"An unforgettable tip of Kondo’s from the first book is to empty your handbag at the end of each day, wrap it in some nonsense fabric as a mark of respect..."

"... and give yourself the gift of tidying all the stuff you just evicted. When I read this, I speculatively put my hand to the bottom of my handbag and found a cocktail sausage, whereupon I did what any normal person would do and popped it in my mouth. All I mean to convey by this is that some people are starting a lot farther away from Kondo than she could imagine."

From a review in the Guardian of Marie Kondo's new book "Spark Joy: An Illustrated Master Class on the Art of Organizing and Tidying Up."

I, like millions of others, read the first book, "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing." I tried some of it. That is, I did something with some clothes. Maybe I'll get the new book. I did enjoy the fantasy of the first book. I know the new book merely repeats what's already in the old book. It doesn't — as the Guardian reviewer puts it — "diversif[y] into mind-tidying or decluttering your lower intestine."

There shouldn't be a need for a second book. The first book says you do the method once and then you are done forever. Acting as if there is a market for the second book implicitly suggests that the method does not work!

For alternatives to changing your life through the "magic" of decluttering and organizing, I'm seeing...

1. "The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck: How to Stop Spending Time You Don't Have with People You Don't Like Doing Things You Don't Want to Do." This is not for me, and not because I'm offended by the crass language. It's not for me because I've already done this, probably a lot more than the author. Anyway, this is the mental decluttering that Kondo does not bother with.

2. There's "hygge" — Danish coziness — explained in lots of books like "The Little Book of Hygge: Danish Secrets to Happy Living." This looks like leaning into clutter, but I guess it's pretty selective about which things to clutter yourself with. Candles and hot drinks are big. So it's similar to Kondo's idea of surrounding yourself with happiness-inspiring things, but you're getting into the Danishness of it all as opposed to the Japaneseness.