DIY 4 LIFE

It's not all fantastic fiction here in blogland, sometimes we like to get a little dirty out in the garden (and listen to an audiobook!), make our own clothes (while listening to an audiobook!), do some repairs around the house (while listening to an...you get the idea), and even make our own darn shoes (audiobooooook!).

BOOOOOOOOOK

Well, have I got some DIY handbooks for YOU! Now, I know what you're thinking, internet friends, "isn't it easier to just YouTube that?" Sure, there's an instructional video online for just about anything--from A-Z (surviving an atomic apocalypse to surving a zombie apocalypse)! It's OK, I feel you. I successfully changed my own headlights last year in the Auto Zone parking lot with just my phone and a YouTube video.

#hero

But there's just something about having a handy how-to guide in your hot little hands to get you motivated to take on a project, or inspire you to create and do cool things with your wits and bare hands.You know what won't happen while you spend hours sitting on the couch, scrolling through smoothie recipes on Pinterest? You won't bump into a neighbor doing the same thing. A neighbor, IRL, you can look at and talk to about your mutual affection for smoothie making! It's a wonderful feeling. So, crawl out of your bunker and browse the many DIY offerings on hand at your neighborly neighborhood library.

/PSA

Week-by-Week Vegetable Gardener's Notebook

I have never gardened before this year, and now I want to plant all of the things. The potential for failure is high!  But this book is giving me life.
The organization of the book is fantastic, and while I don't love spiral bindings on the shelf, it makes it easy to lay the book flat near your pots and dirt for hands-free planning. Frankly, the cover has so much information on it, you hardly even need to open it.

Salad Days: Recipes for delicious organic salads and dressings for every season

Now that I have my garden all planned out, I need to have a plan for all those little leafy greens I'll be harvesting. This book is basically all about tasty dressings because "salad recipe" is usually "take pile of leafy things, add dressing". But where does dressing come from if not a bottle? Fear not, this book solves that age-old mystery. These are some crazy, year-round, all season salads too. I mean, "Sauteed Fiddlehead Fern and mâche salad"? STOP. Eating ferns? I thought ferns were just for looking!

Finally, an end to the tyranny of dressing in bottles!

Custom-Make Your Own Shoes and Handbags

This book is BANANAS, you guys. It shows you how to use an old pair of shoes to create a plaster last (shoemaker term for foot shaped plaster thing), and shows how cast a last from your foot. Those shoes will be custom fitted to your exact foot. Imagine! I almost can't. Then as if that isn't enough information, this book shows you how to make handbags. Of course you could do what the author does and make shoes and a bag to match every dress, or not, because that's a little insane.

MIND-BLOWINGLY BANANAS

Brew better beer : learn (and break) the rules for making IPAs, sours, pilsners, stouts, and more 

If you want to brew your own beer, but you want to break all the rules in doing so, this is your guide. Beer brewing is serious business. When those things explode you'll know what I'm talking about. Your viral GIF recipes aren't going to tell you what to do if your pilsner's popping in the wrong way.

You can't spell PAIN without I.P.A

And finally, Roughing it Easy


With quite possibly the greatest title ever it isn't hard to imagine why this classic remains on the shelf. It's chock-full of the most useful tips (with illustrations!) one could ever need should they find themselves in the unfortunate situation of having to scramble eggs on a rock. You should really, really check this book out.

Read it right now: Truevine, and other new nonfiction

This week is all about the brand new stuff that readers and critics are loving.

Truevine
by Beth Macy

In 1899, young albino African American brothers, George and Willie Muse, were taken from the tobacco fields near Roanoke where they worked and made to join the circus as freaks. Convinced their mother was dead they spent decades traveling the world as a popular sideshow attraction: Eko and Iko, the sheep-headed cannibals or Ambassadors from Mars. That, and their mother's fierce fight to get them back, make for an incredible story. Keen and well-researched, Truevine is a fascinating and compelling read.

It looks like Paramount and Leonardo DiCaprio might be trying to acquire the rights to put this story to film. Hmm, I wonder how it will translate to the screen without sensationalizing the Muse brothers' story.

At The Existentialist Cafe
Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails
By Sarah Bakewell

Did your New Year's resolution have anything to do with reading more about philosophy? Really? Well, good! You'll love this book then. It's the lively life story of existentialism, starring Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre, who was (sort of) inspired by apricot cocktails. Just give it a chance? It's getting rave reviews!

