Maid

Maid
Author: Stephanie Land
Publisher: Hachette UK
Total Pages: 266
Release: 2019-01-22
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0316505102

"A single mother's personal, unflinching look at America's class divide (Barack Obama)," this New York Times bestselling memoir is the inspiration for the Netflix limited series, hailed by Rolling Stone as "a great one." At 28, Stephanie Land's dreams of attending a university and becoming a writer quickly dissolved when a summer fling turned into an unplanned pregnancy. Before long, she found herself a single mother, scraping by as a housekeeper to make ends meet. Maid is an emotionally raw, masterful account of Stephanie's years spent in service to upper middle class America as a "nameless ghost" who quietly shared in her clients' triumphs, tragedies, and deepest secrets. Driven to carve out a better life for her family, she cleaned by day and took online classes by night, writing relentlessly as she worked toward earning a college degree. She wrote of the true stories that weren't being told: of living on food stamps and WIC coupons, of government programs that barely provided housing, of aloof government employees who shamed her for receiving what little assistance she did. Above all else, she wrote about pursuing the myth of the American Dream from the poverty line, all the while slashing through deep-rooted stigmas of the working poor. Maid is Stephanie's story, but it's not hers alone. It is an inspiring testament to the courage, determination, and ultimate strength of the human spirit. "A single mother's personal, unflinching look at America's class divide, a description of the tightrope many families walk just to get by, and a reminder of the dignity of all work." -PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA, Obama's Summer Reading List

Other People's Dirt

Other People's Dirt
Author: Louise Rafkin
Publisher: Plume Books
Total Pages: 216
Release: 1999
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:

In this fresh, funny, strikingly original memoir, Rafkin talks about her invisible status as a domestic worker in a world of illicit sex and secret lives, of closet alcoholics and binge eaters, unlikely spiritualists, and revealing celebrities.

Home Comforts

Home Comforts
Author: Cheryl Mendelson
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 900
Release: 2005-05-17
Genre: House & Home
ISBN: 0743272862

A classic bestselling resource for every household, Home Comforts helps you manage everyday chores, find creative solutions to domestic dilemmas, and enhance the experience of life at home. “Home Comforts is to the house what Joy of Cooking is to food.” —USA TODAY Home Comforts is an engaging and comprehensive book about housekeeping. It is a lively and readable guide for both beginners and experts in all the domestic arts. From keeping surfaces free of germs, watering plants, removing stains, folding a fitted sheet, cleaning china, tuning a piano, lighting a fire, setting the dining room table—this guide covers everything that people might want to do for themselves in their homes. Further topics include: making up a bed with hospital corners, expert recommendations for safe food storage, reading care labels (and sometimes carefully disregarding them), keeping your home free of dust mites and other allergens, this is a practical, good-humored, philosophical guidebook to the art and science of household management.

The Housekeeper's Tale

The Housekeeper's Tale
Author: Tessa Boase
Publisher: Aurum
Total Pages: 436
Release: 2014-05-19
Genre: History
ISBN: 1781312680

Working as a housekeeper was one of the most prestigious jobs a nineteenth and early twentieth century woman could want – and also one of the toughest. A far cry from the Downton Abbey fiction, the real life Mrs Hughes was up against capricious mistresses, low pay, no job security and gruelling physical labour. Until now, her story has never been told. The Housekeeper’s Tale reveals the personal sacrifices, bitter disputes and driving ambition that shaped these women’s careers. Delving into secret diaries, unpublished letters and the neglected service archives of our stately homes, Tessa Boase tells the extraordinary stories of five working women who ran some of Britain’s most prominent households. There is Dorothy Doar, Regency housekeeper for the obscenely wealthy 1st Duke and Duchess of Sutherland at Trentham Hall, Staffordshire. There is Sarah Wells, a deaf and elderly Victorian in charge of Uppark, West Sussex. Ellen Penketh is Edwardian cook-housekeeper at the sociable but impecunious Erddig Hall in the Welsh borders. Hannah Mackenzie runs Wrest Park in Bedfordshire – Britain’s first country-house war hospital, bankrolled by playwright J. M. Barrie. And there is Grace Higgens, cook-housekeeper to the Bloomsbury set at Charleston farmhouse in East Sussex for half a century – an era defined by the Second World War. Revelatory, gripping and unexpectedly poignant, The Housekeeper’s Tale champions the invisible women who ran the English country house. Normal0falsefalsefalseEN-GBX-NONEX-NONE

The Housekeeper

The Housekeeper
Author: Joy Fielding
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Total Pages: 351
Release: 2022-08-16
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0593158938

A woman hires a housekeeper to care for her aging parents—only to watch as she takes over their lives in this riveting novel from the New York Times bestselling author Samantha M. Bailey calls “an ingenious master of domestic suspense.” ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Reader’s Digest In the end, I have only myself to blame. I’m the one who let her in. Jodi Bishop knows success. She’s the breadwinner, a top-notch real estate agent. Her husband, Harrison . . . not so much. Once, he had big dreams. But now, he’s a middling writer who resents his wife’s success. Jodi’s father, Vic, now in his late seventies and retired, is a very controlling man. His wife, Audrey, was herself no shrinking violet. But things changed when Audrey developed Parkinson’s ten years ago and Vic retired to devote himself to her care. But while still reasonably spry and rakishly handsome, Vic is worn down by his wife’s deteriorating condition. Exhausted from trying to balance her career, her family, and her parents’ needs, Jodi starts interviewing housekeepers to help care for Audrey and Vic. She settles on Elyse Woodley, an energetic and attractive widow in her early sixties, who seems perfect for the job. While Vic is initially resistant, he soon warms to Elyse’s sunny personality and engaging ways. And Jodi is pleased to have an ally, someone she can talk to and occasionally even confide in. Until . . . She shuts Jodi out. And Audrey’s condition worsens—rapidly. Who is this woman suddenly wearing her mother’s jewelry? What is she after? And how far will she go to get it?

