100 books like Secondhand

By Adam Minter,

Here are 100 books that Secondhand fans have personally recommended if you like Secondhand. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Free Yourself and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter

Jennifer Howard Author Of Clutter: An Untidy History

From my list on to read when you’re decluttering.

Why am I passionate about this?

I didn’t choose clutter as a topic—it chose me. Around the time Marie Kondo became a tidying-up sensation, my mother suffered a breakdown and could no longer live in her dangerously cluttered house. I’m an only child, so it fell to me to figure what to do with it all. So much stuff! It got me wondering: How did clutter get to be such a huge problem for so many people? The books on this list helped answer that question and made me feel less alone in the struggle with stuff. I hope you find them useful too.

Jennifer's book list on to read when you’re decluttering

Jennifer Howard Why did Jennifer love this book?

Dealing with a lifetime’s worth of possessions feels like a heavy task—heavy in every sense. In this breezy book, Margareta Magnuson reminds readers that it doesn’t have to be a drag. Figuring out what to do with all your things can be cathartic, liberating, even fun, a chance to relive some of the highlights of your life and celebrate where you’ve landed. It’s also a kindness to your nearest and dearest. As she wisely observes, “A loved one wishes to inherit nice things from you. Not all things from you.” I wish I could go back in time and give a copy of this book to my mother with that passage highlighted. 

By Margareta Magnusson,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

*Soon to be a major TV series*

Dostadning, or the art of death cleaning, is a Swedish phenomenon by which the elderly and their families set their affairs in order. Whether it's sorting the family heirlooms from the junk, downsizing to a smaller place, or using a failsafe system to stop you losing essentials, death cleaning gives us the chance to make the later years of our lives as comfortable and stress-free as possible. Whatever your age, Swedish death cleaning can be used to help you de-clutter your life, and take stock of what's important.

Radical and joyous, eighty-something Margareta…


Book cover of Can't We Talk about Something More Pleasant? A Memoir

Kathryn Betts Adams Author Of The Pianist's Only Daughter: A Memoir

From my list on Memoirs illness aging death moving vivid prose.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was first a clinical social worker and then a social work professor with research focus on older adults. Over the past few years, as I have been writing my own memoir about caring for my parents, I’ve been drawn to memoirs and first-person stories of aging, illness, and death. The best memoirs on these topics describe the emotional transformation in the writer as they process their loss of control, loss of their own or a loved one’s health, and their fear, pain, and suffering. In sharing these stories, we help others empathize with what we’ve gone through and help others be better prepared for similar events in their own lives.

Kathryn's book list on Memoirs illness aging death moving vivid prose

Kathryn Betts Adams Why did Kathryn love this book?

This graphic memoir by Roz Chast is one of my favorite books of all time. I completely relate to the story, which focuses on Chast’s relationship with her parents as they age and become less capable of managing independently.

The book depicts her repeated efforts to coax her parents to face the reality of their aging and failing health as she gradually does more and more to help them, a situation I’m very familiar with and wrote about in my recent memoir. As an only child (like me), she must deal with every crisis and decision.

Her drawings add humor and emphasis to the story, but the prose alone vividly portrays her frustrations and heartbreak as Chast faces complication after complication and loss after loss in her parents’ final few years. 

By Roz Chast,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked Can't We Talk about Something More Pleasant? A Memoir as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

#1 New York Times Bestseller
2014 National Book Award Finalist
Winner of the inaugural 2014 Kirkus Prize in nonfiction
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award
Winner of the 2014 Books for a Better Life Award
Winner of the 2015 Reuben Award from National Cartoonists Society

In her first memoir, New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast brings her signature wit to the topic of aging parents. Spanning the last several years of their lives and told through four-color cartoons, family photos, and documents, and a narrative as rife with laughs as it is with tears, Chast's memoir is both comfort…


Book cover of Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash

John H. Sibley Author Of Being and Homelessness: notes from an underground artist

From my list on understanding homelessness and existentialism.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a Chicago-based artist, author, veteran, and teacher. I studied at the American Academy of Art in Chicago before enlisting in the United States Air Force in 1968 during the bloody Tet Offensive during the Vietnam era. Upon my discharge I got my BFA in 1994. I got convicted for a crime I did not commit, and I became a homeless-existential artist on Chicago’s mean streets for six months. I got hired by an Acoustic company, and I married and worked for twenty-seven years while raising a family. I now work as an art teacher. All my nonfiction books chronicle different episodes in my life. 

John's book list on understanding homelessness and existentialism

John H. Sibley Why did John love this book?

Years ago, I was a janitor. When I would take a shower, it was like I could never get the stench off my body. I like Susan Strasser’s book because it reminds me of the waste I use to clean up daily. She examines the most unprecedented commonplace act of throwing things out and how it has transformed American society.

Her classic book about trash world culture is fascinating to me because, in the last hundred years, the way of life has been replaced by mass consumption, disposable goods, and waste on an unimaginable scale. Her book could easily be used as a metaphor for the ‘homeless,’ whom some view as “disposable’ goods. Her book illustrates that what counts as trash depends on who counts it, and what we throw away defines us as much as we keep it.

