The devil on my left shoulder whispers this: "Bird Cloud" is an especially off-putting book about a wealthy and imperious writer who annoys the local residents (she runs off their cows), overwrites about nature and believes people will sympathize with her about the bummers involved in getting her Japanese soaking tub, tatami-mat exercise area, Mexican talavera sink and Brazilian floor tiles installed just so. "Bird Cloud" is shelter porn with a side of highbrow salsa.

In gardening parlance, the exuberantly shaded urns might be regarded as a delicious folly, a needlessly flamboyant landscaping gesture designed to delight the senses. (I know such terms because I worked for years at Canada's premier gardening magazine, now, like so many other examples of food and shelter porn, sadly defunct.)

Design buffs are mad for "Wallpaper*," the magazine that takes readers inside homes that don't exist to visit people who don't really exist, either.