The Japanese have a fantastic word for the tendency to buy books and let them pile up unread: it’s tsundoku.

I feel so seen!

In my case, I have piles of unread books and piles of books I work through every month. While it’s true that I don’t read every book I borrow or buy, I do read many of them cover to cover.

I just finished The New Happy by Stephanie Harrison. This book is filled with interesting research and amazing insights that push back against long-standing deficit approaches to being happy.  I was lucky enough to attend a five-week online book club hosted by the author.

She is a generous, thoughtful, smart, kind, and gentle person.

I also listened to Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time by Jeff Sutherland and J.J. Sutherland. Known as the “red book,” this is a nine-hour journey through Sutherland’s remarkable life, and it’s been incredible! And scrum and agile are just one small part! There’s so much good stuff here about teams and what it takes to do a successful project.  The section on estimating effort is something I wish I had a long time ago.

I am making my way through The Joy of Less: A Minimalist Guide to Declutter, Organize, and Simplify by Francine Jay, also known as Miss Minimalist. This is one of the best books on minimalism that I have read — partly because she addresses the many impacts of consumption, including peace of mind, freedom, and environmental impacts. I have been contemplating what will happen to the item we put in our physical or virtual cart when we are done with it.

This PIRG article by Kathryn Horvath offers a few disturbing stats about clothing:

• “Americans are buying more clothes today than ever before. On average, we buy 53 new items of clothing per year — four times as much as in the year 2000.”

• “…[P]eople do not wear 50% of the clothing that they own.” (Source)

• “Americans throw out 17 million tons of clothing and textiles each year, and 65% of clothing is thrown out within 12 months of its purchase.”

Lately, I’ve been shopping our house before buying anything. I’m a long-time Freecycle user and love thrift stores of all kinds but digging a storage bin out of a closet is also a rush.

How about you? What are you reading these days?

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash