Before wrapping up my interview with Marie Kondo, who might well be world's foremost cleaning consultant, I promised I would put one of her de-cluttering lessons to the test prior to reviewing her book "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up." And so here I am in my narrow hallway, between the entrance and the living room, with a Mount Fuji-sized pile of more than 200 books.
The KonMari method boils down to this: Discard that which does not bring joy to your life. She advises being tactile, but when clearing out books she warns against dipping in and out of pages. "Reading clouds your judgment." I manage to toss a few, until I run my hand down the spine of my unfinished copy of "Ulysses," bookmarked at page 181. It pains me that I haven't finished it. Will I ever? Should I just chuck it and get on with my life as Kondo advises? James Joyce doesn't give a twopenny damn, but Marie Kondo does. Oh, bother.
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