I am just starting this one. I am hopeful! I read 50 pages into this book, and kept falling asleep. So I bailed. Room promises not to be about Canadian politics, which is nice.
Update: I loved this book. I plowed through it in just a few days, and was hooked from the first page. I would highly recommend.
The life-changing magic of tidying up:
When I was around eight, we moved from Germany to New Brunswick. We stayed in a hotel for a month or two, and every day the bathroom in the hotel would be restocked with those little cute bottles of shampoo. I saved/hoarded every single one, until my little suitcase was filled. When we arrived days later in a new hotel room in NB, and I opened my suitcase, all my stuff was covered in shampoo. Of course. I remember that moment every time I am tempted to get my hoard on and save something, especially something free.
I kept thinking about that whole scene when I was reading this book. She is all about getting rid of all the papers. So I pulled my two cardboard boxes that I have been carrying around since I was a teenager out of my closet and got to work. I found so much crap in there. Letters. So many letters. Letters from old boyfriends. Letters from my best friend when I was lonely and living in Texas. Also, a letter from an elementary school teacher explaining why I didn't get as good a grade as I wanted on a test. The instruction manual from the cd player/double cassette deck stereo that I got for Christmas when I was maybe ten. Pictures of a pen pal I was assigned in middle school, who I never actually met. A silver bracelet that is nice, but has an inscription in it that is no longer accurate. A huge pile of pay stubs from my year working at Subway. It all went in the garbage. And it feels so good! I would highly recommend it.
PS: The Clarenville public library pretty much never gets new books, so Jon and I usually buy our books online, then donate them. Our library does have a crazy amount of DVDs, and they just keep coming. The librarian is even shocked by how the library is starting to feel like a video store.
