blog

Is “Spark Joy, an Illustrated Guide to the Japanese Art of Tidying” really a life changer or just another fashion trend? Is the ‘queen of tidying’ deserving of her title? Marie Kondo’s chuck it if it doesn’t spark joy method of tidying is a great way to tackle the often tumultuous job of tidying providing a guide to the decision making necessary in choosing the things you really want to bring with you into the future.Kondo has made tidying her life’s work. She did a thesis on tidying in college and went on to become a successful author and business woman with her own American TV series. The KonMari method of tidying is based on a simple philosophy of love it or chuck it but she has never said it was easy. Taking a journey with Kondo involves commitment, visualisation and discarding along with master classes in folding, sorting and storing.  Tidying by category and sticking with the work order and the criterion promises to bring about a new order not just in the home but across life. The book is beautifully illustrated with simple but effective childlike drawings.By following the KonMari method of tidying a value system is developed that simply cannot exist with accumulating clutter and therefore becomes a plan for life. Kondo helps people hone into their feelings to identify the items that ‘spark joy’ breeding confidence in deciding what they should keep and what to let go. She believes that for successful tidying a transfer of concentration from what you want to get rid of to what you want to keep is necessary. The result is a positive mindset and a perspective which when applied regularly in the home transfers across to all life allowing a new setting and a joyful future.As a self professed tidying freak Kondo found that restoring order in the home was a way to relieve anxiety. In these Covid times as we are spending more time then ever in the home and garden we have an opportunity to look around us and take care of our possessions. Many have taken to tidying with gusto but it can be overwhelming. Kondo explains tidying as the act of self confrontation achieved by facing the mess we have created head on allowing for the restoration of order. As mess and clutter are often indicators of unhappiness, practising the KonMari method of tidying can result in a change in outlook.Kondo, always respectful of the individual, insists that a person should never be forced to tidy if they don’t wish to.There is a deeply spiritual dimension to Kondo’s simple philosophy on tidying. She approaches her work with a grace and reverence rarely seen in the western world. Her driving force is her wish to share her message and bring joy into peoples lives, a laudable ambition. There is a history in Japanese culture of treating things with special care. Kondo often startles people when she goes on her knees to thank the house before embarking on a tidying spree. She recommends thanking each item individually for service rendered before discarding referring to the Japanese tradition of treating things with reverence acknowledging “the pathos of things.”She believes that by taking the time to sense an entity’s essence and it’s transience we can connect and be touched by nature, art and the lives of others. Reconnecting with the world is empowering and stimulates empathy enabling us to be kinder to ourselves and each other. In the western world we live in a consumer based society which often ceases to recognise our basic needs as social beings for a happy life resulting in high anxiety, a growing phenomena of our age. Perhaps if we put our houses in order we’ll arrive at a place where we can care for the things and the people who serve us well not only in this time of pandemic but in the everyday.Marie Kondo has earned her title of ‘the queen of tidying’ and her claim that adherence to the KonMari system of tidying as life changing is true. Submitted by Liz, Pearse Street Library.Access eBooks/eAudiobooks on your phone, tablet or reader. Once you have installed the app, search for Dublin in the ‘Library’ field provided and then sign in using your library membership card number and PIN. Watch our how to video on Borrowbox. Members of other library authorities will need to log in using a different link.

Did you know that as a member of Dublin City Libraries, you can access the Touch-type Read & Spell (TTRS) course for free? What is TTRS and who can use it? TTRS is a multisensory, structured, online typing course which assists students to learn at their own pace.In addition to developing typing skills, TTRS is designed to benefit students of all ages who experience spelling, reading or writing difficulties. Learners with dyslexia or literacy issues have found it helpful. Many of our patrons, both adults and children, some as young as 8, have already availed of this free service at Dublin City Libraries. While a large number of these patrons have found the course helpful for Dyslexia, many others have also found it beneficial.For example:    learners with Dyspraxia    learners with Dysgraphia    students studying English as a second language    those who wish to upskill and improve their general typing skills    those who wish to improve their literacy skills or those having literacy difficulties    those who wish to improve their memory skills or who are experiencing memory problemsThe feedback we have got from our current learners and parents has been very positive, with many reporting how they have benefitted from the course. How does TTRS with Dublin City Libraries work? If you are a member of Dublin City Libraries and if you have internet access at home, then you can use TTRS. All you need is a username and password. The course has a user-friendly interface and, from the very start of the course, students are prompted and talked through what to do, for example: where to place their fingers on the keyboard etc.There are many different levels and modules which learners can work through and improve on, and at the end of each level you can get a Certificate of Completion to represent all the hard work you have done!In addition to the main TTRS course, there is also a TTRS subjects section. This is only recommended after learners have completed at least 3 levels of the main course. Subjects include maths, grammar and science.How to get access to TTRS? If you would like access, please email: [email protected] and include your name and Library card membership number. We will send you a username and password along with the login instructions. You can also email us if you have any other questions about accessing TTRS. For further useful information on TTRS check out their website.Submitted by Fiona from Central Library. 

