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A Window Over the Sink
The popular columnist and best-selling author reminisces about growing up in mid-America and the colorful relatives, friends, and experiences that remain vivid in her memory
256 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published April 1, 1981
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
April 23, 2013
I read this book so often when I was a kid that I grew up to be Aunt Liz Noah, basically. How about that?
December 19, 2014
While few of my generation probably know the name Peg Bracken, those who do think of her as a cookbook author. To me she is iconic, and way ahead of her time for the early 60s.
Consider the occasional writer today who comes forward and expresses her ambivalence about having children, or brave women who confess in blogs that becoming a mother hasn't been all sunshine-and-roses. Bracken did something similar -- she was among the first to publicly say being a housewife (cook, housekeeper, and indentured servant) wasn't exactly as fulfilling as everyone makes it out to be, and now and then it's OK to take something out of the freezer for your husband's dinner, and fix yourself a few olives with a side of dry martini if that's what you need.
It's a schtick that made Erma Bombeck famous, but it was Peg Bracken who made it an art form. Not for nothing, she was an advertising copywriter before marriage (just like Helen Gurley Brown, who would be among the first to say we can enjoy being single if we want to) and had a writing career that must have been a far cry more stimulating than her peers, who had to face another day of polishing the silver tea set in case their mothers-in-law dropped in.
I rather love her stream-of-consciousness style, because that's how memory works. There are lots of giggles in this book, which mainly covers her childhood, but the reminiscences here certainly don't make me nostalgic for a time before I was born. No thank you. I do think one would appreciate it more after having read her popular, earlier books.
Consider the occasional writer today who comes forward and expresses her ambivalence about having children, or brave women who confess in blogs that becoming a mother hasn't been all sunshine-and-roses. Bracken did something similar -- she was among the first to publicly say being a housewife (cook, housekeeper, and indentured servant) wasn't exactly as fulfilling as everyone makes it out to be, and now and then it's OK to take something out of the freezer for your husband's dinner, and fix yourself a few olives with a side of dry martini if that's what you need.
It's a schtick that made Erma Bombeck famous, but it was Peg Bracken who made it an art form. Not for nothing, she was an advertising copywriter before marriage (just like Helen Gurley Brown, who would be among the first to say we can enjoy being single if we want to) and had a writing career that must have been a far cry more stimulating than her peers, who had to face another day of polishing the silver tea set in case their mothers-in-law dropped in.
I rather love her stream-of-consciousness style, because that's how memory works. There are lots of giggles in this book, which mainly covers her childhood, but the reminiscences here certainly don't make me nostalgic for a time before I was born. No thank you. I do think one would appreciate it more after having read her popular, earlier books.
January 26, 2019
The kind of book where you read along and come across something so funny you have to put the book down and laugh for a while. Then you pick the book back up and re-read the funny part and set the book back down to laugh a bit more. That could explain why it took me so long to read it, and it was overdue and costing me 25 cents a day! I even dreamed our local library raised the overdue book fee!
It was a bit repetitive in the middle and I wouldn't have finished it, had it not been for the Goodreads reading challenge--at that point I was one book hehind! I'm so glad I did though. The last section is about her great-aunt's dementia, and the author ruminates on old age and who you are. Instead of putting the book down to laugh at this point, I put the book down to cry.
If you like memoir and a bit of sardonic humor, you'll enjoy this. Oh, and it helps if you have conflicted feelings about the role of housekeeping and cooking in your life--both hating and liking it.
It was a bit repetitive in the middle and I wouldn't have finished it, had it not been for the Goodreads reading challenge--at that point I was one book hehind! I'm so glad I did though. The last section is about her great-aunt's dementia, and the author ruminates on old age and who you are. Instead of putting the book down to laugh at this point, I put the book down to cry.
If you like memoir and a bit of sardonic humor, you'll enjoy this. Oh, and it helps if you have conflicted feelings about the role of housekeeping and cooking in your life--both hating and liking it.
February 27, 2015
I'll have to reread it to be sure, but I would argue that Bracken is not here being "mean-spirited", as I saw one of the other reviewers called her in A Window over the Sink. Or rather she's not being any more mean-spirited than she was in any of her other books...and yes, she did write things other than I Hate to Cook Book. Which itself was, in tone, quite like this: not mean but perhaps a bit sardonic. (And for those who don't like to hear authors' true voices, for heaven's sake DON'T read Betty MacDonald's autobiographies. Fans of Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle will plotz.)
