Gimme Shelter

by Mary Williams and MaryElizabeth Williams

Book Overview

"Of course I want a home," writes Mary Elizabeth Williams, "I'm American." Gimme Shelter is the first book to reveal how this primal desire, "encoded into our cultural DNA," drove our nation to extremes, from the heights of an unprecedented housing boom to the depths of an unparalleled crash.

As a writer and parent in New York City, Williams is careful to ground her real-estate dreams in the reality of her middle-class bank account...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1416557091
• ISBN13: 9781416557098
• Release Date: April 2011
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Stressful and timely, in the good way.

I've not yet gone home shopping myself, but after reading this book I feel as though I already have. Every challenge and heartbreak, elation and fall, every pressure point the world could push on, they're all there. Somehow however, Ms Williams' wit and way with words make the journey both an adventure and a joy to read. You may shake your fists at the world from time to time while reading, but in the end you may have an appreciation of the fact that sometimes the best things in life cost $400,000 plus 8.5% interest for the next 30 years.

Funny and honest

The yearning for a nest -- including a bedroom with a door -- is universal, but this enjoyable book is very specific. Instead of trudging through a national survey of how the real estate market overheated, we follow one middle class working woman and her family as they struggle to find a modest apartment for what is, in almost any other part of the country, a ridiculous sum. You'll laugh; you'll cry...

Talking with Mary Elizabeth

" Give Me Shelter" is so readable. It is like having a conversation with Mary Elizabeth. The issue of affordable housing is so important, and Mary Elizabeth describes her "adventure" with humor and salient details. I enjoyed meeting her family and hearing of the trails and triumphs of finding middle class housing in New York City. The memoir draws you in, it is even suspensful, holding the reader until we find out what happens. It is inspiring reminding me, the reader, to know that perseverence, and faith are still relevant human traits.

First aid for the pain of real estate

Very, very funny. I only wish we had this hilarious handbook during the two miserable years we spent searching for plausible, affordable real estate within commuting distance of Manhattan.

Intelligent, Fun, Informative-and a good read!

I just finished Gimme Shelter, and even though I was reading ever faster to see how the personal story that's woven through the book ended, I'm sorry it's over. It's the real estate bubble from the inside, told in a funny and searingly honest voice that puts even the whole sub-prime mess in terms we can understand. Mary Elizabeth Williams was in the thick of it, trying to buy in New York City, one of the most overheated markets out there, and she deftly intersperses her experience with what's going on all across the country, offering pricelessly lucid explanations for everything from no-interest loans to the mortgage default rate in between descriptions of apartments with triangular bedrooms and stoveless kitchens bordering graveyards and expressways, all at prices that any New Yorker will recognize and everyone else will blanch at. It's a good story, an engaging memoir and an informative read all in one.