Welcome friend! Join me today on tour for a non-fiction book, Lost & Found: 9 life-changing lessons about stuff from someone who lost everything by Helen Chandler-Wilde. Here is what this book is about:
Helen Chandler-Wilde | Goodreads
An exploration into why we keep holding on to material things and what they mean to us
On New Year’s Eve of 2018, journalist Helen Chandler-Wilde lost everything she owned in a storage unit fire in Croydon, where she’d stowed all her possessions after a big break-up. She was left devastated, and forced to re-evaluate her relationship with owning material things.
A mix of memoir, self-help and journalism, Lost & Found explores the psychological reasons for why we buy and keep the things we do, and explains how we can liberate ourselves from the tyranny of ‘too much’. Helen interviews people from all walks of life, including behavioural psychologists on the science of nostalgia, a nun on what it’s like to own almost nothing and consumer psychologists on why we spend impulsively, to help us better understand why we’re surrounded by clutter and what we can do to change it.
This smart-thinking book explains the sociological quirks of human nature and the fascinating science behind why we buy and hold onto things. By the end of it, your relationship with your belongings will be changed forever.
Lost & Found – Book Review
Lost & Found begins with a thought-provoking question: “If you could save one thing from a fire, what would it be?” I took a moment to think on this one. Though there are many things that I have attachment to, and the thought of losing my journals is the most terrifying, I could not think of anything that I could not buy again or replace. As long as my family is ok, I think I will be ok. It is easier to say though when nothing bad has happened and the question is a thought experiment rather than a reality.
Helen Chandler-Wilde did not get a chance to pick things that the fire in her storage unit would not destroy. Throughout Lost & Found, she shares the impact of losing her possessions, the grief of the loss, the many times she found herself downplaying what had happened and the ways in which she herself and people around her reacted to this news. Already, the language to support grief for losing people is limited. How do we handle the loss of objects? I understand the place from which Chandler-Wilde writes. Many months back, there was a glitch on my blog. I was devastated. Though it took about a week for it to be good again, the loss of how it used to be was something I had to work through.
Lost & Found is a collection of lessons learned from the fire. I liked that the nine chapters are named as the lesson and contain extensive research and conversations about the topic. Each chapter ends with a bullet point list of things that the reader can try or think further about. This book is a wealth of knowledge about the environmental and emotional factors that get us stuck in the loop of buying more, even when we know we won’t be using the things we buy. The author puts into perspective what is happening to the things we waste. She challenges the beliefs that we might have like connecting our clothing and objects in our house to social status, revealing the hidden costs.
Until I read this book, I had never sat down to think about the many aspects of material possessions. Chandler-Wildedives deep into the psyche of what motivates us to shop and collect things, why we reach for things to avoid the things we actually need to face. I liked the distinction between hoarding and collecting and my favorite chapter of all was Lesson 8: Beauty is necessary.
I found a wide variety of strategies in Lost & Found and was happy to see some of what I already do reflected in these pages. Here are two strategies I have applied and vouch for:
(1) Waiting to buy things: I often add things to my cart for a couple of weeks if the purchase isn’t urgent before actually pressing the buy button.
(2) Packing up clothes based on season: This is a standard practice in India, one that I lost and recently cultivated after my move to Canada.
Lost & Found is a quick read. The writing is engaging and I flew through this book. I recommend it to anyone who thinks they spend a little too much time shopping or are interested to learn about the psychology of material possessions.
Add this book to your Goodreads shelf if you are intrigued. Tell me in the comments if you have already read it.
Many thanks to Random Things Tours for giving me a chance to highlight this book on my blog in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for reading my thoughts. 🙂
Check out other reviewers on the tour:
Thanks for the blog tour support x