A BBC RADIO 2 BOOK CLUB CHOICE SHORTLISTED FOR THE KERRY GROUP IRISH NOVEL OF THE YEAR AWARD LONGLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD Unintentional psychic Maud Drennan arrives to look after Cathal Flood, a belligerent man hiding in his filthy, cat-filled home. Her job is simple: clear the rubbish, take care of the patient. But the once-grand house has more to reveal than simply its rooms. There is a secret here, and whether she likes it or not, Maud may be the one to finally uncover what has previously been kept hidden . . . * In the US, this book is published under the title Mr Flood's Last Resort
We all have treasured possessions—a favorite pair of shoes, a much-beloved chair, an ever-expanding record collection. But sometimes, this emotional attachment to our belongings can spiral out of control and culminate into a condition called compulsive hoarding. From hobbyists and collectors to pack rats and compulsive shoppers—it is close to impossible for hoarders to relinquish their precious objects, even if it means that stuff takes over their lives and their homes. According to psychologist Dr. Robin Zasio, our fascination with hoarding stems from the fact that most of us fall somewhere on the hoarding continuum. Even though it may not regularly interfere with our everyday lives, to some degree or another, many of us hoard. The Hoarder In You provides practical advice for decluttering and organizing, including how to tame the emotional pull of acquiring additional things, make order out of chaos by getting a handle on clutter, and create an organizational system that reduces stress and anxiety. Dr. Zasio also shares some of the most serious cases of hoarding that she's encountered, and explains how we can learn from these extreme examples—no matter where we are on the hoarding continuum.
From the bizarre brains of Sean Covel (Producer of Napoleon Dynamite) and Rebecca Swift (Creator/Illustrator) comes Porter the Hoarder, Nature Explorer! Porter is going into the great green yonder to fill her wagon with amazing finds! Use your amazing look-and-find skills to help Porter pick from Fossilized Deer Dookie, Shiny Seashells, Topsy-Turvy Turtles, and Flatulent Flying Fish! Only YOU can find it all and decide what Porter can keep, and what she has to throw away (?but she's not gonna be very happy about it)! Porter the Hoarder is a hilarious and original spin on "look and find" picture-books. Porter is a super-fast read that has Bigs (parents, grandparents and siblings) reading with Littles (kiddos aged 3-10) and having a blast.
The first book in the Porter the Hoarder look-and-find series invites Bigs and Littles to sort thru Porter's mess of a room and help her win a mind-blowing reward for cleaning it all up! This is a special edition created in partnership with The United Way.
The verb “declutter” has not yet made it into the Oxford English Dictionary, but its ever-increasing usage suggests that it’s only a matter of time. Articles containing tips and tricks on how to get organized cover magazine pages and pop up in TV programs and commercials, while clutter professionals and specialists referred to as “clutterologists” are just a phone call away. Everywhere the sentiment is the same: clutter is bad. In The Hoarders, Scott Herring provides an in-depth examination of how modern hoarders came into being, from their onset in the late 1930s to the present day. He finds that both the idea of organization and the role of the clutterologist are deeply ingrained in our culture, and that there is a fine line between clutter and deviance in America. Herring introduces us to Jill, whose countertops are piled high with decaying food and whose cabinets are overrun with purchases, while the fly strips hanging from her ceiling are arguably more fly than strip. When Jill spots a decomposing pumpkin about to be jettisoned, she stops, seeing in the rotting, squalid vegetable a special treasure. “I’ve never seen one quite like this before,” she says, and looks to see if any seeds remain. It is from moments like these that Herring builds his questions: What counts as an acceptable material life—and who decides? Is hoarding some sort of inherent deviation of the mind, or a recent historical phenomenon grounded in changing material cultures? Herring opts for the latter, explaining that hoarders attract attention not because they are mentally ill but because they challenge normal modes of material relations. Piled high with detailed and, at times, disturbing descriptions of uncleanliness, The Hoarders delivers a sweeping and fascinating history of hoarding that will cause us all to reconsider how we view these accumulators of clutter.
