Lets look at some interesting Feng Shui books!
Starting at Xuan Kong systems. Most of them are very related to a legendary Grandmaster called Jiang Dahong, as members probably know.
XKDG is thinking of itself as to be the original system, while XKFX(Flying star) is what Shen managed to recover.
First to understand that we need the story of Shen. We can read it here:
https://bazifenshui.blogspot.com/2010/10/flying-star-shen-zhu-reng.html(at the bottom of the post)
So now we have 2 divisions, XKDG and XKFX both with the idea they are close to what was originally practiced by Jiang Dahong. The interesting factor is that both are so different that its difficult to think how both can be the same system.
Yet, both are also very interesting and many practitioners use both at the same time.
So lets look at XKDG, as the info here is much less.
For it I really like the book below. It is expensive and we do need extra material to use it(at least compass/Lo Pan for XKDG), but it gives a lot of very useful info, one of the cases when we can actually practice the system by itself with only one book and some extra material like the compass. Very good and useful in my point of view.
Of course, the system isn't for everyone, if someone decided to try it with the book, may want to read on it around the net, as there are doubts on many parts of it.
I personally accept that it works very well, as we have used it many times. But it is difficult and needs very good compass.
https://www.amazon.com/Xuan-Kong-Gua-Exactly-Dummies/dp/9671303889/For XKDG searching around a few more books can show up. Some is just reference material, there also is a book by Russian author that I'm not familiar with.
That somewhat covers it I think. There are materials in the net, but can't think of anything to mention specifically.
It had a date selection component, originally only for use with the system itself, but then expanded to more then Feng Shui. Very little info about it in English, but uses very similar principles then the system itself, so much of it can be guessed even without a book. And there are a few books, some can be found around the net in libraries, but aren't sold anymore. Won't post link as not sure if it would be problem with copyright to post.
That seems to cover most of XKDG in English I'm aware of.
For Flying Star there are many books. So much that covering even small part will be challenging. So lets just look at a few.
Translations of the 4 classic texts for Xuan Kong, Shen was teaching all of them back then. All translations are made by Hung Hin Cheong.
All are very good, in my view as we have much extra info without that the text itself won't be very useful.
That translations cover:
Purple White Script.
Ode to Flying Star
Ode to Mysticism
And Secrets of Xuan Kong.
While all of them have been studied back then, not all of them are equaly used today.
People seem to focus a lot on Purple White Script and a little on Secrets of Xuan Kong.
In my view, that is sad, as Ode to Flying Star, even if negative at times, have some very useful ideas, like how the forms around can be considered as stars and how that interacts and add layers of meaning to everything.
Calculations in Purple White Script can be very complicated. At times it moves to Na Yin and back to flying and trigrams and overall it can be challenging to calculate.
However, from what we have seen some ideas like House and Period Master seems to work very well.
We can also see ideas from QMDJ, like the Doors in much simplified way.
They are expensive, though, but they do offer a lot more then most Flying Star books out there do.
Other then that I don't want to recommend a specific Flying Star book, as most of them cover the same material. However, I can say that the material from Lillian Too is often underrated. She had some very nice working ideas not just for cures.
Yin Feng Shui, I don't want to comment on that. All history seems to suggest the sooner people stop practicing that the better for everyone(even more so for Feng Shui practitioners), but that is just my view/impression.
So lets go to San He and some general idea stuff.
When it comes to Water movements, I can't recommend anything. There are books about it and there are simplified ideas, but haven't tested any of them extensive enough to be able to recommend.
However, for foundational basic stuff, I can(and often do) recommend this nice book.
https://www.amazon.com/Guide-Feng-Shui-Simple-Guides/dp/0751335886/Name may sound silly, but its very good book for the foundational ideas that often are missing in many books, while without them any practice will have trouble working.
Another book worth mentioning:
https://www.amazon.com/Five-Classics-Fengshui-Sinica-Leidensia/dp/9004249869/The classic about the water dragon is must read(I linked it some time ago in another topic, so won't go into that again). In it we can see some text by Jiang Dahong where it seemed there wasn't as much worry about hiding information as in his books, so it was interesting to see.
Soo... What other classical book there are. I can't recommend them, but 2 more have to be mentioned in my view.
First is:
https://www.amazon.com/Earth-Study-Discern-Truth-Second/dp/9833332692/Much respect to Terence for the initiative.
I can't recommend the book, however, even though he was where the systems of Xuan Kong seems to revolve around.
All of this is just my idea, of course. Just want to provide some basis so people looking for how to go into these systems have a starting point. After that they should be able to pick up on their own and figure out where to go.
Hopefully it can be helpful feel free to ask if you have any questions. : )
