Stuff

Temina is excited about taking a trip on an airplane, and super-excited to include ALL of her toys and dolls on the trip as well. Until mom says: "You can bring just ONE doll." Impossible! How is she going to pick just ONE? She hatches a top secret plan and sneaks more than one toy into the airport and onto the plane. While everyone around her gawks, Temina proudly displays her beloved companions. Word spreads quickly to other children on the plane, who feel lonely without their own dolls. Temina is happy to lend out her treasures. The flight becomes a happy memory for Temina and her family, and even more so months later when her generosity is rewarded in the most surprising way!

The New York Times bestseller. “Gripping . . . By turns fascinating and heartbreaking . . . Stuff invites readers to reevaluate their desire for things.”—Boston Globe “Amazing . . . utterly engrossing . . . Read it.”—The Washington Post Book World What possesses someone to save every scrap of paper that’s ever come into his home? What compulsions drive a person to sacrifice her marriage or career for an accumulation of seemingly useless things? Randy Frost and Gail Steketee were the first to study hoarding when they began their work a decade ago. They didn’t expect that they would end up treating hundreds of patients and fielding thousands of calls from the families of hoarders. Their vivid case studies (reminiscent of Oliver Sacks) in Stuff show how you can identify a hoarder—piles on sofas and beds that make the furniture useless, houses that can be navigated only by following small paths called goat trails, vast piles of paper that the hoarders “churn” but never discard, even collections of animals and garbage—and illuminate the pull that possessions exert over all of us. Whether we’re savers, collectors, or compulsive cleaners, very few of us are in fact free of the impulses that drive hoarders to extremes. “Authoritative, haunting, and mysterious. It is also intensely, not to say compulsively readable.”—Tracy Kidder, Pulitzer Prize-winning author “Fascinating . . . a good mix of cultural and psychological theories on hoarding.”—Newsweek “Pioneering researchers offer a superb overview of a complex disorder that interferes with the lives of more than six-million Americans . . . An absorbing, gripping, important report.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Things make us just as much as we make things. And yet, unlike the study of languages or places, there is no discipline devoted to the study of material things. This book shows why it is time to acknowledge and confront this neglect and how much we can learn from focusing our attention on stuff. The book opens with a critique of the concept of superficiality as applied to clothing. It presents the theories that are required to understand the way we are created by material as well as social relations. It takes us inside the very private worlds of our home possessions and our processes of accommodating. It considers issues of materiality in relation to the media, as well as the implications of such an approach in relation, for example, to poverty. Finally, the book considers objects which we use to define what it is to be alive and how we use objects to cope with death. Based on more than thirty years of research in the Caribbean, India, London and elsewhere, Stuff is nothing less than a manifesto for the study of material culture and a new way of looking at the objects that surround us and make up so much of our social and personal life.

Things make us just as much as we make things. And yet, unlike the study of languages or places, there is no discipline devoted to the study of material things. This book shows why it is time to acknowledge and confront this neglect and how much we can learn from focusing our attention on stuff. The book opens with a critique of the concept of superficiality as applied to clothing. It presents the theories that are required to understand the way we are created by material as well as social relations. It takes us inside the very private worlds of our home possessions and our processes of accommodating. It considers issues of materiality in relation to the media, as well as the implications of such an approach in relation, for example, to poverty. Finally, the book considers objects which we use to define what it is to be alive and how we use objects to cope with death. Based on more than thirty years of research in the Caribbean, India, London and elsewhere, Stuff is nothing less than a manifesto for the study of material culture and a new way of looking at the objects that surround us and make up so much of our social and personal life.

A real pediatrician and the author of the bestselling Care & Keeping of You series provides tips, how-tos, and facts about boys' changing bodies that will help them take care of themselves. Full color.

From "America's nerviest journalist" (Newsweek)--a breath-taking epic, a magnificent adventure story, and an investigation into the true heroism and courage of the first Americans to conquer space. "Tom Wolfe at his very best" (The New York Times Book Review) Millions of words have poured forth about man's trip to the moon, but until now few people have had a sense of the most engrossing side of the adventure; namely, what went on in the minds of the astronauts themselves - in space, on the moon, and even during certain odysseys on earth. It is this, the inner life of the astronauts, that Tom Wolfe describes with his almost uncanny empathetic powers, that made The Right Stuff a classic.

A packrat resists recycling, reducing, and reusing

In this insightful, practical guide, Kristine Carlson offers proven strategies and techniques that empower mothers to manage their busy lives with less stress, more happiness, and greater harmony within themselves and their homes. She reveals how to: Be a Mom, Not a Friend Pursue Your Passion, But Not at the Expense of Your Children Balance Being a Woman and a Mom Empower yourself to live the life you dream of