Rating: 
Summary: Invaluable source
Review: I am so glad I decided to buy this book. It's the only book I have read on housekeeping and the related, but I am certain that this is one of the best out there. This book is loaded with so much valuable knowledge and advice for keeping a comfortable, safe, organized, and happy dwelling. The entire book is extrememly organized and is a great reference for any modern housekeeper, both casual and conventional. I highly reccommend this book to anyone with a home, whether you having recently moved into your first place, or you have been established for many years, it really is a great book for present day housekeeping.
Rating:
Summary: Perfect for busy people
Review: My wife and I got this for our wedding, and it has been a very handy resource. Dr. Mendelson--an attorney and philosophy professor as well as mother and housekeeper--is rigorous in going over every aspect of house keeping, but also is aware that people are often busy with many other things at the same time. She does a beautifuly job of enunciating her overarching philosophy of keeping house in the first chapter: she does not keep a neat home out of mere obsessiveness, but so that she and her family can truly feel at ease in a safe, neat living space. The result is a very balanced, readable book. I could see how housekeeping manuals making people roll their eyes at the author's obsessiveness, but Mendelson reaches her audience well.
Of particular interest to me is that she covers health in the household: allergies, safe food handling, hygiene, child-proofing are all treated in the book. I was surprised to see that she also has a chapter on slips and falls--these can happen to anyone, but in a nation where the elderly are the fastest growing segment of the population, this is something that we should be more aware of.
Rating:
Summary: Thorough and well-written
Review: I needed to know how to iron my clothes and starch my collars. I got that, plus a lot more great information about doing laundry.
Plus great information about shopping, preparing meals and so on, germs, dust mites, allergies, and so on. It inspired me to become quite a bit more diligent about dealing with mildew, changing my sheets, doing dishes and sorting laundry.
I discovered that I enjoy cleaning my house a lot more--or at least that I dread it a lot less--when I feel like I really know what I'm doing. In fact, having a clean house now appears to me as a challenge, and I can feel some pride in my accomplishment. So my house is indeed a lot cleaner.
I got two great benefits out of this. First of all, I enjoy being at home more than I used to, which saves money. For instance, I used to prefer not to read in my house, and since reading is my primary hobby, it takes a lot of my time. I spent a lot of time in coffee shops and other places like that, and spent a lot of money on criminally overpriced coffee. But now I also enjoy being at home, listening to the music that I choose. The biggest difference is that my home is more comfortable and clean than it used to be. Secondly, I enjoy having company more than I used to, which helps my social life. Especially, I am happy to have pretty young women visit me. And my clean house represents me very well.
So, as a bachelor, I recommend it to other bachelors.
Rating:
Summary: the gift of a century for certain! *10* stars
Review: My sister bought this book for me a few years ago as a Christmas gift, and errantly enough I often made the mistake of simply checking the index and thumbing to the appropriate pages when needed. This week, in a fit of un-hominess related to flat-mate changes, 30-something grad school home-neglect, etc., I went to my bookshelves looking for some solace. For the first time -- I looked at the table of contents and there I found the secrets I had been looking for all along: Chapter 1 - My Secret Life. I started reading the book from the preface onward immediately.Though I am a child of the early 70's, I was raised by parents born in the 30's, subjected to post-war/50's cleaning rigors through the week and every weekend. At heart, like my own grandmother, I am a putterer - 100% contrary to my callisthenic style chore-upbringing. For years, I have secretly reveled while doing all of my housework as close to bedtime as possible, sometimes hours after all "normal" people were long in bed. The truth is I honestly like doing housework -- I simply do not like doing it first thing out of bed, nor according to any clock. I love going to sleep knowing that there are far better reasons to wake up in the morning than some mess left over from today. To finally find a book written by someone who genuinely loves to keep house, this was a sleeping joy sitting on my bookshelf I am sorry I never started reading cover-to-cover long ago. Though I am sure I will probably find a point within a few chapters where I decide that it will be relegated to more of a reference, I now know that when I have a little free time here or there, want to steal myself away to relax with a cup of tea between loads of laundry -- I have just the tome to which to turn to learn more and more about how make house into "home". Cheryl Mendelson brings her secret love of housework into her writing brilliantly and sometimes humorously. After years of looking at housekeeping as a chore while I tried to keep up with the clockwork callisthenic style of my childhood and feeling guilty for wanting to relax my way through making my home just that, I finally found an author who approaches her subject as something to revel in rather than revile -- an author who validates the secret wisdom of my own grandmother as absolutely nothing to feel guilty about. At first realization that Mendelson left "JD" off the cover, an eyebrow went up as to how many pages would pass before the respect and humor turned into a dry-as-heck legal brief, as enthusiastic as a math professor reciting his grocery list, but it doesn't really happen. Anyone can pick up a little 100-page quickie on how to make chores more efficient or effective, written by people who hate to "waste time" tending to household needs. While Mendelson does indeed write about many things effects the same ends, her style exudes respect and truly communicates that one does these things to convert the house into a well balanced, efficiently run, harmonious home. A place to "come home" to, rather than a demanding place that simply adds to the worries of the outside world. Save your pennies and ignore those little "hints" books -- this one single volume is worth its weight in gold.
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