Last week I wrote about the exterior architecture of a house dictating the interior design plan.  On an trip to Borders yesterday I found a great book about the styles of homes common in America. 

The Houses We Live In, An Identification Guide to the History and Style of American Domestic Architecture, General Editor: Jeffery Howe, is filled with nearly 500 pages of tightly packed text and information, but could easily pass as a coffee table book. 

The photos are rather amateurish, and in many cases down right amusing.  It is obvious most were never even in the same room as a copy of Photoshop.  Many photos are faded and no attempt has been made to take out cars, trucks, power lines, or bystanders.  It is actually as much fun looking at the 20 some years of car body styles as the architecture styles.  And the clothes on the people!  Oh My! (Is that a ManPurse in the photo above?) The general editor admits in the Preface that he took most of the 600 photos himself in his twenty year attachment to American homes.  The dust cover states,

 [Howe's] longstanding interest in architecture is matched by his interest in photography and digital media; his digital archives of the images of American architecture were among the first on the Internet.

 Anyone with even a passing interest in American History will enjoy owning a copy.