What Fresh Lunacy Is This?

In this New Yorker magazine article, Melissa Dahl writes about a study that explores what benefits come from growing up around books -- as if growing up around books itself isn't a benefit. It's a pretty interesting article and I commend it to you.

What I wanted to note was the advice she quotes from a current book by Marie Kondo, called The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. It's one of those books that touts the benefits of simplifying and de-cluttering your life. Doing so is a wise choice, but one piece of Kondo's advice makes it almost impossible to believe that any wise choice she relates comes from her own thinking. Get rid of as many books as possible, she says, and of the ones you do keep select only the best parts to rip out while ridding yourself of the others. You might think I have come to bury Ms. Kondo's suggestion, but I have instead come to amplify it. Save yourself the trouble of ridding yourself of unnecessary books by not buying them to start with.

And as it happens, I have a great recommendation for your first skip.