I realized today that my favorite kind of book is a story about people fixing up a house. (Note: I was into these well before we moved here, but living here has certainly not helped.) For example:
– Agnes and the Hitman, where Agnes remodels her decaying Southern plantation home to be ready for a wedding. So much pink happens here, so much.
– Miss Buncle Married, where Miss Buncle spends the first third of the book house-hunting and then remodeling her new house and choosing furniture.
– The Spoils of Poynton, Henry James’ hymn to the transformative power of interior decorating do not roll your eyes it is better than it sounds.
– Under the Tuscan Sun, in which (quite unlike the idiotic film of the same name) the author quietly and calmly remodels her Tuscan villa, pausing often to describe the food she’s eating and the sun she’s lying in.
Honorable mentions also go to books in which a wonderful house is described though not worked on, such as The Folk of the Air, The Children of Green Knowe and I Capture the Castle.
But what else is out there? I need more house porn novels, and Google is deliberately misunderstanding my meaning.