You Can't Touch My Hair
And other things I still have to explain
by Phoebe Robinson

Phoebe Robinson, super funny stand-up comedian, host of the Sooo Many White Guys podcast and co-host of 2 Dope Queens, has written this fantastic collection of essays on race, gender and culture in America.

Did I mention she's super funny?

Me, always.

Born a Crime
by Trevor Noah

Trevor Noah, South African comedian and host of The Daily Show, is seriously insightful and funny. This is one of those laugh and cry, cry and laugh kinds of books. Born to a white Swiss father and black Xhosa mother in apartheid South Africa, he spent much of his childhood hidden away indoors as living proof of their crime. Born a Crime is deeply moving and the audiobook happens to be narrated by none other than Trevor Noah himself--well worth a listen.

...And top it off with a slice of Damn Fine Cherry Pie!

The final episode of Twin Peaks aired 26 years ago but it refuses to go away--and that's just fine by me.

(Ok, I don't know if anyone is raving about this but I'm always looking for any chance to throw in a Log Lady gif.) This unauthorized cookbook has all you need to prepare damn fine pie, damn fine coffee (and FYI, David Lynch has his own line of coffee and it is legit), and host your own (damn) Log Lady tea party. #goals

The Ridiculous Side of Lists

Anyone who reads knows the value of a list. The personal book list—a list of what you’ve read and of what you want to read—is a map. It can be practical, keeping you from going back to the same place twice (or inspiring you to go back to the same place twice), and helping you on to your next destination. It can also just be fun to make and talk about.

For the past five years an editor at the Observer newspaper has been conducting a giant and provocative experiment in list-making. In 2011 Robert McCrum (author of the fantastic biography Wodehouse) began to list the 100 best novels written in English.

There was no ranking inside the list; it developed chronologically, from 1678—The Pilgrim’s Progress—to a working cut-off point of 2000—True History of the Kelly Gang. The rules were few—only one novel per author—and sometimes vague: what, after all, is a classic? or even a novel? And rather than release the list all at once, each of the 100 selections was announced weekly with a short essay. For two years readers around the world could cheer or balk at the choices, and, when it was all done, wonder how such-and-such a book could possibly be passed over.

The task was, as the Irish Times put it, like “running naked into no-man’s-land with a target painted on your chest and a kick-me sign pinned to your back.” But McCrum embraced all controversy. The Observer invited readers to vent their disagreement with the list, compiled an alternative list based on reader suggestions, and published an essay critiquing the lack of female authors in the list. As McCrum himself wrote, “like all lists, ours is intended to sponsor discussion.”

The list of greatest novels reached it’s 100^th novel last year, but in January of this year a new, more Quixotic list began: the 100 best nonfiction books of all time. Some of the rules stayed the same—in English, arranged chronologically—but others only got looser, perhaps to provoke more readers, perhaps to introduce more variety. Instead of restricting itself to one form, like the novel, this list looks at all “essential works of philosophy, drama, history, science and popular culture.” 

So far the Observer has named 30 books on the list, this time working backwards from 2014. Some of them can be a little head-scratching—how is Waiting for Godot nonfiction?—but McCrum isn’t looking for uniformity, nor to mirror your opinions, nor to give an objective view of the literary landscape. “Every thoughtful person must concede that any list is bound to have its ridiculous side,” he writes. 

I think of the word “best” in these lists as a dare and a half-joke. The list serves as an aid for other lists: yours. Already the 30 choices in the nonfiction list have reminded me of things I’ve read and loved (Against Interpretation) and of things I’ve long planned to read (No Logo) and suggested to me fascinating things I’ve never heard of (A Book of Mediterranean Food). So follow along with the Observer with your own book list close-by—on Library Thing or Good Reads or scrawled on a scrap of paper like a recipe. Follow along if you don’t yet have a book list. Follow along only if you want to carpet bomb the Observer with emails about your favorite book. Lists are useful, but they’re also ridiculous and fun.

