The Walls Around Us: The Thinking Person's Guide to How a House Works Paperback – December 1, 1992

A bit dated for today, but good writing is timeless and the topic of home maintenance and repair never go out of style. In thirty years HGTV will be doing stories on lunar habitat upgrades. For now, David Owen's book is one to enjoy.

Book arrived on-time and as described. No issues. I would use this vendor again in the future without hesitation. BTW, it's also a very good read!

It is too bored to read this book. I just couldn't enjoy the content at all. The point of view was a long time ago. The perception we are having today may have a hard time to accept a personal feeling by then.

This is one of my favorite books. It's funny and informative.

This is a fine entry in the category of Well-written, Wryly-humorous Books About the Trials of Ordinary Life That Also Contain a Suprising Amount of Useful Information. If that sounds like an excessive qualification, it isn't, since the book is about houses, a subject dear, or dire, to the hearts of very many middle-class married men.David Owen definitely writes as a guy. It's conceivable that a woman could enjoy this book, in the same way that some men enjoy reading Erma Bombeck. It's also true that many a woman these days finds herself, willy-nilly, the sole proprietor of some "huge box filled with complicated things that want to break," and so will see that this book is essentially inspirational and non-gendered, and will read it anyway. It's for anyone who has a house and doesn't know how that house works. Because if you have a house and don't know something about how it works, you will regret it, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life.The author is a writer for, among other publications, "The New Yorker", and he has the easy, colloquial, accomplished style that we associate with that magazine. This is not a "humor" book that tries to milk laughs out of the trials of a hapless urbanite who buys a 200-year-old farmhouse and gets his comeuppance. However, he was indeed a Manhattan apartment dweller with a wife and two young children who decided to buy a 200-year-old farmhouse in Connecticut, and certain mishaps and learning experiences did follow from that action. Some are laugh-out-loud funny, but mostly you will find yourself reading along with a smile that is composed of one part sympathy and two parts relief ("at least my house isn't THAT screwed-up!").Mainly, though, in the course of your reading you will learn a lot. David Owen is a professional writer, and he knows how to research a topic, be it wallboard or lumber or electricity. (Perhaps the finest part of the book is the section on wallboard and plaster.) But he's also just an ordinary guy and a home-owner, until fairly recently just as butt-ignorant as you about how a house works. He lives in a this-old-house sort of place, and most of us don't. (Although once-fine old houses do present an implicit challenge that some of us fantasize about taking on, when our skills are a bit more honed.) His discussions, though, are firmly rooted in what many of us brood about on an almost daily basis: ugly walls, bad wiring, roofing leaks and wet basements.But courage! A house need not be a millstone. It can be that fort Mom never let you build. If you're a grownup you can actually go out and buy power tools and plywood and all sorts of other neat stuff, and then you can come back home and make your house better.Or worse. One of the virtues of this volume is its cheerful attitude toward working on one's home: that it is essentially a pilgrimage. Nothing is ever final, and every failure, every flub, teaches you something. Perfection is not the object, but rather, engagement. After a number of years of living in it, and coping with it, your home will become, for better and/or worse, an extension of yourself. If you love yourself, eventually you will love your house, too, with all its endearing faults.

What an in-depth book this is. Written by a former Harvard Lampoon editor, this book rocks. Owen's writing is very lucid and, at times, funny. In-depth discussions on why 2-penny nails are identified as such. All about paint and why it is important to put an undercoat and the difference between undercoat and overcoat. Humorous stories abound in this book. Tons of research done by the author. This isn't just for a DYI person. In fact, I would guess that most DYI or woodworkers will never read this book - but they should. It you are interested in how things work or why things are the way they are - this is the book for you. I would say this book should be required reading for History, Anthropology, Science and Woodworking students. I actually have two of these books. One for lending out and a backup copy. Very, very informative. Read this book before you do any work on your house - you will appreciate the experience more.

This is one of my favorite books!! Owen makes me laugh while he is teaching me vital things every home dweller should know! I have bought this book 7 times so far! I end up giving it to friends constantly.£READ YHIS BOOK!!!!

This book is a smart and funny take on "what I learned while repairing an old house". You feel smarter about the how and why of house structures after you read this book (especially fascinating is the discussion of paneling -- why walls and doors were originally paneled). At the same time Owen mocks the self-importance one feels working on one's house and the messes one backs into when you get the brilliant idea to start a huge project at 6 PM. While Owen is a guy, working on a house, he shares the joy in a gender-inclusive way and you come away with the feeling that the joy of removing plaster is within reach for all of us.