L'art de la Simplicité: How to Live More with Less

I have read so many books about living more with less, mari kondo, you name it, this book halfway through i put it down when she talked about having plain walls and nothing in your home, having only 7 pairs of clothes, jeans shirts so on.Life is too short to live so stiff, Im all for not being a hoarder and having tons of junk , 3 or 4 closets of clothes I get go through and downsize but at the same time she writes in this book in a summary get rid of everything don't have nothing, sorry but life is to be enjoyed and I like my gnome flower pot that lights up !!!

Like others have said, this book focuses on Asian cultures and nothing to do with French living. I somewhat liked her latest book about lists so I gave this one a go and she seems to have a disorder that she's promoting.I really couldn't believe what I was reading when I got to the section on starving yourself for days to lose weight. And she recommends looking at yourself in a full length mirror nude so you can see everywhere you have excess fat, blemishes, cellulite, etc. "If you're really committed you can exercise off your cellulite in 6 months!" Umm.. no. It's called genetics.After a quick google image search, it appears Dominique does not follow her own advice so she really just put all this out there to trigger others.I don't recommend this book at all. I hope she's gotten help since this was published and wish her the best.

I've been simplifying my life and living in small homes since wayyyyy before it was cool. I've also read a huge number of books, articles and blogs (and have written a few). This is, hands down, the best all-in-one guide to the philosophy and practice of living a simple life since Elaine St. James' "Simplify Your Life" and "Simple Abundance" by Sarah Ban Breathnach. All three have a permanent be place on my minimalist bookshelf...and it's not easy to rank high enough to be a physical book in my intentionally limited collection!

While this book had a lot of good information, if you’re looking for a French slant, (as suggested by the title) this is not it. While the author was born in France, she has been mostly in Japan. The book has a decidedly Zen-minimalist bent. That said, it does contain usable and thought provoking advice. Just don’t expect it to be an example of a French home.

Loved this book. It is like a woman's handbook for a simpler, rounded life. It's not just about minimizing your possessions but also about better health choices, taking time out for yourself and figuring out yourself through the process of clearing out the junk clutter, food clutter, and mind clutter. I go back to it as a reference book. I'm grateful I stumbled upon this book while looking for a different one.

I had a hard time getting into this book so I stopped reading it. Though the author had some good points, her fascination with the Japanese aesthetic and (to me) extreme minimalism was too much for me. I could have picked up Marie Kondo's book if I was interested in that kind of simplicity. It's written by a French woman but the book doesn't really have enough of a French outlook for my taste.

This is one of the best books on minimalism and simple living that I've read. It covers many areas beyond just clutter and how to get rid of it. It inspired me finally to get rid of all those dishes in my kitchen that no longer fit my lifestyle. I got rid of 3 pieces of furniture in my living room alone. I'm also incorporating some of Loreau's other suggestions into my life. I'm sure I'll return to this book again for more suggestions for a simpler and, therefore, better life.

I love this book, can't get enough of reading it. Very simple to read and follow for a simplified life and makes so much sense. I like how the author is French now living in Japan, two cultures in my opinion almost synonymous with minimalism so it's backed by experience. It's my go-to reference for the less is more lifestyle. For us minimalists who want a bare bookshelf of few quality books, if there's one book worth owning, this one is it and replaces so many books we don't need.

Like a lot of people, I love reading about how to live more simply, how to find happiness, and how to bring more joy into my life. L'art de la Simplicité was recommended to me as a mixture of  French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure  and  The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing . Maybe that is what Dominique Loreau was going for, but I feel that she really missed the mark.L'art de la Simplicité is made up of a series of (some what disjointed) essays full of trite advice and impractical tips. Her advice ranges from pretty good (e.g. choose minimalism because life is just easier when we have fewer belongings to manage) to totally out of touch (e.g. only buy quality materials like Italian leather, cashmere, etc.; buy a case of champagne and drink it whenever). I feel like her version of simplicity is like what glamping is to camping--obtainable for some, but not realistic for most of us. Generally it is possible to glean something from books like this even if they don't fit your life, but I feel that Ms Loreau is so out of touch with how many of us live in the West that it is all but impossible here.I believe Ms Loreau has been living in Japan since the 1970s, but I found her take on the Asian philosophy behind her ideas to be very shallow and almost offensively simplistic. In some places she seems to hold up Japanese people as a paragon of minimalism because that is just how they are, and that doesn't sit right with me. She gives about 200 words to the concept of Qi and caps off the section by claiming "virtually all maladies" can be cured by controlling our Qi.All of this isn't to say that there aren't some gems sprinkled within this book. I can appreciate what she is trying to accomplish, and I do think she shares a few good insights. As she says, the West has lost the art of living simply, but then again that can be said of "middle class" people in China and Japan too. And the life she presents in this book, even with its empty rooms and cleared calendars, doesn't really feel all that simple. It feels full of trying to live very luxuriously with much attention spent on outward appearances and (reduced) consumption of expensive food and drink. French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for PleasureThe Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing

The suggestions for simplifying your life are very extreme, although some suggestions are useful and doable.

Très déçue. J ai lu dans le passé l art de essentiel qui m avait séduit. Ici j ai abandonné. Bcp de belles phrases mais peu de contenu pratique.

Comme le dit le titre, simple et efficace. Style facile à lire, petits trucs pour adoucir la vie de tous les jours, bon complément à d'autres livres sur la méditation ou la connaissance de soi. Reste accessible à tous.