Update: having re-read it, I'd rather call this book 'tart', which, if you've read between the lines of her other books, is certainly visible elsewhere! I'll admit that the chapter on her (great)Aunt Liz Noah always brings me to tears:
Update: having re-read it, I'd rather call this book 'tart', which, if you've read between the lines of her other books, is certainly visible elsewhere! I'll admit that the chapter on her (great)Aunt Liz Noah always brings me to tears:
June 2, 2016
3.5? A memoir based around the author's kitchen renovation, and the memories that can come through while looking out through the window over the sink. The renovation bits were so funny--Uwe was a dream, ha. The recipes were fun, too. I liked her wit and humor, but she was a little mean spirited and there was so much about the old days were better--but based on her stories, boy were they not.
December 26, 2010
More mean-spirited than I remember Bracken being. I almost gave up on it but decided to persevere and am glad I did, because it ended up giving me an interesting glimpse into women's lives in recent history in America. I enjoy discovering how we have and haven't changed.
February 14, 2014
Memoir. Cute and funny.
Revolves around kitchen makeover.
Lots of family and childhood stories.
Revolves around kitchen makeover.
Lots of family and childhood stories.
July 2, 2009
She's someone I wish I could have known.
June 11, 2018
While I have really liked her other books this particular one left a very bad taste in my mouth and I am returning it to the public library. I did not care for the abuse between children and the abuse of children. How an older male child is allowed to beat on a younger female child is beyond me. The younger female started it but the parents just let the fight roll on and then the father whipped them both. Great way to indoctrinate girls into the abuse of women.
I do not believe that any child has the right to hit another child. Yes, we all know to step away from the highchair when a toddler learns their hands work.
I did like her story of redoing her kitchen - quite funny.
I do not believe that any child has the right to hit another child. Yes, we all know to step away from the highchair when a toddler learns their hands work.
I did like her story of redoing her kitchen - quite funny.
November 7, 2020
She really evokes growing up in the midwest with close family. Has funny and very perceptive bits too about family and importance of community. I found the last chapter the most moving when she describes how her favorite aunt was no longer taking care of her self and so was moved in "The Elms" where she was not doing well until her aunt moved herself out and into a hotel where she lived out the rest of her life.
January 8, 2018
Peg Bracken was the forerunner of Erma Bombeck. Both were humor columnists that my mom read while I was growing up. This book takes me back to my childhood, even though it was written about my parents' era growing up. Peg Bracken is funny and writes well, but I suspect most people under 45 would find it hard to relate to her. It's a great period piece, though.
August 25, 2018
I'm sorry to report that this did not hold up as well as I had hoped. Her shtick of rambling off from her main story, then returning to the point, the whole thing laced with regionalisms, is a bit hokey to me now. But the final chapter on the old age of her Aunt Liz Noah is quite wonderful.
September 2, 2023
I enjoyed it. I read a lot of Peg Bracken's work when I was younger and enjoyed it a lot. She wrote about her life in such a funny, informative way. I really got her sense of humour
I found this novel on my last trip to Edmonton. It was my doctor's office book, finally finished it.
I found this novel on my last trip to Edmonton. It was my doctor's office book, finally finished it.
July 24, 2020
Bracken's lively and often-funny memoir.
November 30, 2020
Surprised by her candid writing. Sometimes it unravels but I felt comforted by the several paths it took. Recommend.
Read
February 17, 2021Wonderful -- entertaining and candid!
June 27, 2021
A pleasant travel through growing up and being grownup. Created a certain nostalgia in me even though it was not Midwestern.
September 26, 2021
Nostalgic humor
July 22, 2016
I found this discarded library book at Goodwill and decided it would be maybe fun and interesting to read. The author, Peg Bracken has written several other books, the most widely known probably The I Hate to Cook Book. A Window Over a Sink, I assume was written in her later years as it hints at her being a young adult during WWII. This book was copyright 1981.
I like her style. She writes with plenty of humor and a dash of self-depreciation. I tend to do that too when I write. This is a memoir of sorts that starts out when Peg decides to remodel her kitchen. As for the title, I've always thought when watching the HGTV shows, that a deal breaker for me would be no window over the kitchen sink. So I think it's a good title.
I can't really think what the book was about since it hops around through Bracken's life but I found two excerpts that I especially liked and want to share.
'Though I haven't told Uwe so, I do feel a trifle uneasy, sometimes, about the modern equipment in this new kitchen of ours' that is, about its philosophic implications. 'I don't know what he could do about it short of starting over and replacing everything with period pieces from fifty years ago, like the Congoleum rug on the kitchen floor in Grandma and grandpas' house, or their stove and burner unit on its tall skinny legs or the chip[prone porcelain sink, or the icebox with the dishpan underneath to catch the drips' all stunning, expensive camp now, collector's items that I know we couldn't afford'.
