{"id":46590,"date":"2019-01-21T03:00:37","date_gmt":"2019-01-21T08:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=46590"},"modified":"2019-01-20T12:55:02","modified_gmt":"2019-01-20T17:55:02","slug":"responding-to-konmaris-book-de-cluttering-advice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2019\/01\/21\/responding-to-konmaris-book-de-cluttering-advice\/","title":{"rendered":"Responding to “Konmari”‘s book de-cluttering advice"},"content":{"rendered":"

I haven’t read any of her work, but based on David Warren’s response<\/a> to it, I doubt I’d find it interesting or enjoyable:<\/p>\n

Among the proposals of this \u201cKonmari,\u201d as she is called by her followers, is to jettison all books that have not been read. Too, all those which have been read already. The one you are reading may be kept, but only till it is finished, lest it create a temptation to re-reading. I would certainly apply this principle to self-help books.<\/p>\n

But every book I have retained, sparks joy; and their spines alone may trigger an imaginative recollection of the contents, and the times and spaces among which it was once read. As Coleridge said, books are corporeal, living things; at any moment their wings may re-open, for another flight into one\u2019s soul.<\/p>\n

A correspondent in western Massachusetts was recently married. She moved in with her new husband, together with fifty cartons of books \u2014 an amount he may have deemed excessive. My advice: any number of cartons that can be counted, is too few.<\/p>\n

\u201cHave you read all these books?\u201d I have been asked by visitors, so many times, that I have run out of clever replies. Among them: \u201cAre you insinuating that this is all I\u2019ve ever read?\u201d \u2026 Or, \u201cDear me, yes, good point. All my other flats are like this, too.\u201d \u2026 Or: \u201cNo, I can\u2019t read, but I hired a highly literate interior decorator.\u201d<\/p>\n

The other day I was asked this by a policeman. He was gathering information on a burglar who had happened to pass my way. I hope he doesn\u2019t report me for hoarding. Apparently there are now laws against that; Twisted Nanny State never sleeps.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When my son has a new acquaintance over to our place, one of the almost inevitable first comments from the new visitor is about “all the books”, and they rarely get to see the actual library<\/em>…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I haven’t read any of her work, but based on David Warren’s response to it, I doubt I’d find it interesting or enjoyable: Among the proposals of this \u201cKonmari,\u201d as she is called by her followers, is to jettison all books that have not been read. Too, all those which have been read already. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,57],"tags":[86],"class_list":["post-46590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-humour","tag-criticism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-c7s","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46590"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46591,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46590\/revisions\/46591"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}