I did something recently that I rarely do anymore--I ordered a newly published book instead of ordering more vintage books by my favorite authors.
I ordered Erica Bauermeister's House Lessons after seeing it in a blog friend's current reading stack. Bauermeister's first novel, The School of Essential Ingredients was a favorite of mine and I still have it in my cookbook library.
I liked House Lessons. I loved her first chapter, "Falling in Love," about that mysterious and often inexplicable reason why, if we're lucky, "We walk in a front door for the first time and feel at home."
All that she wrote about it was the way I felt about Valley View that September day in 1990 that I first walked in the door and within an hour RH and I had signed a contract on the house that would be our home until 2016.
I did finish House Lessons, reading it off and on for several weeks between other books. The story of her renovating an old house in Port Townsend, Washington was interesting.
But if you want to read a book about the true story of building a house that you won't be able to put down, I would recommend House by Pulitizer Prize-winning Tracy Kidder. It was written in 1985 and I still reread it every few years. Anne Tyler said she read it in one sitting but she must be a very quick reader.
Kidder not only brings every single person who worked on their house to life, they are people I would love to know and have coffee with, if I drank coffee.
Kidder especially admired the architect for his "keen sense of place." Bill, the architect, says, "I think that's one thing that makes someone want to be an architect. Every little place connotes something. It has a feel to it. It's fascinating. A sense of place, and then how to fit a building into it." This book is just lovely!
And by the way, if you ever want to read a novel about an architect, James Williamson, an architect himself, wrote his first novel, The Architect, with his protagonist Ethan Cotham being just as compelling as Ayn Rand's Howard Roark was in The Fountainhead, although I don't picture the Memphis architect being quite as handsome as Gary Cooper.
My next post will be about an Elizabeth Berg novel I recently purchased and read, almost.
Happy September reading everyone!
