"I am a working woman with a secret life," Cheryl Mendelson states at the opening of Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House. "I keep house." Home Comforts, an encyclopedic, utterly engaging home keeping manual strikes at the conundrum of the modern woman and her house head on. Mendelson loves keeping house, and if you do too, this book will inspire and inform. Her prose is witty, kind, beautifully written, and thorough. It's a book that I carried room to room, reading every page (all 850 of them) the first week I received it, and have turned back to it again and again over the past five years.

Mendelson brings thorough research skills she must have honed while earning PhD in Philosophy, and later her law degree. But her sensitivity and pleasure in her subject isn’t at all academic. And she’s thought about what keeping house means. "I knew I would not want this information to get around," she writes. "After all, I belong to the first generation of women who worked more than they stayed home. We knew no judge would credit the legal briefs of a housewife, no university would give tenure to one, no corporation would promote one, and no one who mattered would talk to one at a party." In this light, keeping house becomes a radical act. And for me, raised by a successful mother from Mendelson's generation, housekeeping does feel transgressive.

Mendelson is the only modern woman writing about housekeeping whose depth, breadth, and passion approach that of the great nineteenth-century housekeeping manuals, like Enquire Within Upon Everything, or Mrs. Beeton. Unlike those Victorian tomes, Mendelson's information fully relates to our modern homes.

She is an obsessive housekeeper who changes the pillowcases twice a week, sanitizes her drains weekly, and folds her fitted sheets correctly. But after reading her book, I do these things too. They add no time to your routine, and make you feel mastery over your domain.

Her proposed schedules for housekeeping inspire you to reevaluate your own systems (or create a system if you don't have one). Chapter 2, "Easing into a routine" gently cajoles you to schedule. Never, however, does she advocate a blind acceptance of her mode of housekeeping.

The chapter "The Cave of Nakedness," in the "Sleep" section of the book, is my favorite. Auden's investigation of the bedroom cave inspires the title, and Mendelson reminds us that, "the bedroom is for sleeping, lovemaking, dressing, and undressing," and explains how we let go of our reserves in the space. This space for "casting off" clothes, inhibitions, responsibilities, and consciousness must, she writes, "feel securely private and diminish anxiety; otherwise you will never let yourself be so unguarded as to enjoy being undressed, being sensual, and falling into deep, free dreams." But Mendelson never dwells on the philosophical for long before she turns to the practical - that is the magical balance that sets this book apart from any other. She addresses bedroom arrangements of all sizes and types, light and noise, humidity and temperature, air quality, and outlines a cleaning and laundering routine for the space. You may think you make a good bed, but your bed, and your sleep, will improve after you've read Mendelson’s directions. She offers different options, diagrams, and remedies for insomnia. I now fold my sheets down to air my bed daily, waiting a few hours before making it. Knowing that this pause improves my bed not only frees me from the guilt of procrastinating, but also leads to cooler sheets in the evening. Mendelson writes that one of her grandmothers, a consummate housekeeper, never made the bed - airing it out was what was important.

While not an explicitly "green" home book, Mendelson’s advocacy of permanent home supplies, like dishcloths, cloth napkins, and sturdy sheets will resonate with environmentally-conscious readers. Her charts on stain removal are invaluable: instead of relying on chemically based products, most of her methods involve hot or cold water and basics like vinegar, soda, or lemon juice. And they have never failed me. I do disagree with some of her reliance on chemical cleaning products - I've found I can clean a rug quite well with baking soda. And perhaps part of living green is accepting some stains.

This book certainly struck a nerve with me and my passions: I love home keeping, I love thoroughness, order, and I adore obsessive research and astute writing.

Perhaps you won't read the 884 pages straight through in a week, but you will work through them eventually - the book is too well-written to stay on the shelf for long - and your home will be so much nicer for it.

Consider buying the 1999 hardcover edition (available on Amazon in a wide price range from third-party sellers) simply because this is a book you will refer back to for years, and so it makes sense to buy a durable copy.The 2005 paperback edition is around $14.