October 2016 Two Book Reviews

1. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo
A library PDF eBook from Overdrive

Marie Kondo’s book about how to organize the possessions in your life is translated from the Japanese edition. Kondo runs a successful business in Japan helping people take charge when their possessions are taking over the home. She has a unique way of approaching the subject of too many possessions.

Her method of organizing is called the KonMari Method. She expresses organizing your life should be done completely, in one time sequence. Putting your house in order in one flat out creative organizational push. “In fact, that is what it means to put your house in order.” As a consumer I looked back and decided she was right. I was always told to clean things but never taught how. This leaves a gap in your education which Kondo addresses.

The book draws attention to how easy it is to hold on to numerous pens, books , make-up samples, magazines and other numerous items, not in use. It causes clutter in the home. The home becomes less easy to clean. Cleaning takes up more of your time. “A dramatic reorganization of the home causes correspondingly dramatic changes in lifestyle and perspective.”

Kondo’s book takes on a story quality as she assesses the emotional side of making a home tidy as well as the practical side. This story is not just for the person, with a hording side to their personality. It hits everyone who comes home to clutter after a hard day at work. Do you ever wonder if it is possible to avoid the clutter that meets you at the door, when you are too tired to clean or even care if cleaning is accomplished? This is a kind perspective about organizing your possessions.

2. How To Teach Relativity to Your Dog by Chad Orzel (a PDF library book from Overdrive)

Physics is the kind of subject that can curl your brain at my age. After reading Chad Orzel's book I realize how skewed viewing my back yard might be, on an ordinary day. Orzel explains Relativity to a dog, in this story using graphs and pictorial words. The dog likes to chase bunnies.

Starting with motion between cats and dogs we find out that a moving clock runs slow. What? You will have to read it to understand it. “Science now shows how to reconcile the different measurements of position and velocity made by observers, who are moving relative to one another by adding or subtracting a factor that depends on the relative velocity.”

There are parts about electricity and magnetism, the speed of light, the nature of time, space time, length contraction, E=Mc2, and other interesting subject affected by the Theory of Relativity.

I despaired as I read, thinking I would not gain anything, because of the complexity of the subject and my obvious lack of knowledge. Or, that I might even give up; because I was wading through the book some days only one page at a time. However, I persevered. By the time I hit the chapters on gravity I was thinking, about everything around me and how it relates, to the way people see their own environments.

Another contemplation struck me about the kind of minds, that were able to discern these types of scientific facts and follow through on experiment that proves theories. I’ve watched PBS specials about creating machines that smash atoms at one another to understand more, about the content of matter. This book is better, than what I watched on TV. It takes the time to explain atoms, quarks, electrons, motion, gravity, dropping down an elevator shaft, riding up an elevator shaft and some special parts about dog kibble.

Einstein’s happiest moment, “I was sitting in a chair in the patent office at Bern when all of a sudden a thought occurred to me: “If a person falls freely he will not feel his own weight.” I was startled.” Gravity is a startling subject.

I cannot tell you the fun I had with this real life knowledge. You have to read it for yourself and find your own thoughts, about the content. I do recommend it. For writers, “ truth is stranger than fiction”.