As promised: Nonfiction for Ugly Crys, Humor edition

I'm a Stranger Here Myself by Bill Bryson

Sometimes I wonder if a book still holds up after a bunch of years. I read this in college (kind of a long time ago) and I distinctly remember laughing so hard I did that thing where you laugh so hard you don't make any sound and also cry a lot. Or is that just me? I'm pretty sure it's still funny even after all these years. Bill Bryson doesn't always hit his target but this book about his observations on returning to the US after decades abroad is outrageously funny. A perfect read for those times when you're feeling a little weird and just need some perspective.

Oh Stefan...

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: A Savannah Story by John Berendt

I read this on an airplane and was nearly thrown off mid-flight for snorting so unattractively. It's a sinus thing? I craughed (see below) and people may have switched seats. Anyway, this well known story of a murder trial in Savannah with the best cast of characters in narrative nonfiction ever, is still one of my most recommended books for just about anybody.

How to Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran

This book is a brutally honest, painfully hilarious memoir about being a woman written by the funniest woman in the universe. The whole universe, you guys. Read How to Build a Girl too if you don't believe me. I'm not going to hear any arguments from anyone--I will just walk away as if I am an action hero and anyone who disagrees the proverbial burning building. (See below)

Grab a BIG box of tissues, it's time for an ugly cry.

Go ahead. Let it alll out. Get all gross and red and snotty and puffy-eyed. It's good for you. What is it about stories of triumph over and acceptance of human frailty we find so consuming that we read them even though they make us cry in the most unattractive, squished, smooshed, scrunched, snuffling, sobbing, slobbering way--so hard we alarm our mates and choke on snot and can't see the words on the page through the tears--so hard we might have to replace a library book due to water damage? *gasp*

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
"Doctors, as it turns out, need hope too."
I just finished Paul Kalanithi's memoir this week, and boy, is it well written. Kalanithi is the unusual combination of neurosurgeon and literary scholar. His understanding of the human brain and appreciation of the mind, and his ability to put eloquently into text the humbling transition from doctor to patient is powerfully moving. This memoir was published posthumously so I'm not spoiling the ending by saying his brilliant mind was tragically lost too soon to lung cancer. How is it possible for a person to write so elegantly, so intimately, about his own excruciating, unabating pain as he is confronted with his own mortality at what should be such an optimistic time--graduation and a new baby--in a young person's life? He was dying as he wrote this yet it vibrates with life and humanity. At different points in the memoir he refers to a few favorite books that gave him comfort at trying times, one in particular I would also recommend to our readers: The Cancer Ward by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

Wave by Sonali Deraniyagala

Sonali Deraniyagala survived the tsunami that hit Sri Lanka in 2004 but lost her husband and their two children. They were swept away from her side by a wave that claimed 230,000 lives in 14 countries but somehow spared hers. In unflinching slow-motion detail she describes the morning of the wave: her family's vacation activities around the hotel room, her dawning realization that they needed to run, grabbing her sons' hands and fleeing the hotel--right up the the moment the Jeep they had jumped into capsized, overtaken by water, and her family was lost. Her anger over the loss of her family, and her struggle to return from the brink of despair while keeping the happy memories of her family alive within her makes for an eviscerating read and a harrowing examination of grief, survivor's guilt, and memory. It takes her a long time to get to the point where she can go to her memories and hold onto them without heading down a rabbit hole of anger and self-loathing. Truthfully, I've never cried so hard while reading a book.

Don't worry your sad faces off, you guys. I'll be back next week to bring you some laugh-so-hard-you'll-ugly-cry books to balance out this week's misery with some well-deserved mirth.

Explore the curious world of Digital Natives

So You've Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson

This should be required reading for anybody with an internet connection, and for anybody in journalism 101. I'm definitely assigning it as a text book if I ever teach social media 101*. Jon Ronson investigates several recent episodes of frightening public humiliation such as Jonah Lehrer's made-up Bob Dylan quotes in Imagine, and Justine Sacco's tweet in poor taste that cost her the job of her dreams and earned her death threats and a waking nightmare. His examination of the disproportionately high price some have paid for a bad joke that went viral, and the possibility of forgive-and-forget in the digital age, is insightful and riveting.

*A distinct job possibility in this day and age.