Charles Dickens, one of the most popular and accessible novelists died 150 years ago in June 1870. His novels are still popular and they have been adapted for television and cinema. They have been turned into popular musicals on stage and screen. Many novelists have acknowledged his influence and expressed admiration for his novels.At the age of twelve he was sent to work in a blacking factory by his affectionate but feckless parents. From these unpromising beginnings, he rose to scale all the social and literary heights, entirely through his own efforts. When he died, the world mourned, and he was buried - against his wishes - in Westminster Abbey. Yet the brilliance concealed a divided character: a republican, he disliked America; sentimental about the family in his writings, he took up passionately with a young actress; usually generous, he cut off his impecunious children.Dickens created an array of memorable characters - Miss Havisham dressed in her wedding finery every day since she was jilted at the altar in Great Expectations. The contrasting characters Mr. Micawber and Uriah Heep in David Copperfield. In David Copperfield, the novel he described as his favorite child, Dickens drew revealingly on his own experiences to create one of his most exuberant and enduringly popular works, filled with tragedy and comedy in equal measure. One of the most swiftly moving and unified of Charles Dickens’s great novels, Oliver Twist is also famous for its re-creation through the splendidly realized figures of Fagin, Nancy, the Artful Dodger, and the evil Bill Sikes of the vast London underworld of pickpockets, thieves, prostitutes, and abandoned children. Victorian critics took Dickens to task for rendering this world in such a compelling, believable way, but readers over the last 150 years have delivered an alternative judgment by making this story of the orphaned Oliver Twist one of its author’s most loved works.His novels were originally published in instalments in weekly or monthly magazines. This is the reason there are some dramatic “cliffhanger” scenes which made the reader want to know what happened in the next instalment. This helps to make them “pageturners” for modern readers. (It also allowed Dickens to get feedback from his readers about what they thought of his stories and characters before he had finished his novel!)There are 24 ebook and eaudiobook copies of Dickens’ novels available on Borrowbox and you will also find there an excellent biography of the author by Claire Tomalin.Claire Tomalin is the award-winning author of eight highly acclaimed biographies, including: The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft; Shelley and His World; Katherine Mansfield: A Secret Life; The Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens; Mrs Jordan's Profession; Jane Austen: A Life; Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self; Thomas Hardy: The Time-Torn Man and, most recently, Charles Dickens: A Life. A former literary editor of the New Statesman and the Sunday Times, she is married to the playwright and novelist Michael Frayn.Submitted by Philip in Finglas Library.Access eBooks/eAudiobooks on your phone, tablet or reader. Once you have installed the app, search for Dublin in the ‘Library’ field provided and then sign in using your library membership card number and PIN. Watch our how to video on Borrowbox. Members of other library authorities will need to log in using a different link.

In this episode of the DCLA podcast, Michelle Read reads the first three stories featured in The Long Gaze Back. Michelle Read, is an actor and voice artist and an advocate of reading aloud for adults. She reads ‘The Purple Jar’ by Maria Edgeworth; ‘Frank's Resolve’ by Charlotte Riddell; ‘Poisson d'Avril’ by Somerville and Ross.

In this episode of the DCLA podcast, Jessica Fahy examines the choices made in the portrayal of significant Irish women by leading artists of the day.

I’ve picked a few books to help us understand the dogs that share our lives and living spaces, how we didn’t actually domesticate dogs, they chose to befriend us. How they prefer their owners' company to that of other dogs, and how they are naturally cooperative and instinctively drawn to generous people.

In this episode of the DCLA podcast, Nuala O’Connor and Lia Mills read from their short stories ‘Shut your mouth Hélène’ and ‘The Crossing’ before discussing flash fiction, the historical short story, the tyranny of plot, and how editing styles differ on each side of the Atlantic.

In this episode of the DCLA podcast, author Kathleen Hill gives an introduction to the life and work of Maeve Brennan, and how Ranelagh, and New York helped inform the themes of exile and loss that run throughout her writing. Maeve Brennan was born in Dublin in 1917.

Have you ever wished to get an overview of a subject but were unsure where to start? Why not try Very Short Introductions from Oxford University Press, this collection of 600 books cover a range of subjects in the Arts, Law, Medicine, Sciences and Social Sciences from Abolitionism to Zionism and everything in between. All titles provide intelligent and serious introductions to a range of subjects, written by experts in the field who combine facts, analysis, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make challenging topics highly readable.For example, there’s a book by Barry Cunliffe on The Celts. I really like the way he explains the term “Celt” and shows how the meaning changed throughout history. Cunliffe has, (with J.T. Koch) published three volumes "Celtic from the West". They claim that Ireland's population came from south west Iberia, around 4,000bc. The books are expensive but the theory behind them is widely available online.Climate Change by Mark Maslin is quite topical and worth a read. He looks at the factors that influence the global climate. He considers the difference between weather and climate. He concludes by looking at the issues of climate change and what is being done to tackle it. Other science topics include The Antartic, Black Holes, Waves, Viruses, and many more.Recently I began reading “The Divine Comedy". I saw that there was a title: Dante by Peter Hainsworth and David Robey on Very Short Introductions, so I had a look. Dante wrote about people and issues from his era. Hainsworth and Robey demonstrate how these issues are often left to the reader to resolve. They look at the medieval versus modern aspects of the text and that is why, The Divine Comedy, is a masterpiece in world literature. Sometimes it's enough to dip into the book to see what interests you.Submitted by Liam in Terenure Library. Access Very Short Introductions with your Dublin City library membership card barcode number. Select 'Dublin City Public Libraries' from menu.

In this episode of the DCLA podcast, Jessica Fahy explores the fascinating connection between Irish women artists and the advent of modernism in Ireland from the early 20th century to the 1970s.