Geography of Home: Writings on Where We Live

Geography of Home:
Writings on Where We Live

Geography of Home has been hailed as “an appealing, insightful collection of musings on the architecture, psychology, and history of house and home in America” (Kirkus). Now available in paperback, Geography of Home reminds us that the house is home to many things. Far more than four walls and a roof, it contains our private and public lives, our families, our memories and aspirations, and reflects our attitudes toward society, culture, the environment, and our neighbors.

“Busch offers a literary tour of spaces that make up our households, especially with regard to how we define such qualities as comfort, privacy, and security.”
Miami Herald
“Busch’s essays linger long after they’ve been read, and while they’re filled with interesting observations, they manage to accumulate on an emotional level. After finishing these essays, I found myself filled with nostalgia, not for the past—but for the present.”
Star Tribune
“Busch’s elegant and provocative essays plumb the relationships we have to the places in which we live and the objects that we use to furnish them.”
American Homestyle and Gardening
“Busch doesn’t so much look at houses as cock her head and listen to them. What she hears is the rustle of humanity within their all-too-mortal frames.”
House & Garden
“Yes-s-s-s! Finally a design writer more interested in the relationship between people and their rooms than in the number of springs in the chair cushions or the cut of a curtain.”
San Francisco Examiner
“If you haven’t given much thought to your front door, dining rituals, or lawn chairs, curl up with Akiko Busch’s Geography of Home. You’ll be inspired to look closely at where and how you live.”
Oprah: the Magazine

Design, most of all, may be about finding this sense of fit between people, places, and things. And if you think about design as being about fit, you consider not only the physical dimensions, but the moral and social ones as well.