Book after Book

Having previously loved reading TheLife-Changing Magic of Tidying , I just had to pick up the follow-up to the book:  Spark Joy: An Illustrated Guide to the Japanese Art of Tidying by Marie Kondo , translated by Cathy Hirano. There is so much that sparked joy for me in this book: the adorable illustrations, the thorough index, the useful tips, the references to Japanese culture and the pervasive sense of respect for the things that serve us purpose, or that don’t. With bookshelves still laden with tomes, even after my attempt at letting go of some, my attention was drawn once again to the topic of books: When you’ve finished tidying your books, step back and take a good look at your bookshelves. What kinds of words leap out at you from the titles on their spines? […]  The energy of book titles and the words inside them are very powerful. In Japan, we say that ‘words make our reality’. The words we see and with which we come into contact tend to bring about even...

A few months ago I become engrossed in the series Tidying Up with Marie Kondo on Netflix. Of course, I had heard of her before but I had never paid much attention as I’ve always been relatively tidy and I’ve been watching my mum fold clothes to perfection since I was a child. With a baby on the way, limited storage and lots of new stuff to accommodate, I have however been looking for a way to optimise the space around me. Enter Marie Kondo and things have definitely improved. So much, in fact, that I wanted to deepen my understanding of her method and decided to listen to her audiobook, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying . This is not a post about the changes in my home though. Because of the criticism this adorable tidying expert has received for saying that she has reduced her collection to 30 books and implying that we shouldn’t need many more than that, I have decided to share a few snippets of her book-related theories along with my thoughts. So let’s begin: Books are...