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Put Your Life on a Diet: Lessons Learned Living in 140 Square Feet is the ultimate resource for living a simpler life as well as leaving behind a smaller environmental footprint and living a healthier life for you and the planet. In this book author Greg Johnson guides us in five significant areas-housing, food, technology, utilities, and transportation-teaching us how to create a simpler life, reducing stress in our own lives and harm to the environment. Due to the pressures and complexity of life today, the search for simplicity is being sought after like never before. Put Your Life on a Diet: Lessons Learned Living in 140 Square Feet offers the tools to escape the "cookie-cutter" existence so many are living today and find peace in a simpler lifestyle.
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By Miss Margaret Picky (NYC)
Put Your Life On a Diet: Lessons Learned from Living in 140 Square Feet is a small book with 144 pages. Only about half of the content is specifically about living in a small house with the remainder being about how to reduce your impact on the planet, as the title implies. There aren't even photographs of the house. My overall impression is that this book was designed as a workbook for a seminar on the author's lifestyle philosophy and that the lessons were learned and then implemented by living in a small house rather than vice versa.
Ironically, this tiny book about living efficiently is very inefficient itself. It's a very quick read because in the 144 pages there is a lot of empty space and filler: double-page chapter titles, a couple of lined pages for notes at the end of each chapter, lots of quotes pulled from the text and blown up to fill an entire page as well as a lot of regular pull-quotes. I estimated (page-by-page) that the entire book would only fill 80 pages without all the fluff: an efficiency of approximately 55%!
The author is fond of the fairy-tale cottage fantasy rather than a modern look like the Micro Compact Home or even a retro-modern feel like an Airstream trailer. The titular 140 square foot house that he lived in is the hippie equivalent of a wooden, stick-built small Airstream except without plumbing and with customized storage. He even estimates the present cost of construction to be in the same price range and an Airstream is likely much more suitable for most people as a place to live.
It would be unkind but not untruthful to call his house a fancy version of the jerry-rigged, blue tarp houses of the uncounted millions who live in urban slums in South America, Africa, and Asia, but on wheels. He even hauls in his own water! Yet he's not a hypocrite and he admits that because he relies on shared services, his living space is really about 2,000 square feet.
Overall, the information is interesting and useful but there is nothing new here in the context of the simplicity theme that has flowered with the new millennium. While it is worth the hour or so it takes to read, this book probably does not merit a permanent place in your library. You could get the same lessons in a more forceful and graphic form from Material World: A Global Family Portrait.
By David M. Baldwin (jesup, georgia)
I wanted to hear more about what it is like to live in this confined spaced. The book has other information not necessary or related to living in a small space. Expected lots more for the space. I think part of living in a small space is having to pay less for housing too, and it doesnt seem that is happening.
By Shane M. Maberry (Houston, Texas)
I picked up this book hoping to learn from the experiences of someone who has lived in a tiny house. However, there is very little written about the actual experience of living in a tiny house. Instead, the book is formatted in a quasi-self help workbook complete with cheesy 'action plan' lists. I'm giving it two stars since it isn't valuable enough to sacrifice tiny house bookshelf space. It's not awful, but it's hardly what anyone looking for wisdom would hope for. Someone who lives in a tiny house could shed light into optimal room layout, house placement, how to live with pets, having guests over, house building/buying, etc. All of this actually useful information is of course not mentioned. The author instead talks about using public bathrooms, eating out all the time, and getting up at 5 am. The resources listed in the back were also a letdown. This book should be titled "how to put your life on a diet: an action plan workbook."
By Jessica
This book is just a collection of assorted musings and reflections that is probably better suited for a blog or magazine article than an actual book. The content is a lot of the same tips for "decluttering" or "going green" you see over and over again. I wouldn't recommend buying the book (it's pretty short and can be read in one sitting) just check out the author's website. He refers to his site several times anyway, and even recommends that the reader Google certain topics to learn more, which I find somewhat annoying. I usually pick up a book expecting to learn about a topic in greater detail than what I would find online, so when the book tells me to go back to the internet, why the heck am I wasting time with the book?
At first I was interested and inspired by the author's unique and simple lifestyle. Then I learned that his tiny home sits on the same lot as his father and step-mother's large traditional home. I imagine it's a lot easier to live without electricity, and to view water service and toilet facilities as "unnecessary expenses and hassles" when the family home is fifty feet away. Almost as disappointing as when I read that Thoreau's mom delivered baked goodies to him every weekend when he lived on Walden Pond. I suspect that to achieve simplicity, one must sacrifice some independence. Perhaps the author can share his thoughts on this trade-off in a future book.
By BAM (Upstate NY)
WOW, great book! i have been downsizing for quite awhile now and i learned SOOOOOO much more from this book than any other downsizing or unclutter book i have read (and i have read lots!). the most helpful was the part about uncluttering by taking advantage of the latest technologies and storing documents, important papers, collections, books, music, movies and more in digital format. every bit of those types of things that i own will ALL go onto whatever pda i choose (presently my choice is the apple ipod touch) in a space small enough to fit into my pocket!!! also there is great information on space management resources, outsourcing, and how to begin the often overwhelming feeling of getting started and making it stick! i also learned alot about food and actually some useful info on food dieting. a great all around book for anyone thinking of downsizing a little, alot or to the point of having only enough usable space in your living situation to make life simple, easy and affordable. for years my goal has been to enter retirement with only a large footlocker of my possessions. this book helped me eliminate and/or store into a smaller space more stuff than i ever thought possible!i highly recommend it!! my personal buzz word for 2009 is "SIMPLIFY".
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