Here are 100 books that Home fans have personally recommended if you like
Home.
Book DNA is a community of 13,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
For more than thirty years I have been discussing, formulating ideas, and writing about Architecture, Building Reuse, and Interiors. I lead the MA Architecture and Adaptive Reuse programme and direct graduate atelier Continuity in Architecture at the Manchester School of Architecture. I am currently the Visiting Professor at the University IUAV of Venice where I am conducting research on the sustainable adaptation of existing buildings with particular emphasis on the environmental concerns within the inherently fragile city of Venice.
Jan Morris’s book is a fantastic discussion about the evolution of Venice. It explores why the city looks as it does, why the inhabitants behave in a particular manner, it explains how the buildings are constructed, why the boats are shaped as they are, how the navy constructed their Arsenale, what is best to eat, and when, what the climate is like and how this has informed behaviour and so much more...
Often hailed as one of the best travel books ever written, Venice is neither a guide nor a history book, but a beautifully written immersion in Venetian life and character, set against the background of the city's past. Analysing the particular temperament of Venetians, as well as its waterways, its architecture, its bridges, its tourists, its curiosities, its smells, sounds, lights and colours, there is scarcely a corner of Venice that Jan Morris has not investigated and brought vividly to life.
Jan Morris first visited the city of Venice as young James Morris, during World War II. As she writes…
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
My passion as a teacher and writer is to help students and others interpret, understand and enjoy architecture and the built environment, and to help them respond in their own designs to the complexities of place, people, and construction. I have chosen five well-established books on analysing architecture that are highly illustrated, avoid jargon, can be explored rather than needing to be read sequentially cover-to-cover, and have lasting value. They offer guidance for beginning students and a checklist for the experienced. They are books to be kept handy and repeatedly consulted. Of course, analysing existing architecture is invaluable in designing new architecture. I hope you enjoy them.
The first three books on my list concentrate on building form and space, with little about function.
The ‘pattern language’ is different, mapping human activities onto appropriate built forms, and advocating repeated patterns that have been found to work.
Christopher Alexander wants us to use the patterns in designing responses to situations, but they also help to judge how well-built spaces fit their contexts in analysing architecture.
Although Alexander maps activities onto his own preferred design style, the patterns are not inherently specific to any style or period of architecture.
Despite being written 50 years ago, this one-of-a-kind book is still fresh and relevant.
You can use this book to design a house for yourself with your family; you can use it to work with your neighbors to improve your town and neighborhood; you can use it to design an office, or a workshop, or a public building. And you can use it to guide you in the actual process of construction. After a ten-year silence, Christopher Alexander and his colleagues at the Center for Environmental Structure are now publishing a major statement in the form of three books which will, in their words, "lay the basis for an entirely new approach to architecture,…
In my 30 years as a writer I’ve learned it’s not enough to simply deliver information; it has to be done in an entertaining, engaging, and inspiring way. I’ve been fascinated in how the world “works” all my life. As a kid I dismantled the family lawn mower (failing to get it re-mantled.) After teaching for two years I turned to general contracting where it was imperative to know how things “worked.” As an editor with Readers’ Digest and Family Handyman magazine, I wrote the “How A House Works” column and headed up the DIY books division, teaching others how the world works. For the last 15 years I’ve been focused on books that explore the world around us.
Ascher takes us on a delightful tour of New York City, teaching us about the inner workings of one of the world’s most complex cities. In doing so, she gives us clues as to how our own cities work. Using words, statistics, history, and illustrations, Ascher makes the complex seem simple, From sewage to stoplights to subways she leaves no stone unturned. Fact to ponder: For years NYC shipped its garbage to a landfill in Texas, nearly 2,000 miles away.
A fascinating guided tour of the ways things work in a modern city
“It's a rare person who won't find something of interest in The Works, whether it's an explanation of how a street-sweeper works or the view of what's down a manhole.” —New York Post
Have you ever wondered how the water in your faucet gets there? Where your garbage goes? What the pipes under city streets do? How bananas from Ecuador get to your local market? Why radiators in apartment buildings clang? Using New York City as its point of reference, The Works takes readers down manholes and…
Delve into this internationally best-selling series, now complete! A fast paced laugh-out-loud mix of Urban Fantasy and Mystery.
I can tell when you’re lying. Every. Single. Time. I’m Jinx, a PI hired to find a missing university student, I hope to find her propped up at a bar–yet my gut…
Growing up in a Dutch city, I vividly remember witnessing the excitement of urban life through the windows of a streetcar, on foot, or by bike. Soon, I began to recreate this excitement by drawing maps of imaginary cities of my own. My small towns turned into entire regions, their streets coming to life as I closed my eyes. I essentially turned my childhood fascination into my job, as I now study, design, and teach students how to improve cities. Our best cities are places where citizens can interact with one another, overcoming social, economic, and environmental evolutions and revolutions. I never cease to be fascinated with the key to these everlasting cities.
