The Life-changing Manga of Tidying Up {a review}

Confession: I've never read a graphic novel/manga before. As I was browsing through books to choose from this one immediately caught my eye because of the cute illustration of author Marie Kondo. I had actually heard of her bestselling book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up but had never read it.

I am definitely one of those people who struggles with tidying up, especially when it comes to paperwork. Between the mail and the kids bringing stuff home from school, there is just always so much. I put stuff to be shredded in a "To Be Shredded" bag but then it takes me forever to get around to doing it. This made me curious to see what tips Kondo had when it came to "tidying up".

First of all, I really enjoyed the illustrations by Yuko Uramoto. I thought they were so adorable. I would definitely be interested in reading more graphic novels in the future. The book itself was super easy to read and only took me about two hours total sitting in the school pick-up line. It was full of lots of useful information. I'm especially interested in trying out the folding methods described in the book for my son's clothes (and maybe mine eventually). 

I would definitely recommend The Life-changing Manga of Tidying Up to anyone looking to tidy up their lives a little. It would be good for adults and teenagers.

To learn more about the author, click here.

To learn more about the book, click here.

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

Thank You for Arguing {a review}

I love a good debate. The kind where both parties are rational, thoughtful and not resorting to hate or personal digs that are irrelevant to the subject. I chose Thank You for Arguing by Jay Heinrichs because of the clever title. In some ways the title is a little misleading. Are we arguing or persuading? If you're just trying to convince people to vote for you for class president, it's not really arguing. The book is teaching people how to be persuasive and use things in conversation to your advantage. I thought the book was interesting but it was also a book I had no problem putting down easily. I found the little text boxes on each page incredibly annoying and distracting from the main body of text. It is mentioned that the book is used for AP English classes in high school. The revised edition seems to have included pop culture references and recent political issues just for that purpose. I think if you are interested in the art of rhetoric, work in a field where it would be useful or just enjoy debating and/or getting what you want, then you would enjoy this book.

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.