Dataclysm by Christian Rudder

This book is a fascinating look at all of the things our data trail says about us. The author is co-founder of OKCupid, a popular matchmaking website, so much of his data comes from his own customers (he openly admits to having experimented on them). Full disclosure: I met my mate on OKCupid several years ago. We are not just a couple of people who met on the internet now-- we are Data. We exist in some endless spreadsheet of profiles and preferences, probably being salivated over by marketing gurus who want to sell us very specific, irresistible things. OKCupid is an attempt to find a formula for kismet. It's free, and makes it easy to find a like-minded, introverted companion, especially if you're the sort of person who needs an algorithm to get a date (like me). The result of making life decisions in such an instantly graph-able way is that all of my demographic information, along with my clicks and "likes" and mouse hovers, and digital whatevers, all get added up to create a prediction of what people like me are like, and what we like to "like". It's creepy, and yet somehow comforting. Rudder's methods and conclusions are fascinating, and he applies just enough wit to make this highly readable.

Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari

This book about dating in the digital age is basically Dataclysm with a sense of humor (Rudder is credited in the acknowledgements). The most memorable part of the book for me is his opening anecdote, one that those familiar with his act will know, which is possibly the best illustration ever of the cliffhanger anxiety brought on by the text ellipses used to indicate that your partner in textversation is typing a response (...): Ansari meets a single woman at a party and they bond over many common interests including a shared love of the band Beach House (I can relate--Beach House is everything, check out their album, Myth, if you don't believe me). They swap numbers, they text. Soon after meeting, he invites the woman to a Beach House concert. It looks like she's about to respond ...there's those three little dots...then...crickets. Nothing. No response. Dead air.
The audio book is great, especially if you love Ansari--he reads it--but I found the text to be surprisingly dry and a bit academic at times, lightened with bouts of that trademark Aziz Ansari comic tenderness.

"Suffering Sappho!" Resolve to read The [awesome] Secret History of Wonder Woman this year

Comic book nerds? Book nerds? History nerds? Pop culture nerds? Nerd nerds? Not a nerd? Or are you one of those persnickety, tough-to-please folks who sniff at my recommendations? Have I got a book for all of you.

It is the 2015-2016 selection for Virginia Commonwealth University's  Common Book Program: The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore. The idea of the Common Book Program at VCU is to "support and stimulate the academic and intellectual culture of VCU through a common reading experience". This is why people seek out book clubs--for that wonderful feeling that comes from sharing a reading experience with others, and the opportunity to discuss ideas and what we learned, what may have challenged us to think in new ways. When a book thrills you, don't you immediately want other people to read it too? Wouldn't it be great if we had a huge, city-wide book discussion? A Super Book Club, perhaps? This book has something in it for everyone. Let's join in on the conversation happening at VCU about this marvelously compelling, thought-provoking book.

This story is fun and outrageous, almost unbelievable, and bawdy at times. Jill Lepore stays true to her subject by styling the book as a superhero origin story. The heroes in this case are many and the personalities are huge. Among the heroes are Margaret Sanger and her sister, Sanger's niece Olive Byrne, Elizabeth Holloway Marston, Wonder Woman of course, and at the center of our story is the fantastic and flawed hero William Moulton Marston, a fascinating and complicated man and a study in contradictions. He was a champion of women's rights (before it was cool), inventor of the lie detector test, charlatan, and polygamist. Lepore deftly uses Wonder Woman and Marston as the narrative connection between the Suffragists in the beginning of the 20th century and the women's movement decades later, making for an all around thrilling history of popular culture and American heroes.

There is something for everyone in this swift, engaging read. To be honest, I hadn't thought much one way or the other about Wonder Woman before reading this, certainly not much about her creator. I found the women behind the man behind The Woman to be especially intriguing, and although I've never really read superhero comics, I could not get enough of Wonder Woman's story. I found so much in the book to talk about that I want you all to read it too.

Run to your local library (or independent bookstore if you simply must own it) and check this one out. Join in on the conversation!

Another of Marston's contributions.

New non-fiction audio books to take for a listen

This week we're recommending two marvelous audio books by two inimitable women, read in their own uncommon voices:

M Train by Patti Smith

This lyrical memoir by a creative and fascinating woman is an ode to reading, traveling, staying in to watch detective dramas on TV, writing, memory, and coffee--cup after cup of black coffee--all narrated in her warm and familiar New Jersey accent.

