"A House Named Simplicity: Stories of Finding Home" Reviews
"It feels like home,” are words that every human heart longs to express. In A House Named Simplicity, Susan Eaton Mendenhall takes readers on an intimately personal journey of finding and creating a home that is rich in meaningful connections. Mendenhall’s house is more than a collection of comfortable and beautiful rooms. Her imaginative eyes discover that her dwelling place is a conscious being that supports and deepens her journey through life. Treat yourself to this delightful book and take a creative and satisfying adventure in finding home.”
Anthony Lawlor | Architect and Author of "A Home For The Soul"
"Filled with charming and uplifting words and images, this book invites the reader to enjoy Mendenhall's insights about the connection between one's house and life. A House Named Simplicity is a perfect read on a rainy day under a cozy blanket while relishing the shelter of home.”
Toby Israel, Ph.D. | Author of "Some Place Like Home: Using Design Psychology to Create Ideal Places"
"Susan’s stories and art encourages us to listen to our surroundings, our homes, as loved ones. Through Susan’s book I have come to know my home as a dear friend who changes as I change. A friend who comforts me and sometimes challenges me to do better. When I moved into my new home a few years ago Susan asked if my home had a name. I’ve named my cars, my pets, and of course my businesses, but never a home. So, with Susan’s encouragement I asked my house what her name might be and within a few days she spoke clearly to me. “My name is Red Tara.” And from that day on my conversations with my house have continued. And now during this COVID-19, staying home more, I find this relationship with my house a reassurance. I am so blessed to have this home. And this book further blesses us as a way to acknowledge and be in a relationship to the places we call home.”
Julie Tallard Johnson | Author of "The Zero Point Agreement"
"A wonderful read about a house that holds, protects, loves, serves and nurtures its occupants through the years. The author candidly shares her personal journey and life transformation during her time living within Simplicity.”
Andrea Zeimet
"A House named Simplicity is a unique, fun and multi-dimensional read. With profound integrity to the point of vulnerability, each of Susan Mendenhall’s stories is a delicate weave of appreciation and respect towards spaces and objects that make a house a home. Through profound insights and self-discovery within a new environment each chapter feels like a sip of fine wine, leaving a distinct aftertaste, inviting the reader to self-inquiry."
Kerstin Kuentzel | Creator of "Growing Roots in Presence"
"In her book A House Named Simplicity, Susan Eaton Mendenhall weaves a gentle tale about her house. The message is profound and introduces an important distinction, do you occupy your house or treasure the space that you occupy? Susan welcomes the reader into her life and home to bring awareness not just about living space, but how we live our lives."
Mary Hall
"Susan Eaton Mendenhall and A House Named Simplicity have regular soul-to-soul talks with each other. The unique language they speak develops over years of living together and making a house into a home. Come and join them in a meaningful read that will inspire conversations between you and the place you call home."
Suzan McVicker
"In Simplicity, Susan Eaton Mendenhall paints a picture of home not as a place, but as a relationship—at times inspiring and nurturing, and other times challenging and limiting. At its core, Simplicity is about the relationship we have with our deepest selves. I will never be able to see my own home in the same light after reading Simplicity."
Lisa Ferrazzano
"Susan Mendenhall is a generous writer who welcomes us as she describes both the joys and trials of creating a home out of an empty house in a small Wisconsin community. Her home expands as we read about arranging spaces, furniture, art and places for all kinds of creative life. We join Susan and her new husband Don, both artists, as they start their life together in Simplicity, a Midwestern four-square structure that was once a hair salon on a main street. Now moved to a side street, the house itself has been transformed as they have in their life together. A pleasure to read and see the delicate art of wise living."
Trudy Karlson
"Each of Susan's essays prompted me to consider the richness of a home's interior and the importance of its function in a way I'd never stopped to think about before. She guides us into a mindful relationship with our own living spaces as she describes the careful, grateful attention she employs in creating her own home."
Shirley Smith
"Susan shares her house-alive to us in ways that wander into our own personal spaces, bringing wonder, allowing realizations of our own relationships to the spirit of place. Her attentiveness and her insightful stories of how a home is lived in, open our awareness of how the very bones of a place might frame us and our experiences and, in many discoverable and unexpected ways, invite us in return – to be filled, emptied, lived out."
Rebecca Cecchini
"Susan Mendenhall looks at the world with an artist’s sensibility. In Simplicity, she brings intimate home spaces to life with possibility, pattern, texture, color and feeling. This generous, light-filled collection of stories reminds us of the ways our homes have their own personalities and guide us through our daily rituals. If you have ever felt connected to your home, or wanted to, this book is for you!"
Brenda Baker
"Susan Mendenhall’s relationship with her home, which she named Simplicity, is a beautiful I-Thou relationship. A rare and poetic relationship of awareness upon awareness. With the sensitivity of the artist that Susan is, attending to space, flow, color, function, play, delight, harmony AND, of course beauty - she takes us through one experience after another in her personal life within her home, partnering with that structure beautifully, thoughtfully, and profoundly."
Jean Scott Honig