the life-changing magic of tidying up: the Japanese art of decluttering and organizing

the life-changing magic of tidying up: the Japanese art of decluttering and organizing by Marie Kondo (2014)  This book almost lost me because I first was skimming it, and looked at the part about books. Marie Kondo says she only keeps about 30 books (and with books that had some really great phrase, tore that page out and discarded the rest). If you feel like I do—that books are to some degree sacred objects—that attitude is kind of rough! Obviously people are all different, and what is most important to them varies. So I tried to keep an open mind and read on. Her point about keeping books you will never read, and never touch, even, since it's squirreled away on a shelf, is a good one. I like her idea that you should get out all of your books and actually handle them all, and keep the ones that spark joy. That is really the basis of what she says to keep and discard in general, and that is good advice. Overall this book was really helpful and inspirational to me, to try to dig out of my borderline-hoarder nightmare apartment. Her take on clothing is especially helpful. The major thing I changed after reading this was to start folding my socks, rather than balling them up—generally treating my socks better—because for me, if there is one item of clothing that has that kind of sacred quality that books have, it's socks.