Summer Reading 02

Get the book from:

+ the library: http://www.worldcat.org/title/home-a-...
+ a bookstore: http://www.indiebound.org/book/978014...
+ Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0140...

Music cues are taken from "Come and Find Me - B mix" by Eric Skiff: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Eri...

And yes... after all that, I still got his name wrong. It's VEE-told, not VIH-told.

• Category

  People & Blogs

[Austin Brown]

Hi Robin! My most comfortable living room was a dorm in college. It was highly permeable, as it was at a small liberal arts college, we were all hippies and left our doors unlocked, and one of my roommates (my girlfriend/now wife) was an RA. The two of us shared the equivalent of two bedrooms for sleeping, I had an office to myself, and we had one other roommate/best friend. Our big common area had a great table for communal meals and ample seating for epic Battlestar marathons. 3rd floor, too!

[robinsloan]

It's interesting how often people reference "the dorm" as a near-ideal living environment—and not just hippies, either! I'm surprised there haven't been more efforts to recreate that environment post-college, especially out here in the Bay Area, where Googlers, Facebook employees, and more are pretty much living the college life in other respects: campus, cafeteria, etc.

[theunbearable]

The tiny 14' x 14' studio I'm living in right now is the most comfortable room I've ever lived in. The north wall is one enormous window. My desk takes up the east wall, and the west wall is just barely long enough to fit a pine IKEA bed. On the south wall, there's a long counter with a stove, microwave, and fridge. It's all so tiny that it feels more like a cockpit than a room. Everything is within arms reach, which is wonderful. We're moving to a much bigger apt in two weeks. I'll miss it!

[robinsloan]

"It feels more like a cockpit than a room." I sorta love that.

[Alexis C. Madrigal]

Historically, the most comfortable room I ever lived in was the main room in my tiny cottage in Seattle. It had a fireplace and outdoor carpeting, a red Ikea couch, cable, and this vintage bistro table I unfolded into my desk. The ceilings were low, but there was a huge picture window that looked out onto deep green grass and two plum trees where I once fought raccoons. That place was great. It was where I became an adult, which is a lasting comfort.

[robinsloan]

"…where I once fought raccoons." I think you might have buried the lede here.

[Nick Douglas]

My most comfortable room must be my current one, for reasons that are very boring. It's a combination office/living room/dining room shared with my girlfriend, with couch, gigantic work desk, and a sturdy decade-old Ikea kitchen table. I think the comfort of my rooms has directly correlated with how much I spent on them.

[T Morgan]

But I have my first room stuck in my head, the room I used to imagine while bored at church and fidgeting and needing my own space. It's a whole compact house in our mid 60's white Valiant station wagon, canned goods and firewood in the crevice between the middle and back seats, 7 siblings vanished, a world of room suddenly all mine. Sleeping pallet in the back, bookshelves up the doors, a box of oranges in the front. So cozy, no thought of even traveling in my house on wheels. Just all mine.

[T Morgan]

The most comfortable room is an alcove, right off a most comfortable kitchen. It is in a house in Nantucket, owned by a friend who loans it to me because, well, she's that kind of friend. The alcove has two chairs, wicker, but comfortable, with worn cotton cushions that surround and support me while reading. There is a small table between them, the right height for absentmindedly putting down a cup of coffee mid page.The children are all asleep up stairs, safe but quiet, needing nothing from me.

[Meaghan Doyle]

My most comforting room was the first apartment I lived in on my own. It was a tiny studio in NYC, but I was finally a real grown-up, with a real job, paying my own bills, and taking care of myself. I bought my own furniture, decorations, groceries - I had control of the space, my life and the remote! That feeling of independence and control is something I'm missing now that I'm back home at my parents with my own stuff in storage. Despite many other homes since then, it'll always be special.

[Tyler Sellhorn]

Dear Robin, just found your stuff...I'm excited...I am surprised that there are fewer "dormitory style" living options everywhere...I think college towns have a certain efficiency to them that don't exist anywhere else (at least the best ones). I mean Palo Alto, Berkeley, Ann Arbor, et. al. are built for idea creation and idea consumption. Unfortunately, building singularly around one industry isn't very smart except for universities and their communities and maybe not for them: online learning

[Sharat Buddhavarapu]

The most comfortable room I've ever been in was my grandmother's bedroom in Hyderabad, India. Her house as a whole is the only place, though I haven't lived there since I was a toddler, that I've ever felt correct in calling "home". My grandmother is the person whom I feel the greatest connection to. Her spirit permeates her bedroom, more so now than ever before since she's bedridden from late stages of cancer. That's my favorite spot on the Earth.

[karathrash]

During a between-jobs time, I inhabited my Mom's basement. Cliche city. It had old oak paneling and a cold tile floor, but one section was set off from the rest and I put down a rug and hung a king-sized sheet for privacy. It had a fireplace where I burned chemical-sodden fake logs. I propped a painting on the mantle, stacked books on the shelves and brought in lamps for low lighting. The quilt was red. My scarf collection hung in splashes on hooks. When my nieces visited, they wouldn't leave.

[Think890]

the most comfortable room i've ever stayed in is probably the sun room in my parents house. Its a massive room where every wall is a 8 ft sheet of glass with a wooden roof, that looks out on the field across from my parents house. Its elevated from the road so theres privacy but you can see the entirety of said field and the tree line of the opposing hillside as well. The snow is beautiful in the winter, and the fall brings out hoards of animals who just exist without us disturbing them, its fun

[Nick Paloukos]

My current room/home. It's spacious. My bed sits in the middle and there is ample room all around - you never feel confined. A sliding glass door opens to a balcony where, if you peer through some palm trees, you see the Pacific; the sand a mere frisbee toss away. My walls, black and white, are adorned with enlarged B&W photographs of my travels. A record player, two big bookcases full of hardcovers and paperbacks, pictures of loved ones, and a few knick-knacks fill it out.

[theunbearable]

Full disclosure: I first heard "cockpit effect" as a way to describe a small room in the book "Tokyo: A Certain Style" (youtube apparently doesn't like amazon links in comments.)