The Week in Books 2010, No. 10

From Clutter to Clarity: Simplifying Life from the Inside Out is an excellent and challenging book about the root causes of clutter in your life.  This book is not just about how to shuffle your stacks of papers and bottle top collection around or how to decide what to donate to Goodwill – it goes deeper than that to examine what is really going on in our lives when we have clutter in our thoughts and attitudes, in our schedules and households, and in our financial situations. The author, Nancy Twigg, defines clutter as more than just your stuff.  Rather, she says, clutter is “anything that complicates your life and prevents you from living in peace as you live out your purpose.”

The book is thought-provoking and insightful throughout, with a construction that lends itself to reading each section and then thinking about it before going on to the next topic. As with many books on reflective subjects, what you get out of this book will depend on what you bring to it and your willingness to engage with the material and really think it through and apply it to your life. From Clutter to Clarity is written from a Christian perspective, and as a result delves much more deeply than most books about organization and staying on top of things.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who has areas of life in which you struggle to stay on top of things or feel out of control at times.  This may wind up being one of my top picks for 2010.  If you read it or have read it, let me know what you think!

I’ve written before about how much I enjoy Bernard Cornwell’s British history novels, so it will come as no surprise that I enjoyed the latest addition to his Saxon series, The Burning Land.  In this book once again the Danes are on the move against the Saxon kingdom of King Alfred and Uhtred of Bebbanburg is caught between his childhood loyalties and his adult promises to protect Saxon lands.  As usual, Cornwell’s scholarship and grasp of historical detail is astounding as he brings this time period to life.  I always enjoy Cornwell’s afterwords in which he describes his reasons for making particular choices with the available historical data and his own connection to the places and episodes contained in the story.  If you’re at all interested in British history, or Vikings, or warfare, or just like a rousing drama, you should check out this book.

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Related posts:

1. From Clutter to Clarity
2. Year in Books 2010
3. A Gesture Life, Week in Books 2010 #32/33