The Life Laundry: How to de-Junk Your Life

BBC co-host Walter (The Life Laundry) and antiques dealer Franks help readers tidy up cluttered living spaces in this cheerful how-to book. Directed at a wide audience--singles, married couples, divorcees, college students, professionals--the book explains why things begin to pile up, what the effects of clutter are and how to confront the challenge of cleaning it up. Correlating uncommonly messy homes with illness, stress and emotional hang-ups, the authors maintain that excessive material possessions""are often masking a more serious problem of holding on to past situations and emotions that you need to release in order to move forward."" Concise chapters focus on different varieties of mess (clothing, entertainment articles, papers, garage junk, etc.) and include a self test to help determine the individual's particular problem areas. The authors, in an encouraging, empathetic tone, help the reader decide what is worth keeping and what should be thrown out.