Why a Japanese home feels calm, and an American one feels like work.
Every habit people call Japanese discipline turns out to be a floor plan, a fee, or a law. Two Houses measures each one, and what it means for your house tonight.
Before you buy anything, try this tonight.
The back of the book holds ten cards, two questions for each part of the house. Pick a room and ask it the two questions. That's the method, and you can start before you spend a cent.
Cupboard, not garage. Two weeks.
Nobody in my mother's house was disciplined. The closet was eighty centimetres deep.
A futon folded in three is about seventy-five. So the bedding goes away every morning, because there is exactly one place for it. Americans call that a habit. It's a cupboard. The whole book works this way: find the measurement under the behaviour.
Two houses, side by side.
The house I grew up in and the house I live in now. Some rows go America's way. The book says so twenty-five times, and means every one.
Every figure is from the book's Source Ledger.
One PDF. Yours to keep.
Read it on a tablet or computer, or print the parts you'll use. These are real pages, exactly as you'll read them.
See all sixteen parts
Everyone here calls me Ken. My mother still calls me Kenichi. I have now lived in America longer than I lived in Japan, which makes me the wrong person to romanticise either country and the right person to measure the wall between them.
I am not the good example. I own a garage that has never held a car, central heating I love, and a kitchen drawer I could not describe under oath. I am writing from inside the American house, not from above it.
“I like that you present facts but you don't judge. Excellent.”
“I am an older American and I grew up with my mind being on what others would think. You've described it so clearly, like I have not heard it before.”
Read it for a month. If it isn't for you, it costs nothing.
Email twohousesbyken@gmail.com within 30 days and I'll refund you. No form, no questions.
What people ask before they buy.
Is this a printed book?
No. It's a digital book: a PDF, 543 pages, set at 6 by 9 inches in large type. It reads like a printed book on a tablet, and you can print any or all of it. Nothing arrives in the post.
How do I open a PDF?
You already can. Every iPad, iPhone, Android phone, Mac and Windows computer opens PDFs without installing anything. Tap the link in the email and it opens.
Can I read it on a Kindle?
Yes. Go to amazon.com/sendtokindle, sign in, and drag the file onto the page. On a small, basic Kindle the pages look small; it's far better on an iPad, a computer, or paper.
Is my card information safe?
Yes. I never see your card. Payment is handled by Gumroad, and PayPal and Apple Pay work too.
Will the price go up?
Yes. $47 is the early-bird price until 11:59 p.m. Eastern on October 31. On November 1 it moves to $79.
What if it isn't for me?
Email twohousesbyken@gmail.com within 30 days and I'll refund you. No form, no questions.
Not ready? Read the closet chapter first.
Eighty Centimetres, the chapter the whole book is built around. Enter your email and it opens right away.
One drawer. One object. Tonight.
You have known the answer about most of the objects in your house for years. This book exists to make you say it, and to show you the number that put them there.