“Home Comforts: The Art & Science of Keeping House” by Cheryl Mendelson

Why, oh why did I think I would want to read this book?

Actually (uncharacteristically for me) I remember exactly what drew me to this book. It was the statement that appears on its front cover: “Home Comforts is to the house what Joy of Cooking is to food.” I thought this book might provide me with some reasonable guidelines in conjunction with effective but rapid techniques to elevate my housekeeping efficiency as well as the quality of my results. (But, never having perused JoC, maybe my expectations were skewed?)

I think this book is probably not meant to be read cover to cover and is intended more as a reference to dip into as needed; nevertheless, reading it cover to cover is what I set out to do. And it worked until I got to chapter 14, The Fabric of Your Home. OMG. I will never need to know that level of detail about ALL the different types of materials that exist. I was totally derailed.

But I managed to tough it out, for the most part. I definitely skimmed over sections that I was pretty sure would never apply to me, but I read everything that seemed like it might be helpful. And most of the way through this book, my assumption was that once I finished reading it I would hang onto it as a reference just in case. But the closer I got to the end, the more I noticed that I was not finding any information that I would actually make use of in my life. And you know what else? There's this thing called the Internet. As it turns out, I've found the Internet to be a pretty dang good reference. Not to mention that it can typically give me an answer that doesn't go unnecessarily deeply into details, AND that doesn't make me feel bad because I will never vacuum my curtains weekly. Not until they make a Roomba capable of doing that.