In the New York Times bestseller House, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tracy Kidder takes readers to the heart of the American Dream: the building of a family's first house with all its day-to-day frustrations, crises, tensions, challenges, and triumphs. In Kidder's "remarkable piece of craftsmanship in itself" (Chicago Tribune), constructing a staircase or applying a coat of paint becomes a riveting tale of conflicting wills, the strength and strain...
This was a great book and fun to read. If you want to know what its like to build a house from scratch...this book paints the picture in words. The people are real, what happens is real, the feelings are real and they come out on each page. This is reality literature years before T.V. ever caught on. It strikes me as an honest and balanced view of the world of constuction. Kidder does a great job at expressing the problems...
0Report
When I first read House I was enthralled. Finally, a book about the building of a house from inception to possession. I started to use excerpts from the book in my high school construction classes, and then bought 35 copies to use with my students. I now have the book broken down into about 25 lessons and read it each year with my new classes. It adapts very well in a construction technology program for Vocational high school...
0Report
If you are thinking about becoming a builder, or are thinking about having a house built for you, this is a must-read. Be prepared for Kidder's no holds barred account of how devious a home buyer can be just to save relatively little money, how unprepared a builder can be to deal with such situations, and what crucial role good communication between the home buyer, architect, and builder plays getting the project completed...
0Report
I read this book when it came out thirteen years ago and I enjoyed every minute.In this book, Tracy Kidder describes the process and personalities involved with building a new home, but it's more than that. Like his "Soul of a New Machine", it chronicles what it's really like to be caught in the middle of a major project. Even someone who hasn't built a home from scratch or developed a new computer system will gain an...
0Report
If anyone deserves to be compared to John McPhee, Tracey Kidder does. His non-fiction prose comes closest to McPhee's in engaging the reader and making the most minute detail seem fascinating.Aside from the pure pleasure of reading, "House" is also a manual for how and how not to build a house. Every time I have a problem in the construction of my house, I think back to the shabby, confrontational way the builders were...
0Report