Housekeeping

Housekeeping
Author: Marilynne Robinson
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 349
Release: 2015-11-03
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1250060656

"The story of Ruth and her younger sister, Lucille, who grow up haphazardly, first under the care of their competent grandmother, then of two comically bumbling great-aunts, and finally of Sylvie, the eccentric and remote sister of their dead mother. The family house is in the small town of Fingerbone on a glacial lake in the Far West, the same lake where their grandfather died in a spectacular train wreck and their mother drove off a cliff to her death. It is a town "chastened by an outsized landscape and extravagant weather, and chastened again by an awareness that the whole of human history had occurred elsewhere." Ruth and Lucille's struggle toward adulthood beautifully illuminates the price of loss and survival, and the dangerous and deep undertow of transience."--

How to Be an American Housewife

How to Be an American Housewife
Author: Margaret Dilloway
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2010-08-05
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 110118924X

A mother-daughter story about the strong pull of tradition, and the lure and cost of breaking free of it. When Shoko decided to marry an American GI and leave Japan, she had her parents' blessing, her brother's scorn, and a gift from her husband-a book on how to be a proper American housewife. As she crossed the ocean to America, Shoko also brought with her a secret she would need to keep her entire life... Half a century later, Shoko's plans to finally return to Japan and reconcile with her brother are derailed by illness. In her place, she sends her grown American daughter, Sue, a divorced single mother whose own life isn't what she hoped for. As Sue takes in Japan, with all its beauty and contradictions, she discovers another side to her mother and returns to America unexpectedly changed and irrevocably touched.

The Housekeeper

The Housekeeper
Author: Natalie Barelli
Publisher: Furphies Press
Total Pages: 261
Release: 2019-10-31
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0648225984

She's a liar. She's a stalker. She's in your house. When Claire sees Hannah Wilson at an exclusive Manhattan hair salon, it's like a knife slicing through barely healed scars. It may have been ten years since Claire last saw Hannah, but she has thought of her every day, and not in a good way. So Claire does what anyone would do in her position—she stalks her. Hannah is now Mrs. Carter, living the charmed life that should have been Claire's. It's the life Claire used to have, before Hannah came along and took it all away from her. Back then, Claire was a happy teenager with porcelain skin and long, wavy blond hair. Now she's an overweight, lazy drunk with hair the color of compost and skin to match. Which is why when Hannah advertises for a housekeeper, Claire is confident she can apply and not be recognized. And since she has time on her hands, revenge on her mind, and a talent for acting… Because what better way to seek retribution—and redress—than from within the beautiful Mrs. Hannah Carter's own home? Except that it's not just Claire who has secrets. Everyone in that house seems to have something to hide. And now, there's no way out.

The Lost Art of

The Lost Art of
Author: JAN M. DOUGHERTY
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2011-03
Genre:
ISBN: 9781977842381

Yes! you really can clean your house and everything in it using just 3 products and it will cost you about $20 per year. I have owned a residential cleaning company since 2004 and this book actually started life as my employees' handbook. Since this book was first published not much has changed. Dirt is still dirty and whether or not you want to clean your home, it still has to be cleaned. Most people hate to clean simply because they don't know how to do it, they were never taught. Were you actually taught how to clean? Probably not, but that's not your fault. Do you want to learn how to do it, like a professional, using minimal products and saving a bucket of money on cleaning supplies? If you do, then buy my book. First, I will send you to the store with a short shopping list; I will explain why I use each product and then how to use each product or tool, which by the way isn't much. I will then explain the logic behind my method of cleaning, called The PATH and then I will literally walk you through cleaning the different rooms in your house. The beauty of The PATH is that you can start and stop a cleaning job in any room and not loose your place. Just pick up where you left off and continue until the room is clean. So go answer the phone or change the baby. I only use 3 readily available products in both my business and in my house to clean everything. No more need for window, floor, counter, toilet, sink, tub, shower and mirror cleaners. No more polishes, waxes or air fresheners. Just think about how much you spend a year on cleaning products? Go ahead, I'll wait while you look under your sinks and calculate that. More than $20.00 per year? If you are spending more than that you need my book. Everyone that embraces my methodology has a cleaner home, extra money to spend on the important things and the time to enjoy them. I have a website; The Lost Art of House Cleaning.com where I have uploaded a number of videos demonstrating my methodology and posted numerous articles on cleaning particular things. I have read all the reviews posted about my book on Amazon and I found the vast majority to be very complimentary. I have also found that some of the harshest critics still recognized that my methodology works. In addition to the Amazon reviews I have personally received comments and compliments directly from the people that have bought my book. And I know that what I say in my book has helped thousands realize that cleaning their home is not all it's cracked to be if you know what you are doing. So buy my book, read it the first time for entertainment then read it a second time for inspiration and then, Enjoy the Clean! Thanks,Jan M Dougherty