Experiencing this book feels like contemplating the contents of a treasured box of mementos: letters, journals, beloved books, photographs, and all of those items we squirrel away, imbued with so many memories. It's less linear than Just Kids, and makes for fantastic listening.

Lafayette in the Somewhat United States by Sarah Vowell

Sarah Vowell is a crazy funny writer of American history, and her voice is weirdly wonderful. Vowell deftly weaves present into past, and her digressions to marvel at the many absurd manifestations of nostalgia throughout our history, including some particularly humorous observations at Colonial Williamsburg, make for laugh-out-loud listening.

The Marquis de Lafayette was the first American celebrity. In New York in 1824, a crowd of 80,000 adoring Americans greeted the return of the beloved French hero of the American Revolutionary War. At a contentious period in American politics, the civil war already looming, Americans welcomed the reminder of the ideals and bravery of the generation past that Lafayette's return brought. Vowell tells the story of how Lafayette came to be America's favorite Frenchman, and follows his journey to the Revolution and back, and the impact he had on a young country.

What's new in Selfie-help: 6 guides to better living

You know about Pinterest, right? It's the social bookmarking site with visual appeal that is so popular with people planning weddings, DIYers, and those on the never-ending quest for self improvement. Pinterest is basically just one giant crowdsourced self help book, and you know self help is already big business. Take The Life Changing Habit of Tidying Up for instance. That HUGELY popular little book with a simple premise (spoiler alert): get rid of stuff and organize what's left, is making the rounds at the library and on blogs and Facebook and probably Pinterest too.

So here's a DIY Pinterest hack from us to you: Selfie-help. You write your own self help book using Pinterest. All of your chapters are there already laid out as pinboards. You've got crafts, exercises, recipes, home improvement, life changing cleaning hacks, affirming and motivational phrases superimposed upon pleasingly filtered photos of sunsets over water...

Once you get tired of hunching over your laptop, pinning all the crafts, stretch your legs and head over to the library to begin practicing the art of better living through upcycling, organizing, cooking, and positive thinking with these picks fresh off the new books shelf. (But we think you're fine just the way you are.)

Right Size...Right Now!

Regina Leeds wants to help make your impending move not only less stressful, but STRESS-FREE as the cover text emphatically states, through an 8-week plan to organize and declutter. I can suggest right off the top without even opening this book that step one is "Check this book out at your local public library unless you want to pack and move another !@#$% book (why do you have so many books?)!" Along with helpful step-by-step guidance and many different checklists, Leeds also includes a weekly "self care tip" to keep your gears turning smoothly as you process your life and reduce your trappings, an emotionally and physically demanding process for many. So don't pack your yoga mat or smoothie blender just yet! Personally, my approach to moving has always been the "Hefty Method". If you guessed that this involves shoving my entire life into garbage bags, you would be correct. Whatever wouldn't fit in my college hatchback was already prepped for the curb!

Ahem.

Right Size...Right Now! is great for folks too long on the waiting list for The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, especially those confronted with a tower of stuff, stuff, and more stuff, to pack and move in 8 weeks or less.

The Little Spark: 30 Ways to Ignite Your Creativity

Don't buy it, make it. But do you feel like you lack the creativity to be part of the DIY revolution currently underway? Are you the only one on your block without a creative hobby? Do you spend hours Pinning crafts onto boards with names like "Maybe Someday!" or "If I ever find the time..." or "Maybe if I spent less time on Pinterest and more time with my glue gun I could make some of these projects"? Do you need an instructional, step-by-step, how-to, illustrated nudge to ignite your creative spark? Then this is definitely the book for you. It's like pre-crafting, with "30 ways to cultivate a creative life and fill your days with a passion for living" you're sure to come away from this book with at least one or two projects started. Feel the rush of inspiration as you "Break your own rules" (Spark # 10). Perhaps you always buy the same vegetables; try buying an eggplant if this is  unusual behavior for you, then look up a recipe on Pinterest for eggplant. The Little Spark begins with attacking your clutter too, so get ready to purge. Getting organized and clearing out your space will give your inspiration room to flourish so you can create...stuff? Well, you can sort all that out later.
.

