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October 30, 1995
The Fiffers (Fifty Ways to Help Your Community) have collected 19 engaging essays, 15 of which are published here for the first time and each of which evokes a specific room that fostered its author's concept of home. Many of the pieces deal with childhood, such as Richard Bausch's bittersweet memories of his great-grandmother's porch (``The Porch'') and ``The Teen's Bedroom,'' Alex Kotlowitz's touching description of the small back bedroom he shared with his brother in a ground-floor Manhattan apartment. In ``The Living Room,'' Henry Louis Gates Jr. describes how the room in which his family gathered during the 1950s and '60s to watch TV gave him his first understanding of the civil rights movement and brought him images of African Americans through sitcoms and movies. Jane Smiley contributes a humorous tribute to the importance of hot baths enjoyed in a variety of bathrooms.