Product Description

My story," writes Dominique Browning, the editor in chief of House & Garden, "is about the way a house can express loss, and then bereavement, and then, finally, the rebuilding of a life." Around the House and in the Garden is a moving narrative, culled from Browning's much-loved monthly editorial column, about the solace and sense of self that can be found through tending to one's home. From building a high stone wall in the garden to learning that every kitchen deserves a good kitchen couch, Browning reminds us that making a home is more than just a materialistic endeavor -- it is a way for us to comfort and reinvent ourselves, to "have the final word about what goes where...what feels comfortable, what is life enhancing...and gives us strength to go out and embrace the world.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #264899 in Books
• Published on: 2003-03-25
• Released on: 2003-03-25
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .51 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

From Publishers Weekly
When Browning and her husband of 15 years divorced, she kept the house and garden they had shared in Westchester, but for a long time she was too depressed to care about where she lived. Gradually, she begins to see that working on the house she had neglected and transforming it into a home again is a way to recover from her despondency. In these short, elegant essays, Browning, a former editor-in-chief of House & Garden, muses on the aspects of domestic life that revived her and shows how she healed her heart and her home at the same time. That symbol of doomed love, the master bedroom, for example, she had abandoned. She fills the bathroom with comfortable furniture and flowers and learns to enjoy lounging in the tub while looking out the window at the moon. A garden bench, a fireplace, chairs grouped together for companionship, the long-neglected garden, impractical objects like a grand piano or ornate candlesticks, the kitchen, a place for companionship as well as "a nice place to be lonely" all these she comes to revere. Soon even the moss-covered bricks in her crumbling driveway delight her, as do ordinary rituals like weeding the garden, planting a tree and cleaning her closets so she can enjoy the memories they contain. Browning has written a warm and graceful paean to the commonplace, imbuing everything she contemplates with magic.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Browning expands on her popular column for House & Garden.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
Cheryl Mendelson author of Home Comforts Dominique Browning describes more eloquently than anyone else how our homes shape and support and change with our lives. She tracks the psychological process of divorce and mourning, acceptance, and renewal as it gets worked through in home and garden -- renovating, cooking, nurturing greenery, child-rearing, and much more. Browning is a superb storyteller, and every chapter has one or two powerful stories about her, her marriage, children, mother, and friends that combine practical domestic detail and human interest. This is a wonderful book.

Sarah Ban Breathnach author of Simple Abundance For years, reading Dominique Browning's column in House & Garden magazine has been one of my monthly pleasures, and I'm delighted that she now has a book. In these pages, she shares her unique and appealing blend of warmth, wit, and domestic wisdom, and the result is moving and personal as well as useful and inspiring. No one knows better than Browning how intimately connected we are to the rooms in which we live, and how a few changes in our houses and gardens can not only alter our mood but change the trajectory of our life.

Jay McInerney author of Bright Lights, Big City and Bacchus and Me: Adventures in the Wine Cellar Anyone who has ever owned a house, planted a bulb, or lost a lover should read this book -- a collection of pensées that form a striking, imaginative whole, like the rooms of a well-loved and thoughtfully decorated home. Dominique Browning has written a beautiful, haunting, and inspiring book.