Today I’m excited to be participating in a blog tour – I don’t do these very often as I didn’t use to read many very modern books, but my NetGalley adventures have given me all sorts of up-to-date things to do and this is one of them. There’s a competition to win a copy of this book and a link to sign up for a decluttering week *if that’s your thing* but I’m posting these to say thank you to the publisher, Sourcebooks, for sending my review copy and there is no expectation from me at all that you’ll click the links!
Eve Schaub – “Year of No Clutter”
(20 January 2017 – From the publisher, Sourcebooks, via NetGalley)
Rather than a how-to or a you-must-do-this book, this is a what-I-did one (or what I like to classify as a Quest book), so a far more comfortable read and maybe more likely to inspire people. Schaub in fact has a collection of anti-clutter books herself, and I started to really like her when she disclosed that she’d mislaid her copy of THAT Marie Kondo book in the terribly messy and cluttered place in her house she calls the Hell Room!
While following her own and her family’s progress (watch out for how she gets her husband to sort through HIS stuff!) through a bit more than a year of sorting-out, she also looks at the psychology of hoarding, discussing various famous hoarders and one who is a friend of a friend; the differences between mess and clutter; and the particular mental tics needed to honestly think (and act on that thought) that it’s a good idea to keep every single tiny note someone has ever given to you.
Schaub is honest about her own problems and her family inheritance of hoarding, and how this tendency exhibits itself in her daughters, too. But there is hope: although she adds some large items she really should keep to her collection, she does get much better at discarding items and deciding that things should be used now or got rid of – no more keeping things in case they come in handy at some point in the future (we have a lot of that in this house).
It’s OK not to be perfect (of course it is: we all know that already, right?) and that’s a big lesson for both Schaub and her readers. It’s better to clear enough space to have a go at having an art room than it is to stay paralysed by the enormousness of the task in front of you.
You won’t learn exactly HOW to pare things back from this book, but you will learn what it feels like to do so, and I think that’s a very valid benefit of the book.
And here are those links I promised you could click if you wanted to …
Sign up to receive a daily e-newsletter with tips, advice and videos from Eve Schaub on how to start conquering clutter this spring during the Week of No Clutter, March 7-14. Sign up now!
… and here’s a Rafflecopter giveaway (I’m afraid this is for US and Canada readers only – sorry!)
Rebecca Foster
Mar 07, 2017 @ 12:33:35
I remember liking Eve Schaub’s writing well enough when I read The Year of No Sugar. There were enough ‘cheats’ there too that you felt like perfection wasn’t the aim, just making significant improvements. I reckon I’d prefer her take on clutter to Marie Kondo’s — the latter (or what I know of it, not having read the book) is far too unsentimental for me, especially when it comes to books!
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Liz Dexter
Mar 08, 2017 @ 19:02:23
Yes indeed (though I haven’t read that one, either!). I think it’s a good way to show that you can achieve what you want without having to be perfect or fit to anyone else’s standards.
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kaggsysbookishramblings
Mar 07, 2017 @ 17:56:17
This sounds like inspiration for me – I so *desperately* need to declutter!!
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Liz Dexter
Mar 08, 2017 @ 19:02:49
It was much better than I’d expected, as I’d thought it would be laying down rules and it wasn’t at all.
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BookerTalk
Mar 08, 2017 @ 17:42:28
I shudder every time I hear Marie Kondo’s name mentioned – anyone who says ‘thank you’ to her coat or handbag at the end of the day cannot be real can they? I much prefer the practice I saw mentioned in a newspaper article which is to remove at least one thing from your home every day. Doesnt matter what it is but you have to pledge to do that one thing – and then watch how it builds over the year
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Liz Dexter
Mar 08, 2017 @ 19:03:29
Yes, I’ve seen that mentioned and thought it a good idea. But you don’t say thank you to your coat and handbag, really? Ha – of course I don’t, either!
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BookerTalk
Mar 11, 2017 @ 16:57:24
Good grief no – I just throw it in the dark space under the stairs. Ms Kondo would be horrified but seriously who has time to do all this stuff. I think I would also get some very strange looks from my husband
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Ste J
Mar 09, 2017 @ 14:29:56
Decluttering is always great as it means more room for books and inventive ways to display them and that need is always great.
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Liz Dexter
Mar 09, 2017 @ 14:49:40
Ha – well said! The author did refuse to get rid of too many books, which was also good.
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