Harry Potter and the Magic Thong

The arrival this summer of the final installment in the Harry Potter series will probably go uncelebrated at XXXX 17th Street (my lot’s current address), because I am busy reading about houses and homes and the business of building a dwelling and a life. Why? Because I read a book about everything. New dog? Read Caroline Knapp’s Pack of Two. Suddenly single? Read Bachelor Girl. Move to Hollywood and write for now cancelled detective show? Read Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her. I’d probably read a book about nail clippers if I thought it would improve my home pedicures (I’m pretty certain there’s not an entire book on nail clippers, but there is a fascinating essay about them in Nicholson Baker’s collection, The Size of Thoughts.)

Sarah Susanka is to the small-scale homebuilder what Rachael Ray is to everyday gourmets (and I thought I’d never use an analogy again after the GRE). Susanka’s columns in Fine Homebuilding and her books, including my favorite, Not So Big Solutions, advocate functionality within gracious design and architectural artistry that serves lives rather than egos. Her books have been inspirational and influential as I plan my new home. Thanks to her, I’ve learned that a home’s entry begins at the curb, remembered to build a mail-sorting station, and tried to design a house that encompasses my values and my lifestyle as well as my future. Also, I've been persuaded to do without the indoor pool.

On the opposite end of the library, we have the Not-So-Small book. House as Mirror of Self by Clare Cooper Marcus weighs as much as my cat and references Carl Jung in the foreword. This is generally a bad sign as far as leisure reading goes, unless it’s a sentence like “Matthew McConnaughey tossed aside the boring book on Carl Jung and went to surf the internet for librarians.” House as a Mirror of Self is a serious book, with lots of multi-syllabic words and references to the psyche and intense passages about recreating our childhoods and constructing our realities. It made me think, and that’s not such a bad thing. But mostly I just want to build a really cool, affordable house near the Farnand Five and the Caldwell-Ringlers and have fun parties and be able to walk to Village Books and Mambo Italiano in five minutes.

Somewhere in between Susanka’s practicality and Marcus’s intellectualism lies Winifred Gallagher’s book, House Thinking: A Room-by Room Look at How We Live. “The orverarching insight that unifies our dwellings and this book alike is that home exists as much between our ears and in a building," Gallagher writes. She mixes history, psychology, and interior design to create a unique, highly readable, and intriguing glimpse behind the doors of American homes.

Alexander Master’s account of the life of an adrift man in London, Stuart: A Life Backwards, gives me much to be thankful for—both because it is funny, original, and deeply moving, but also because it offers an entirely different glimpse into what it means to have a home. Stuart, who is often drug-addled and floats on and off the streets, in and out of shelters and subsidized housing for most of his adult life, nevertheless manages to carve meaning and joy out of his existence. While I am thankful for all that I have—a warm shelter, a home-to-be built to my specifications, and family, friends, and mementos to fill the space, Stuart’s story is a powerful reminder about the most important places of all—the invisible ones that hold us steady, give us hope, and make us whole. And what is home, after all, if not these things?

You don’t have to be building a new house or moving from one to another to engage in thought and discussion with your live-alongs about the space you occupy. I encourage you to stop and reflect on what makes your dwelling meaningful. If you do read what I recommend, support your local bookseller. Community and community-maintained businesses are a part of the place we all call home.