Filed under 'dream house'

There hasn't been much reading around here, this week and last. That's understandable, with Christmas coming, and in a way it's perfect. I'm just snatching a few minutes here and there with a very undemanding vintage mystery. (Very undemanding. So far, it's taken 100 pages for the victim to die and almost another 100 pages for Scotland Yard to show up.)  There's been a lot of baking, though (some old recipes and some new ones), and some stacking up of books for when things get back to normal after Christmas.

In the meantime, a lot of book blogs have regular features that I enjoy reading ... there's a 'library loot' thing, where people report on what they've borrowed from the library, and a 'library lust' thing, where people share images of beautiful rooms or especially cool bookshelves.  

I just brought home three books that don't require actual reading (though I could, if I wanted to, and I can keep them till mid-January).  There's the newest Barefoot Contessa cookbook (a little disappointing, at first glance, but Ina always has at least one recipe that I want to try)...

a funky book about the joys of having a messy house (I wouldn't want to live in any of those rooms, except the kitchen in the baking chapter)...

and this beautiful book, which I was happy to find after reading about it here.

I waver back and forth between my dream house being a little stone cottage in the country or a townhouse (even part of one) on Beacon Hill, but being able to have a ROLLING LIBRARY LADDER (something I have always wanted) in my KITCHEN might sway me once and for all.

Wherever you live, I hope you're enjoying the holiday season.

{The photo, showing an 1865 brownstone in Brooklyn Heights,
is from Restoring a House in the City.}

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