 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
Home
| Sitemap
The House Always Wins
Book Reviews
Newsday
ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW: BOOKS
MEREDITH DANIELS
March 14, 2008
The House Always Wins. By Marni Jameson.
Da Capo Press, 334 pages, $25
PURPOSE: To offer readers advice - with
humor along the way - about remodeling and
redesigning a home to make it truly yours.
AUTHOR'S CREDENTIALS: Jameson is a
nationally syndicated humor columnist
whose weekly "At Home With Marni Jameson"
appears in more than 30 newspapers. Though
not a professional interior designer, she
has designed, built and decorated three
homes from the ground up, and isn't
finished.
EXCERPT: "For three weeks I'd been lugging
home wallpaper books (each weighs as much
as a box of bricks), propping them around
various rooms, matching them to paint and
fabric samples, hemming, hawing, gathering
unasked-for opinions from my children and
changing my mind a dozen times. ... When I
finally zeroed in on my choices for our
kitchen, the kids' bathrooms and the
office, I had that incomparable feeling of
euphoria that only comes after one emerges
from the migraine-inducing-home-design
jungle of choice with a decision."
EFFECTIVENESS: From the cover, the book
looks like it should be in the new fiction
section next "chick lit" novels. And the
book reads a bit like a novel as Jameson
recounts anecdotes and cute stories
involving contractors or her husband, Dan.
In fact, the book may hook you on Page 4
with its humorous, boxed disclaimer: "Keep
in mind the views expressed in this
chapter come from a slightly obsessive,
semi-deranged woman living with a man who
at the time of these events was going
through a midlife crisis, and who was
primed to jettison his good job and sell
his home. In other words, he could be
nuts."
By going through the trials and
tribulations of making a perfect home,
Jameson can teach some valuable lessons
and how to laugh. Because she is a
columnist, each chapter reads like a
column, easy for those who are overwhelmed
by many of the detailed real estate and
decorating guides out there.
The book is about picking a house and
really making it your home, including
location decisions, picking the
professionals and interior details. There
are money-saving tips, all highlighted in
boxes with their own icons.
Beyond the aesthetics, Jameson most of all
wants the reader to realize that "homes
are about what happens inside, the loving,
the learning, the growing ... the building
of memories." And she has created a
memorable book with useful tips surrounded
by a funny, relatable story.
Copyright © 2008,
Newsday Inc.
Back to Book Reviews
|
|
|
|
Order Marni's Book |
Book Reviews |
|
Editors' Comments|Sample Columns|Online
Articles|Speech Topics|WRITE RIGHT Seminars|Seminar Comments |
|
Web Design by
New Horizons | Graphics contributed by
Steve Williams |
