ERICA BAUERMEISTER is the bestselling author of four novels- The School of Essential Ingredients, Joy for Beginners, The Lost Art of Mixing, and The Scent Keeper. She is also the coauthor of 500 Great Books by Women- A Reader's Guide and Let's Hear It For the Girls- 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14. She has a PhD in literature from the University of Washington, and has taught there and at Antioch University. With the exception of two years in Italy, Bauermeister has lived in the Pacific Northwest for nearly four decades, and her children proudly say rainwater runs in their veins. She is a founding member of the Seattle7Writers and currently lives in Port Townsend, Washington, in the house she renovated with her family.
One part investigation of architecture and design, one part exploration of identity, House Lessons is a meditation on space and home, and Bauermeister is a Zen master of the self. --Adrienne Brodeur, author of Wild Game This beautifully written memoir is for anyone who has wondered where home is and how to find it, fix it, love it, and leave it for later as well. We are lucky to be along for the ride. --Laurie Frankel, New York Times bestselling author of This Is How It Always Is This deeply moving story of an epic home renovation pulls essential life lessons from the logistics of plaster removal and pipe fitting and moves effortlessly across time and topic to find moments of reflection, optimism, and love in the most unlikely of places. --Tara Conklin, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Romantics and The House Girl Intimate and gracefully told, here is the irresistible story of a house and a family in transmutation. There is alchemy and also magic. You will witness a chimney fly apart and a house in levitation. --Rikki Ducornet, author of The Deep Zoo Reading House Lessons is itself like walking through a beloved old home, where strange treasures and beautiful eccentricities reveal themselves around every corner. Generous and artful, this is a hard-won story of the work that goes into building a life. --Molly Wizenberg, bestselling author of A Homemade Life Bauermeister's tale of architectural renovation is a window into the nuanced connection between our human lives and our physical dwellings--a relationship that is poetic, visceral, familial, sometimes irrational, and always grounded in love. --Lyanda Lynn Haupt, author of Mozart's Starling and Crow Planet Bauermeister seamlessly blends a novelist's command of narrative tension with a scholar's curiosity to understand the world around her. Read this and you'll be entertained, moved, informed, and endlessly surprised. --William Kenower, author of Fearless Writing