JOY OF SHEDS

Inventor Trevor Baylis dreamed up the clockwork radio in his shed, George Bernard Shaw wrote Pygmalion in one, and Dylan Thomas famously retreated to his for poetry. Sheds helped Marie Curie carry out important research on radiation, they helped Daimler and Benz create two groundbreaking engines and they helped Momofuku Ando perfect the pot noodle. Phillip Pullman wrote some of his best stuff there while Virginia Woolf and Roald Dahl couldn't write anywhere else. The average UK man, it must be said, is far less likely to emerge with verse, but the shed remains a place of grand ambitions nonetheless. Sheds are also inextricably linked with crime! This wonderfully eccentric guide celebrates the humble outbuilding in all its glory. A chapter on "Pimp Your Shed" shows how to transform an ordinary structure into something delightfully over the top, while "Shed Facts" reveals that nearly one in five men have had an accident in a shed, making it the most hazardous spot in the home after the kitchen. "Shed Vision" explores the curious assortment of items people stash away, and "The Genus Shed" takes a playful scientific approach, placing the shed firmly within the Linnaean order of buildings. "Shed Experience" gathers stories from around the world, especially Australia, alongside entertaining dispatches from the world of the "Euro-Shed." You'll also find sheds popping up throughout culture: in literature (Lady Chatterley's Lover, Cold Comfort Farm), in film, and even in music. Altogether, it's a quirky, affectionate celebration of the small wooden structures that somehow hold so much imagination, nostalgia, and charm. Large print text, photos and line art, 160 pages.