Clean Slate: a Cookbook and Guide

Your body is cluttered too and that is holding you back. What is it cluttered with? The filthy toxic remnants of your terrible diet. (It's ok, me too.) Wipe your Taco Bell sullied palms on your pants before you pick up this book, then wipe your slate clean with help from the editors of Martha Stewart Living. It isn't enough to feel ok, or even well; one needs to feel their best, if such a thing is possible. How do you know what your best is? You don't. That, my friends, is the purifying Sisyphean struggle of self-actualization: better living through better living. On the surface, Clean Slate is capitalizing on the "detox" trend, but inside a Pinteresting package of attractive grapefruit arrangement and bourgeois "ancient" grains (what grain isn't ancient?) is a simple cookbook. The recipes are mercifully unfussy, the steps are few, and some of the more esoteric ingredients could easily be substituted by more abundant, and equally "clean", farmer's market finds. The emphasis is on fresh, natural, whole foods, and meals centered on vegetables and whole grains, lean meats, and variety. Special diet compatible attributes such as gluten-free, nut-free, meat-free are clearly indicated below the pictures, and there is a picture to accompany every recipe. These are simple, colorful, light dishes that seem easy to prepare, even for cooks like me. A few look to be influenced more by photogeneity than edibility but Instagram is ruining eating by turning every diner into an amateur food photographer so you can expect this trend to continue for the foreseeable future. You want the truth? Salad photos look less gross than burger photos, and your body probably agrees. #realtalk

Homemakers

This "domestic handbook for the digital generation" offers "1,000+ creative ideas for the home". Holy cow. That's a lot of ideas. The book cover looks like the Ikea catalog, and Brit Morin is sort of a hybrid of Hello Kitty and Martha Stewart, but with a (rainbow) sprinkling of Emily Post meets Sheryl Sandberg. Homemakers takes the "Maker" movement and applies it to acts of domesticity, so the title is to be read both ways: Homemakers and Home (space) Makers. In the dining room chapter, Morin has 3D printed napkin rings on a page facing origami napkin folding techniques, followed up by table setting tips and towel "hacks", several pages devoted to gadgets and apps related to entertaining in the home, and finally, the crafts. She's got all the hair and nail trends you need, plus duct tape organizers, egg recipes, lots of contact paper ideas, and plenty of visual charts. This book is about celebrating creativity, balancing the digital and analog, and being happy at home. If you read this and thought "Gosh, that sure sounds like the print version of Pinterest" you and I think a lot alike. She has one suitcase packing hack in there that is straight off my "D-I-Why didn't I think of that?!" pinboard (see what I did there?): Pack your dirty shoes in a shower cap! Brill. Of course she packs her cute glitter shoes in a cute polka dotted shower cap and it looks really cute in her cute vintage suitcase.

cute.

Oh Joy!

I am physically incapable of saying "Oh Joy" without sarcasm. Come to think of it, I struggle to breathe without sarcasm. I think there's probably a chapter in one of these books that will address that problem. Oh Joy! is bubbling over with bright and precious whimsical decorating ideas and earnest glittery glee. The book boasts "60 ways to create and give joy", many of which also involve contact paper. I had no idea there were so many colors and varieties of contact paper. Apparently contact paper is the new washi tape which was the duct tape of 2013. Adhesives are kind of having a moment. (Note: you're gonna need to get some contact paper in cheerful colors.) She also has washi tape crafts in case you have some of that hanging around still. Sprinkled among the crafts and decorating ideas you'll find suggestions for ways to create joy in your own life. "Visit fun and inspiring places" like candy shops, "look upside down" at things like ice cream, and "group things in clusters", things like tiny umbrellas on a cake. This books proudly declares that glitter really is forever and that is just swell.

Oh, joy, a card full of glitter. You shouldn't have.

Sustainable Happiness: Live Simply, Live Well, Make a Difference

The staff of Yes! Magazine are really excited about exploring real happiness for you. Real happiness, happiness that one can sustain for long periods, even through those times when you favorite show ends (remember how you felt when The Wire concluded?), comes from making the world a better place for everybody. This collection of short essays doles out some practical and some philosophical advice for ways to improve your existence, moving yourself in the direction of "real" happiness. Meditate on topics such as greeting strangers, meeting your neighbors, buying less and unplugging more, and see just how easy it is to make small changes that can lead to big differences. This is another book that suggests buying less and we couldn't agree more! Check this book out at the library. We bought this one already so you don't have to.