The Opposite of Cold: The Northwoods Finnish Sauna Tradition

I show all my friends. Its a great discussion point

After having read all the reviews, I decided to buy this book since it’s pretty price for a book. It’s well worth the money. Beautiful illustrations and very informative! Exactly what I was looking for; a coffee table book for all my friends who love to come over for a sauna Amd would like to know more about it.The negative comment about “nudity” in some reviews is not warrant at all. Very tasteful and appropriate to the topic of taking a sauna.I do appreciate all reviews but it shows that we do all have diff Et sensibilities!If you love saunas and would like to read a book that is beautiful, tasteful and informative, but this one! Thank you to the author and photographer for such a beautiful book!!!

I love this book. The photography of traditional, and ultra modern saunas are awesome. I bought it as a coffee table book for our vacation rentals to encourage people to try our lakeside sauna during their stay(pic included). We have many traditional Finnish neighbors who family sauna every Saturday. Reviewers who are complaining about nudity in a book about sauna need to get a clue. Its about Finnish culture, not your culture.

People of Finnish ancestry will likely be well-entertained by this book, The Opposite of Cold. Much from my home area and many familiar names. I loved the background information in regard to sauna and the Finns. The photographs in the book are delightful and those of the fancier saunas bring up the envy! Wow! They are several steps above saunas of those I knew in my younger days. But the idea that "sauna" is a ritual, a process, a healing, a shared event - all that rings true! I need to find more copies for other friends. The word does not rhyme with "donna," you ought to know - it is pronounced "sow-na." The mention of electric stoves as replacement for the wood-burning sauna stoves is a concession to modern times, but the knotty pine interior is certainly one facets that should not. Aroma of warm pine wood is an important element of sauna. The book is a very entertaining read, or to browse.

Though there's some good info and background on sauna history and culture, there is too much emphasis on the weird and 'over-designed' saunas of the homes off the very wealthy. These aren't the little wooden saunas that Finnish farmers would build first on the homestead to live in until they finished the farm (despite the picture on the cover) -- more likely, most of the ones in the book are in millionaires homes or vacation houses! ... Making this book sometimes embarrassingly like something from Architectural Digest, rather than relating to what most people will ever experience as sauna in the northwoods (at least I hope, as I dread the northwoods becoming the next Aspen or Montana; the latest must buy location for the well-connected with their massive and gated castles!)There are also some truly awful and freakish-looking "hdr' photographs in the book.So somewhat useful, especially if you can get it used for ~half the new price, but don't count on seeing many saunas in the traditional northwoods or Finnish sense here. Luckily there are better, older books available on the topic.

This was so interesting to look at and read. We gave it to my mother as a gift, as she is full Finn and grew up with a sauna very similar to some of the ones in the book. Because it is tradition in Finland to use a sauna as a bath, it is important to note that there are some photographs that include nudity (tastefully done, and a true cultural representation). This was a spectacular book that includes fascinating history, photographs, and personal accounts of the wonderful thing we Finlanders call "sow-nah"!

This book was excellant. Lots of pictures. Also lots of names of people I know. In fact, the cabin we had growing up is in this book. Well not the cabin, but the sauna.I would recommend this book to anyone. Like a review of cabins and saunas in the north and a history of them.. If you grew up taking saunas and jumping in the lake at almost any time of year, you will enjoy this book.

Great book for those of us that enjoy the sauna and the Finish tradition.

I got this as a gift for a friend who likes going to saunas in the UK, having had a quick glance through the book I found that it's a great insight into the Finnish sauna culture. Plenty of pictures and descriptions of sauna-related topics we just aren't aware of here in the UK. A nice Sunday read.

This is a history of the Finnish immigrant and their Sauna culture in the USA and Canada.its how to use the Sauna and build them!Great book will designed and super Photos.

A very nice coffe table book, about the history and such of saunas no instructional matter though.