe, why it isnt wise to leave a Bohemian unattended in your home--you could return to find nude nymphs painted on your lamp shades--and how to identify what type of Bohemian you might be.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Stover (The Bombshell Manual of Style) wrote her playful anthropology of Bohemian culture from an insider’s viewpoint. The daughter of Bohemians, at one time a fully practicing Bohemian, and a now a Bohemian "with some bourgeois pretense," she is clearly steeped in the lifestyle. In this book, she documents the most important attributes of the five variations of Bohemians (Nouveau, Gypsy, Beat, Zen and Dandy) and of Bohemian philosophy generally, beginning with a "diagnosis" that serves mostly to emphasize how varied Bohemians are and how fiercely they resist any kind of classification. Stover is fully aware of the futile nature of her quest to pin down such elusive characters, and her writing is accordingly ironic, full of asides and amusing pseudo-scholarly footnotes. The book’s four main parts describe Bohemians in all their counterculture splendor, with short sections on everything from typical Bohemian names ("they name their offspring with the same whimsical sensibility with which they name their pets"), clothes, typical relationships, choice of reading material and music, and eating habits (featuring "The Twenty-Four-Hour Menu of the Starving Bohemian"). In fictionalized profiles of nine Bohemians from around the world, including Dantini the septuagenarian magician and Atlas the Dutch artist, Stover brings these unusual figures to life in a wonderfully familiar way. True Bohemians certainly won’t need this book to decide whether they’re Bohemian, but may enjoy these humorous takes on their subculture, and non-Bohemians will find it a delightful introduction to that unique existence.
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About the Author

Laren Stover is the author of The Bombshell Manual of Style, and a novel, Pluto, Animal Lover, a finalist for The Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers award. She has been a resident of Yaddo and Hawthornden Castle and received the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation grant for fiction in 1991. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Bomb, and The New York Observer. She lives in New York.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Bulfinch; Second Printing edition (November 2, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0821228900
• ISBN-13: 978-0821228906
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 1 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #96,891 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I have a degree in fine arts and like to think I paint with words. I adore illustrated books! Ruben Toledo created beautiful watercolours for my style guide, The Bombshell Manual of Style. Paris-born Izak illustrated Bohemian Manifesto. I want all my future books to be illustrated, fiction and nonfiction! (Ruben recently created iconic cover arts for three classics including Pride and Prejudice.) PHOTO: Marion Ettlinger for upcoming The 27 Notebooks of Nick Dante.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of My Favorites!!, December 30, 2008

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Red Pineapple (Washington State) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Bohemian Manifesto: A Field Guide to Living on the Edge (Hardcover)

This is one of those books that you can read over and over again. It's not only humorous in its descriptions of Bohemian living, but it's a wonderful escape from the rampant materialism that drives our everyday world. The Bohemian doesn't worry about cleaning or working or any of those things that we think about constantly. Instead, Bohemian life centers on sensual and intellectual pleasures. Instead of "playing the game", they do what they really want to do, whatever that may be, despite the consequences. It's an incredibly seductive image to those like me who are scared of being trapped in the corporate box, which seems to lie in wait for everyone at some point in their lives.

Laren Stover obviously has knowledge of her subject, unlike some other writers who treat Bohemianism academically. Instead of presenting us with a romanticized image of care-free Bohemians, she presents us with the human side of the Bohemians. Although she does not dwell on the downside to to Bohemianism, the picture she paints is no less real. This book does not inspire me with the urge to abandon my home, family, and friends and hit the road with some traveling band of street performers. But it does inspire me to look at my life in a new way, and to adopt ways to live more naturally, outside the confines of the narrowly-defined norms that dictate our behavior, and sometimes even out thoughts. Bohemian Manifesto indeed provides us with a way out. I recommend that everyone read and take from this book something that will rescue them from the trappings of modern society.

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A fun read!, March 31, 2006

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Dang Special "Hollie" (Atlanta, Tx) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bohemian Manifesto: A Field Guide to Living on the Edge (Hardcover)

This book is my favorite book. I have read it several times and have taken the little personal quiz at the end at least five times... It's not a book meant to taken seriously...it's not a dictionary or a self-help book or even a true 'field guide' for that matter. Just entertainment. I have never come acorss another book where the author describes things in such delicious ways. I can actullay see, quite vividly, in my head everything that she is describing; colors, shapes, smells, sounds... and the illustrations are simply amazing. A great read for all bohemians, bohemian wannabes or someone who is just simply curious...

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars La vie de Bohème, November 30, 2004

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Theodore "A Dandy from Boston" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bohemian Manifesto: A Field Guide to Living on the Edge (Hardcover)

I got this book from a friend for my birthday. She said that I reminded her of the "Dandy" bohemian. I can't believe how perfect and handsome the book is. Being a true bohemian I don't need help in learning what to do but this book is so funny and true. And is very well researched-the author even knew that the Romantic poet Coleridge wrote with his gout medicine when he ran out of ink! I recognize several of my friends in these pages and will be getting them their own copies for Christmas. It makes being an outsider seem normal.

Great artwork, too!