Konmari Problems: Books

1 Comment / 2015, Audiobooks, Books in Bed, Daily Dose, Day to Day, Favorites, Konmari, Non-Fiction /

If you are friends with me on Facebook, you’ve no doubt seen me talking about The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up aka the Konmari method.

Much of what I typed was just me being silly. It’s a little overwhelming but very interesting and much of it makes sense. My real problem though is her method of managing books. I don’t think she understands my relationship with books.

From the beginning of her section on books…

We have to take all of the books off of the shelf and put them on the floor. I understand her suggestion to do this, in general. It makes a lot of sense to see your collections of items as one big THING. It also makes sense to touch each item to determine which bring you joy.

Since I already know I have an ass ton of books, shouldn’t I be able to just pick up each book from the shelf, hold it and then either return it or discard it? Do I really have to move thousands of books into one room in order to determine joy? I think not.

Also, since TW and I co-own these books, how do we decide together which books bring joy. If one brings me joy, but doesn’t bring TW joy, does my joy outweigh hers?

She also talks a lot about imagining A bookshelf filled with books you love.

I, however, picture a good half dozen bookshelves filled with books I love.

Also, she does not understand that my books are arranged by color. Therefore dozens of bookshelves of books sorted by color DO make me happy. Those books DO have value just by being on the shelf. They are beautiful. They do serve a purpose by just being there. Books are not only valuable for the information they provide to you when you read them. Or even by the pleasure you get from reading them. They bring me pleasure simply by BEING there.

I suspect she doesn’t understand this. Or, I wonder if she’d tell me that my books are not in fact books, they are komono or sentimental items so they should be managed differently. Maybe?

One last problem is that I’m not sure I buy into the idea that “sometime means never” as in “I might read that sometime.” I do sometimes read the books from my stacks, though she is right — I rarely re-read books.

I also don’t think I buy into the idea that the perfect time to read a book is when it first comes to you and if you don’t read it at that moment, then you’ve missed your opportunity and you should simply let that book go. I’ve read books from my stacks years after I first acquired them and I’ve fully enjoyed reading them.

I’m not giving up, I’m definitely going to give this a try — even if I have to do some sort of modified version of Konmari. Totally fascinating.

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2 Non-Fictions

2015, Books in Bed, Favorites, Non-Fiction /

TW has started making fun of me for checking out so many gardening books. lol. It is a little odd, but I LIKE THEM, darn it. I really liked Foodscaping though I sure would like to know how to keep wildlife from eating all of your foodscaped gardens. This book was a little short on advice for that. Plant sweet peas in multiple patches and hope the bunnies only notice one patch isn’t real solid advice, ya know? lol. Anyway, I’ve read 3 or 4 books about foodscaping and this was probably my favorite of the bunch. I think we’re going to have to plant kiwi…

Last week (or was it the week before?) when my back hurt like crazy and nothing on the bookshelves looked good to me, I picked Decorating for Real Life from the new arrivals shelf. I wasn’t expecting much but turns out I really liked it. I liked the different houses and rooms and it was exactly the right book to read when I was tired and tired of having a back ache.

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The Living

2015, Books in Bed, Cybil Challenge, Fiction, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Young Adult /

It’s books like The Living that cause me to say NO cruises. NO living on the west coast. And, thank goodness JMP no longer lives in Hawaii. Quick read. I wasn’t thrilled with the characters at the beginning of the book but they grew on me.

I’m not sure I’m going to read the next book, though it does stink to not know what happens next. After all of that horrible stuff and I don’t know how it ends? Ugh. Totally annoying.

There are too many darn sequels in the world now. Have you noticed this? I’m really getting tired of sequels when we don’t need sequels. We need authors to write books and give them a real live ENDING every now and then. Sheesh.

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The Crossover

2015, Audiobooks, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Favorites, Poetry, Young Adult /

I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel about TheCrossover — we listened to it on audio and it’s about basketball. Not generally our sort of thing. Turns out… amazing book. Amazing. I loved everything about it. The poetry. The characters. The plot. *sniff* I’m not going to say best book ever but damn it was a good book.

Read it. Listen to it on audio. Give it to your kids.

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The Jupiter Pirates (2 Of Them)

2015, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Favorites, Sci Fi and Fantasy /

One of the Jupiter Pirates books is on the Cybils shortlist and since there are only two published (so far) and they’re middle grade scifi, I figured I’d just reserve them both. I’m glad I did. They were both a lot of fun and super quick to read.

The captain of the ship is a woman (a mom) and her husband is the first mate. There are three kids competing against each other to be the captain when their mom retires but they also have to work together because they’re crew. The female child is the one who’s most into “firepower” — that’s a nice change from the girl being the smart, bossy one.

I can see the first book (or the second) being a great action movie for kids. Great characters, interesting plot, lots of special effects. Someone should option these now.

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Reading In May

2015, Books in Bed, Reading /

It was a good month for reading and not much else. 3+ weeks of my back being… in bad shape = I didn’t get much done except for reading. Thank goodness for books and remind me of this next month when I don’t get many books read at all…

Total read 26!

13 were Non-fiction.
Only 5 were YA.
9 came from the Cybils shortlist.
2 were audiobooks.

Yep, good month for reading and I’m hoping for a good month in June too, but not THIS good. I have a lot to do that doesn’t involve laying in bed with books.

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Stuffocation

2015, Books in Bed, Non-Fiction /

I have a love/hate thing going on with Stuffocation. I like the concept, it makes a lot of sense. I’ve also seen (and pointed out) trends in experientialism in recent years.

There were pieces of the book that I loved but there some points when I found myself rolling my eyes at the author. I’m glad I read it but I’m not going to become an experientialist — just typing that made me roll my eyes again. lol.

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Jam on the Vine

2015, Books in Bed, Favorites, Feminism, Fiction, Queer, Women /

And to think, I almost didn’t read Jam on the Vine. Sheesh. One of the best books I’ve read this year and I almost missed it. Good thing TW pointed it out when she finished.

This is not the normal post-civil war era book. There are black Muslims in Texas. There are lesbians. It makes you think a bit of Ida B. Welles but not enough to actually make you feel like you’re reading Ida B Wells fan fiction or something like that.

Read it!

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