Although the much-satirized image of a house overflowing with National Geographics and infested with cats may make us chuckle, the reality of compulsive hoarding is no laughing matter. The most common reason for evictions in the US and a significant risk factor for fatal house fires, compulsive hoarding is a treatable condition related to obsessive-compulsive disorder. It is characterized by the acquisition of possessions that have little or no value, which the sufferer, often referred to as the saver, has great difficulty discarding. This book, the first ever written for savers and their families, provides an overview of compulsive hoarding and how it relates to obsessive-compulsive disorder. It discusses hoarding broadly, offering readers perspectives on the physical, behavioral, and value-oriented aspects of the condition. You can use its assessment tools to help decide why you or your loved one hoards. Skill-building exercises help you determine how to beat the hoarding problem by addressing issues that often underlie compulsive saving. Even though this is fundamentally a self-help book, it contains a frank discussion about the need for professional help in some hoarding cases, how to find it, and what medications have been proven effective for savers.
A Lit Hub Most Anticipated Book of 2021 An NPR Best Book of 2021 An Electric Literature Best Poetry Book of 2021 A Dennis Cooper Best Book of 2021 Hoarders is a tender and unusual exploration of place, loneliness, grief, and desire in late capitalist America. What is the true nature of the relationship between people and objects? Kate Durbin’s Hoarders is a quest into this question, vividly capturing the sticky attachments between people and their stuff. To create the book, Durbin took detailed notes while watching the reality TV show of the same name, one she had resisted watching for years because of her family’s history of hoarding. She then began whittling, re-arranging, researching, and writing, and what emerges is her unique form–fifteen jewel-like portraits of people and their beloved objects, in curious conversation with one another. Noah and Allie live in a Chicago house toppling with books. Chuck from Bisbee, Arizona hoards thousands of paintings of naked women. Gary from Franklin, Indiana has transformed his home into a forest, where he falls asleep each night surrounded by plants, both living and dead. Cathy in Centralia, Illinois spends her nights ordering Lularoe leggings and jewelry from Home Shopping channels. Shelley’s house in Warren, Michigan is crowded with Barbies and Beanie Babies. Durbin doesn't directly critique the reality show, yet she deftly demonstrates through these magnetic poems that there's far more to a person, a life, and their “things.”
Dream Hoarders sparked a national conversation on the dangerous separation between the upper middle class and everyone else. Now in paperback and newly updated for the age of Trump, Brookings Institution senior fellow Richard Reeves is continuing to challenge the class system in America. In America, everyone knows that the top 1 percent are the villains. The rest of us, the 99 percent—we are the good guys. Not so, argues Reeves. The real class divide is not between the upper class and the upper middle class: it is between the upper middle class and everyone else. The separation of the upper middle class from everyone else is both economic and social, and the practice of “opportunity hoarding”—gaining exclusive access to scarce resources—is especially prevalent among parents who want to perpetuate privilege to the benefit of their children. While many families believe this is just good parenting, it is actually hurting others by reducing their chances of securing these opportunities. There is a glass floor created for each affluent child helped by his or her wealthy, stable family. That glass floor is a glass ceiling for another child. Throughout Dream Hoarders, Reeves explores the creation and perpetuation of opportunity hoarding, and what should be done to stop it, including controversial solutions such as ending legacy admissions to school. He offers specific steps toward reducing inequality and asks the upper middle class to pay for it. Convinced of their merit, members of the upper middle class believes they are entitled to those tax breaks and hoarded opportunities. After all, they aren't the 1 percent. The national obsession with the super rich allows the upper middle class to convince themselves that they are just like the rest of America. In Dream Hoarders, Reeves argues that in many ways, they are worse, and that changes in policy and social conscience are the only way to fix the broken system.
A charming ne’er-do-well returns to his haunted Irish hometown to uncover the truth about his mother in this “supernaturally skilled debut” (Vanity Fair) and turns the town—and his life—upside down. Having been abandoned at an orphanage as a baby, Mahony assumed all his life that his mother wanted nothing to do with him. That is, until one night in 1976 while drinking a pint at a Dublin pub, he receives an anonymous note implying that she may have been forced to give him up. Determined to find out what really happened, Mahony embarks on a pilgrimage back to his hometown, the rural village of Mulderrig. Neither he nor Mulderrig can possibly prepare for what’s in store… From the moment he arrives, Mahony’s presence completely changes the village. Women fall all over themselves. The real and the fantastic are blurred. Chatty ghosts rise from their graves with secrets to tell, and local preacher Father Quinn will do anything to get rid of the slippery young man who is threatening the moral purity of his parish. A spectacular new addition to the grand Irish storytelling tradition, Himself “is a darkly comic tale of murder, intrigue, haunting and illegitimacy…wickedly funny” (Daily Express).
