HOUSE FEVER: A Guide to Buying, Selling, Remodeling, Decorating, and Agonizing Over Your Home

Flip and loose, this skims over the essentials of housemanship--buying, selling, remodeling, decorating--and aims at entertainment. Braunstein writes with a breezy exuberance of a new guy on the block regaling the neighbors with his saga: the facts are there, but they almost get lost in his own laughter. The humor ranges from broad (one anecdotal couple is Hal and Wanda Lust) to coarse (when negotiating, ""Remember the Harvard Business School motto: look British; think Yiddish""), and the information is appropriate but skimpy--psyching out real estate agents, outwitting subcontractors, threatening plumbers, and trying on bathtubs for size. This book definitely has a lived-in look: how long it stays on the market depends on multiple listings.