Well, I think I know the answer: because back then, few people foresaw the tidal wave of nostalgia that was going to come surging out of the seventies and eighties to backwash over the twenties and thirties and all their artifacts' a wistful it is to weep nostalgia for those ( in spite of everything) safe and innocent quaint old days before the TV dinner and the polyester pantsuit, before pollution and the Pill, before acid rain and the aerosol can and the computer and the moon shot and the Bomb, before quarks and psi particles and the primal scream.'
So like my chain of thought on appliances and all things old. Here was the other excerpt I rather liked on aging.
'On Aunt Liz Noah the years were showing, too. Especially her hands: knuckles newly swollen, one hand painfully massing the fingers of the other all the while we talked. I'd known she wasn't painting, and now I knew why. Old age is only a collection of little infirmities you neglect to recover from' I read that somewhere' and Aunt Liz Noah was adding to her collection. And she was grayer, skinnier, frailer, nudging old, aging the way a day does, moving toward dusk and the dusk toward dark. But she still walked tall, still laughed. Some.'
A cute if somewhat dated book. Pleasant enough to read.
I like her style. She writes with plenty of humor and a dash of self-depreciation. I tend to do that too when I write. This is a memoir of sorts that starts out when Peg decides to remodel her kitchen. As for the title, I've always thought when watching the HGTV shows, that a deal breaker for me would be no window over the kitchen sink. So I think it's a good title.
I can't really think what the book was about since it hops around through Bracken's life but I found two excerpts that I especially liked and want to share.
'Though I haven't told Uwe so, I do feel a trifle uneasy, sometimes, about the modern equipment in this new kitchen of ours' that is, about its philosophic implications. 'I don't know what he could do about it short of starting over and replacing everything with period pieces from fifty years ago, like the Congoleum rug on the kitchen floor in Grandma and grandpas' house, or their stove and burner unit on its tall skinny legs or the chip[prone porcelain sink, or the icebox with the dishpan underneath to catch the drips' all stunning, expensive camp now, collector's items that I know we couldn't afford'.
Well, I think I know the answer: because back then, few people foresaw the tidal wave of nostalgia that was going to come surging out of the seventies and eighties to backwash over the twenties and thirties and all their artifacts' a wistful it is to weep nostalgia for those ( in spite of everything) safe and innocent quaint old days before the TV dinner and the polyester pantsuit, before pollution and the Pill, before acid rain and the aerosol can and the computer and the moon shot and the Bomb, before quarks and psi particles and the primal scream.'
So like my chain of thought on appliances and all things old. Here was the other excerpt I rather liked on aging.
'On Aunt Liz Noah the years were showing, too. Especially her hands: knuckles newly swollen, one hand painfully massing the fingers of the other all the while we talked. I'd known she wasn't painting, and now I knew why. Old age is only a collection of little infirmities you neglect to recover from' I read that somewhere' and Aunt Liz Noah was adding to her collection. And she was grayer, skinnier, frailer, nudging old, aging the way a day does, moving toward dusk and the dusk toward dark. But she still walked tall, still laughed. Some.'
A cute if somewhat dated book. Pleasant enough to read.
May 25, 2010
This book was hard for me to "get into," but I enjoyed reading it whenever I picked it up. Peg Bracken writes like the witty tell-it-like-it-is aunt, a tone I really appreciated, even if the conversational nature of the book made it hard to really get hooked in.
October 5, 2010
A collection of reminiscences about coming of age in a small midwestern town, each loosely linked to something domestic, like a particular meal or housekeeping habit. Light and cozy. I kept it by my bed and read it when other books seemed too demanding.
February 28, 2012
I enjoy Peg Braken's writing style. She is funny and entertaining as she relays bits and pieces of her life. However, she wanders from subject to subject in a way that feels choppy, rather than cohesive. I never felt that way about other books of hers.
March 5, 2008
Hard to find, but one of the best books I've ever read. Truly touching and humorous all at the same time!
May 29, 2008
It's taking me a while to get through this, but it's kind of charming. There are fun stories and even a few recipes the author shares.
August 3, 2008
I had forgotten about Peg Bracken until I saw this book at a used book sale. Her "The I Hate to Cook Book" was a favorite of mine years ago and I thoroughly enjoyed her sharp wit and honesty here.
Read
July 15, 2009My favorite book in the whole wide world!
April 8, 2011
This was kind of like visiting with Erma Bombeck's older but wiser sister. Pleasant enough, but I prefer her "I Hate to Cook" book series.
June 7, 2013
I really like Peg Bracken. She has a bit of a quirky sense of humor and writing style that makes you feel like you're talking with a friend.
April 8, 2014
This was interesting in many ways, but not as good as I wanted it to be. I'm glad I read it and will happily pass it along to a friend.
July 13, 2016
Love Peg Bracken humour.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews