Showing results by publisher "Random House Audio" in House & Home

Bill Bryson and his family live in a Victorian parsonage in a part of England where nothing of any great significance has happened since the Romans decamped. Yet one day, he began to consider how very little he knew about the ordinary things of life as he found it in that comfortable home. To remedy this, he formed the idea of journeying about his house from room to room to “write a history of the world without leaving home.”

In the era of screens and devices, the average American spends 90 percent of their time indoors, and children are no exception. Not only does this phenomenon have consequences for kids’ physical and mental health, it jeopardizes their ability to understand and engage with anything beyond the built environment. Thankfully, with the right mind-set, families can find beauty, meaning, and connection in a life lived outdoors. Here, outdoors expert Steven Rinella shares the parenting wisdom he has garnered as a father whose family has lived amid the biggest cities and wildest corners of America.

Old houses share their secrets only if they survive. Trading the corporate ladder for a stepladder, Lee McColgan commits to preserving the ramshackle Loring House, built in 1702, using period materials and methods and on a holiday deadline. But his enchantment withers as he discovers the massive repairs it needs. A small kitchen fix reveals that the structure’s rotten frame could collapse at any moment. In a bathroom, mold appears and spreads. He fights deteriorating bricks, frozen pipes, shattered windows, a punctured foundation, and even an airborne chimney cap.

On the perimeter of Israel's Jezreel Valley, with the Carmel mountains rising up in the west, Meir Shalev has a beloved garden, "neither neatly organized nor well kept", as he cheerfully explains. Often covered in mud and scrapes, Shalev cultivates both nomadic plants and "house dwellers", using his own quirky techniques. He extolls the virtues of the lemon tree, rescues a precious variety of purple snapdragon from the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway, and does battle with a saboteur mole rat. He even gives us his superior private recipe for curing olives.

A popular minimalist blogger and author of The More of Less shows you how to methodically turn your home into a place of peace, contentment, and purposeful living.

You want your kitchen to be the heartbeat of the home, but you’re overwhelmed and out of breath trying to make it happen. Meals are on a never-ending loop, and you don’t have time to prepare dinner, much less enjoy it. Popular Lazy Genius expert and bestselling author Kendra Adachi is here to help!

Japanese decluttering guru Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up has revolutionized homes - and lives - across the world. Now, Kondo presents an illustrated guide to her acclaimed KonMari Method, with step-by-step folding illustrations for everything from shirts to socks, plus drawings of perfectly organized drawers and closets. She also provides advice on frequently asked questions, such as whether to keep “necessary” items that may not bring you joy.

Inspired by the Japanese concept of kurashi, or “way of life,” Kurashi at Home invites you to visualize your best life from the moment you wake up until the end of each day. By applying Marie Kondo's time-tested query—“Does it spark joy?”—to your mindset and behaviors, you are invited to take an even more holistic and personal approach to curating your environment by imagining what your life could look like full of connection and free from any limitations.

Chefs across the globe have honed an incredible system for working with efficiency called mise-en-place. In this audiobook, Dan Charnas reveals how to use those principles in any kind of work outside the kitchen.

Gretchen Rubin has found that getting control of our stuff makes us feel more in control of our lives. By getting rid of things we don't use, don't need, or don't love, we free our minds (and our shelves) for what we truly value. With a sense of fun, and a clear idea of what's realistic for most people, Gretchen Rubin suggests dozens of manageable steps for creating a more serene, orderly environment - one that helps us to create the lives we want.

Melissa Dilkes Pateras is the most competent housekeeper, DIY-project master, and home repair genius that you’ve ever fantasized about becoming. When she followed her kids on to TikTok, she discovered a community hungry for her approachable, tongue-in-cheek advice on everything from balls—dryer balls, that is—to why color-coded closets are a spiritual experience. She doesn’t expect you to know what you were never taught, and she doesn’t care about transforming your home into a minimal, beige Instagram post; she simply wants to help make your life easier.

It's one thing to get organized, but how do you make those systems stick? The Home Edit Stay Organized takes the intimidation and hesitation out of the maintenance involved to prevent you from abandoning your once-tidied systems or maybe help you to get organized in the first place!

Clint Emerson is the go-to expert for surviving the first minutes, hours, and days of a crisis. Now, in The Rugged Life, he works with modern homesteading experts to show you how to thrive over the long-term—for months, years, or even a lifetime—by being prepared and self-sufficient.

Today many of us live indoor lives, disconnected from the natural world as never before. And yet nature remains deeply ingrained in our language, culture, and consciousness. For centuries, we have acted on an intuitive sense that we need communion with the wild to feel well. Now, in our great migration away from the rest of nature, more and more scientific evidence is emerging to confirm its place at the heart of our psychological well-being. So what happens, asks acclaimed journalist Lucy Jones, as we lose our bond with the natural world - might we also be losing part of ourselves?

From the home organizers who made their orderly eye candy the method that everyone swears by comes Joanna and Clea’s signature approach to decluttering. The Home Edit walks you through paring down your belongings in every room, arranging them in a stunning and easy-to-find way (hello, labels!), and maintaining the system, so you don't need another do-over in six months. When you're done, you'll not only know exactly where to find things, but you'll also love the way it looks.

At home or on the go, you don't have to live like a minimalist to feel happy and calm. The Home Edit mentality is all about embracing your life - whether you're a busy mom, a roommate living with three, or someone who's always traveling for work. You just need to know how to set up a system that works for you. In the next phase of the home-organizing craze, Clea Shearer and Joanna Teplin go beyond the pantry and bookshelf to show you how to contain the chaos in all aspects of your life, from office space and holiday storage to luggage and pet supplies.

A revolutionary guide to the art of mindful buying that will teach you how to resist cheaply made goods and make smart, fulfilling purchases that last a lifetime. With the whole world trying to convince us to spend our way to happiness, we've been left cluttered, stressed, and unfulfilled. Tara Button, founder of BuyMeOnce, is at the forefront of the global movement to change the way we shop and live forever. Tara advocates a life of mindful buying that celebrates what lasts, giving you exercises that help you curb impulses, ignore trends, and discover your true style. 

A visionary carpenter shares meditations on work, creativity, and design, revealing powerful lessons on building a meaningful life through his experience constructing some of New York’s most iconic spaces.

Imagine It! is a handbook for those who want to begin or advance a journey toward living in better balance with our planet. It inspires, supports, and offers easy ways to replace old, planet-hurting habits with new healthy ones. Documentary filmmakers Laurie David and Heather Reisman highlight the need to change some of our food, clothing, and transportation habits and meaningfully lower our use of plastic, paper, water, and harmful chemicals. 

When Frances Mayes fell in love with Tuscany and Bramasole, millions basked in the experience through her three best-selling memoirs. Now Frances and her husband, In Tuscany coauthor Edward, share the essence of Tuscan life as they have lived it, with specific ideas and inspiration for listeners stateside to bring the beauty and spirit of Tuscany into their own home decor, meals, gardens, entertaining and, most important, outlook on life.