Read away, but the best way to understand cities is to go out and see them for yourself! This fun-to-read book is an excellent ‘travel guide’ for seeing all the different elements of cities that surround us on our everyday walks. From bollards and street lamps to entire street grids, cellphone systems, and even the names of the places we live and visit—all these parts and dimensions of our cities are the result of conscious decisions and debates. The authors vividly describe the back story of many urban objects and systems we often just take for granted, and they provide a plethora of great illustrations to show you what they mean. Trust me, after reading this book you’ll never see cities the same way.
Out now: The most entertaining and fascinating book about architecture and design, from the wildly popular podcast 99% Invisible. __________
A New York Times Bestseller
'Full of surprises and quirky information . . . a fascinating journey through the over-familiar.' - Financial Times, Best Books of 2020
'[A] diverse and enlightening book . . . The 99% Invisible City is altogether fresh and imaginative when it comes to thinking about urban spaces.' -The New York Times Book Review
'A delightful book about the under-appreciated wonders of good design' - Tim Harford, bestselling author of The Undercover Economist and Fifty…
Photography has its own language. It can be used to tell us things about the world in a way that words never can. Through photography I have explored the world and witnessed the huge difference in circumstances that exist. It has made me aware of how we all live in our own little bubbles of family, work, school, and neighborhood. I love books that take us outside those bubbles, and since becoming a Dad, reading and looking at books is a way for me to travel with my children to different places before they go to bed. I hope that these books can open up your and your children’s eyes.
I love the way that you get to travel around the world with this book. Its simple idea must have been a logistical nightmare to photograph; finding a home, people who would be willing to have the inconvenience of having all of their possessions taken out of their homes and placed in front of them.
Being nosey and inquisitive myself I enjoy the way you can peak into these families lives through the objects they own (or don’t own). I find the differences in the families circumstances and possessions a poignant visual representation of consumerism.
Called “Fascinating! An incredible book” by Oprah Winfrey, this beloved photography collection vividly portrays the look and feel of the human condition everywhere on Earth.
In an unprecedented effort, sixteen of the world’s foremost photographers traveled to thirty nations around the globe to live for a week with families that were statistically average for that nation. At the end of each visit, photographer and family collaborated on a remarkable portrait of the family members outside their home, surrounded by all of their possessions; a few jars and jugs for some, an explosion of electronic gadgetry for others.
For more than thirty years I have been discussing, formulating ideas, and writing about Architecture, Building Reuse, and Interiors. I lead the MA Architecture and Adaptive Reuse programme and direct graduate atelier Continuity in Architecture at the Manchester School of Architecture. I am currently the Visiting Professor at the University IUAV of Venice where I am conducting research on the sustainable adaptation of existing buildings with particular emphasis on the environmental concerns within the inherently fragile city of Venice.
The book introduced Interior Design as an intellectual subject with a firm theoretical grounding that went beyond style and taste to influential and foundational concepts and promoted it as a serious field of study. It is a collection of accessible essays and so is easy to dip into. My favourite essay is "Figures, Doors and Passageways," which discusses the formation of contemporary systems of circulation, the development of the corridor, and the evolution of modern ideas of personal privacy.
A re-edition of Robin Evans’ classic essay anthology Translations from Drawing to Building and Other Essays, originally published by the Architectural Association (AA) in 1997. Featuring a new introduction, the book is the first in a new series of essay anthologies entitled AA Documents.
‘What makes this book so captivating is not just the individual insights, but also the intensity of Evans's vision and the coherence of his approach.’ ―Joseph Rykwert, Harvard Design Magazine
This book brings together eight of the most interesting and significant essays by the unequalled historian Robin Evans, author of The Projective Cast. Written over a…
On the morning of December 26, 2004, an undersea earthquake struck off the coast of Sumatra in the Indian Ocean. The resulting tsunami killed an estimated 230,000 people across fourteen countries, from Indonesia to Sri Lanka to Thailand to the Maldives to India and all the way to East Africa.…
For more than thirty years I have been discussing, formulating ideas, and writing about Architecture, Building Reuse, and Interiors. I lead the MA Architecture and Adaptive Reuse programme and direct graduate atelier Continuity in Architecture at the Manchester School of Architecture. I am currently the Visiting Professor at the University IUAV of Venice where I am conducting research on the sustainable adaptation of existing buildings with particular emphasis on the environmental concerns within the inherently fragile city of Venice.
Beatriz Colomina explores how Adolf Loos set the stage for the occupants of a house to live in. Through a lively discussion of the relationship between private and public areas within the homes that he designed, she discusses the relationships between the open spaces, corridors, light, dark, and view. The comparison is between the home as a place to dwell and the home as a place for performance – a theatrical set.
Through a series of close readings of two major figures of the modern movement, Adolf Loos and Le Corbusier, Beatriz Colomina argues that architecture only becomes modern in its engagement with the mass media, and that in so doing it radically displaces the traditional sense of space and subjectivity. Privacy and Publicity boldly questions certain ideological assumptions underlying the received view of modern architecture and reconsiders the methodology of architectural criticism itself. Where conventional criticism portrays modern architecture as a high artistic practice in opposition to mass culture, Colomina sees the emerging systems of communication that have come to define…
For more than thirty years I have been discussing, formulating ideas, and writing about Architecture, Building Reuse, and Interiors. I lead the MA Architecture and Adaptive Reuse programme and direct graduate atelier Continuity in Architecture at the Manchester School of Architecture. I am currently the Visiting Professor at the University IUAV of Venice where I am conducting research on the sustainable adaptation of existing buildings with particular emphasis on the environmental concerns within the inherently fragile city of Venice.
Mario Praz’s Illustrated History of Interior Decoration is a wonderful chatty collection of case studies that explores the history of the subject in a well-informed and erudite manner. Interiors are generally lost to the mists of time, remembered only as the backdrop to other activities in paintings and prints, Praz has searched out the best of these to generously illustrate the book.
This is a reference source for anyone with an interest in period styles of furniture and decoration, this book comprises a complete survey of domestic interiors portrayed in art from the ancient world to the late 19th century. A collection of pictures and watercolours from all over Europe, Russia and America record rooms of all periods and their contents; the furniture, fabrics, carpets, pictures and wall-coverings. This text presents a cultural history of man in relation to his domestic surroundings.
We have written 27 “how-to” books on building outdoor projects, including cabins, sheds, and treehouses. David does the illustrations and I do the descriptive writing. Our goal is to make the instructions clear to both right and left brain readers – and to make the two elements complement each other. Our readers often tell us that a computer drawing does not have the same appeal and clarity as hand drawing. We are able to ‘talk’ a reader through the process of building something with our drawings. People often send us photographs of their completed projects – it’s a big part of the satisfaction we get from writing our books.
Lloyd Kahn has long been a leading light in DIY home building, and wrote for The Whole Earth Catalog in its counter-culture heyday. Shelter still inspires the reader with photographs and descriptions of home-built cabins and alternative dwellings from around the world; the range of techniques and materials covered is impressively wide.
Shelter is many things — a visually dynamic, oversized compendium of organic architecture past and present; a how-to book that includes over 1,250 illustrations; and a Whole Earth Catalog-type sourcebook for living in harmony with the earth by using every conceivable material. First published in 1973, Shelter remains a source of inspiration and invention. Including the nuts-and-bolts aspects of building, the book covers such topics as dwellings from Iron Age huts to Bedouin tents to Togo's tin-and-thatch houses; nomadic shelters from tipis to "housecars"; and domes, dome cities, sod iglus, and even treehouses. The authors recount personal stories about alternative…
Nelson West, a former Chicago homicide detective, is hired by wealthy heir Lionel Bing to discreetly help “fix” scandals and legal problems for his father’s wealthy friends.
Bing, a brilliant but troubled investigator, suffers from PTSD symptoms as a result of being kidnapped and witnessing the murder of his mother…
I’m a writer of historical novels and primary literacy books, and a poet. I was born in Trinidad and live in London. So why am I writing about the magic of castles? I’ve loved visiting them since I was a child, when I’d run round them and imagine what had happened there. Back home, I’d immerse myself in reading legends and fairy stories—at bedtime, lying in my top bunk, I'd make up stories to entertain my sister in her bottom bunk. So it was natural to move on to writing fiction—the novel I’ve just completed is about King Canute. I’ve written primary literacy books for Collins, Oxford, and Ransom.
I’ve spent some time in the north of Scotland and became intrigued by the remains of Pictish forts on hilltops and by the sea. This book doesn’t provide many answers—written records before 900 AD are few and the archaeology is confused—Konstam’s conclusion is "the main benefit of any visit to one of these sites is to be able to stand on the same hilltop or promontory, and to imagine what it might have looked like in the days of the Picts." Which explains why legends and stories have grown up about castles—imagining has been key to making sense of such imposing features in the landscape, when often their real history has been forgotten over time.
Konstam’s book is one of a series, and if your curiosity is about a different sort of castle it’s worth checking it out.
This concise guide actually covers not just Pictish fortifications, but all those in use in early medieval Scotland, including those of Strathclyde and Rheged and of the Dal Riata. Konstam introduces the reader to the principal types of fort, including the re-use of earlier defences, before offering more in-depth surveys of Dundurn and Dunadd. As well as architecture and construction he looks at the use of the forts in war and peace, to control the landscape and act as royal strong points.