Strasser argues that in Western society, popular understanding of cleanliness, gender,…

By Susan Strasser, Alice Austen (photographer),

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Waste and Want as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

An unprecedented look at that most commonplace act of everyday life-throwing things out-and how it has transformed American society.

Susan Strasser's pathbreaking histories of housework and the rise of the mass market have become classics in the literature of consumer culture. Here she turns to an essential but neglected part of that culture-the trash it produces-and finds in it an unexpected wealth of meaning.

Before the twentieth century, streets and bodies stank, but trash was nearly nonexistent. With goods and money scarce, almost everything was reused. Strasser paints a vivid picture of an America where scavenger pigs roamed the streets,…


Book cover of Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things

Jennifer Howard Author Of Clutter: An Untidy History

From my list on to read when you’re decluttering.

Why am I passionate about this?

I didn’t choose clutter as a topic—it chose me. Around the time Marie Kondo became a tidying-up sensation, my mother suffered a breakdown and could no longer live in her dangerously cluttered house. I’m an only child, so it fell to me to figure what to do with it all. So much stuff! It got me wondering: How did clutter get to be such a huge problem for so many people? The books on this list helped answer that question and made me feel less alone in the struggle with stuff. I hope you find them useful too.

Jennifer's book list on to read when you’re decluttering

Jennifer Howard Why did Jennifer love this book?

Randy Frost and Gail Steketee have done groundbreaking research on hoarding disorder, and their work has helped shift the conversation away from the traditional shame-and-blame approach to the subject. In these case studies, they dig into what drives individuals to accumulate extreme amounts of clutter. Emphasis on individuals—each of these people has a unique, often fascinating story, and Frost and Steketee treat them with compassion and understanding. Stuff helped me understand that forced cleanouts and harsh interventions don’t solve the problem, they only inflict more trauma.

By Randy O. Frost, Gail Steketee,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Stuff as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 14, 15, 16, and 17.

What is this book about?

A New York Times Bestseller

Acclaimed psychologists Randy Frost and Gail Sketetee's groundbreaking study on the compulsion of hoarding, "Stuff invites readers to reevaluate their desire for things” (Boston Globe).

What possesses someone to save every scrap of paper that’s ever come into his home? What compulsions drive a woman like Irene, whose hoarding cost her her marriage? Or Ralph, whose imagined uses for castoff items like leaky old buckets almost lost him his house? Or Jerry and Alvin, wealthy twin bachelors who filled up matching luxury apartments with countless pieces of fine art, not even leaving themselves room to…


Book cover of On Altering Architecture

Graeme Brooker Author Of 50/50 Words for Reuse: A Minifesto

From my list on interior architecture and reuse of buildings.

Why am I passionate about this?

Graeme Brooker is a Professor and Head of Interior Design at the Royal College of Art London. He has written and published fifteen books on the histories and theories of inside spaces, many of which focus on the reuse of existing artefacts, buildings, and cities. Apart from teaching and writing, when he isn’t cycling, he is often staring intently at the sea in Brighton, where he currently lives.

Graeme's book list on interior architecture and reuse of buildings

Graeme Brooker Why did Graeme love this book?

On Altering Architecture belongs to a small and unique collection of publications that are involved in distinguishing the discipline of working with existing buildings. In the book, Scott constructs an inspired argument for the understanding of the significance of environmental design disciplines such as Interior design and installation art. The book is divided into twelve chapters, each an essay on reuse and overlapping disciplines. 

Each chapter is full of insightful and interesting case studies, expertly analysed and explained. On Altering Architecture is an absorbing and fascinating book that is packed with ideas, witty asides, mischievous digressions, and provocative thoughts. In parts the tone of the book is conversational, in others authoritative, each blends seamlessly into each other providing a compelling read. 

By Fred Scott,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked On Altering Architecture as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Bringing together interior design and architectural theory, this exciting text looks at the common practices of building alteration, reconsidering established ideas and methods, to initiate the creation of a theory of the interior or interventional design.

Fred Scott examines in-depth case studies of interventional design from architectural history across the world - examples discussed are taken from the States, Europe and Japan. Scott expands and builds on the ideas of Viollet-le-Duc, structuralism and other thoughts to layout criteria for an art of intervention and change. The book draws on the philosophy of conservation, preservation and restoration, as well as exploring…


Book cover of The Secret Lives of Buildings: From the Ruins of the Parthenon to the Vegas Strip in Thirteen Stories

Graeme Brooker Author Of 50/50 Words for Reuse: A Minifesto

From my list on interior architecture and reuse of buildings.

Why am I passionate about this?

Graeme Brooker is a Professor and Head of Interior Design at the Royal College of Art London. He has written and published fifteen books on the histories and theories of inside spaces, many of which focus on the reuse of existing artefacts, buildings, and cities. Apart from teaching and writing, when he isn’t cycling, he is often staring intently at the sea in Brighton, where he currently lives.

Graeme's book list on interior architecture and reuse of buildings

Graeme Brooker Why did Graeme love this book?

This book is a provocative and stimulating read, offering a series of stories on and about interior spaces and the buildings they are situated in. The stories of buildings and their changes are fascinating, providing boundless enthusiasm to communicate the ideas and stories of each space. Hollis states that many conversations are started and that maybe not all of them are ever finished, this book provides an inspired beginning for any person who wants to begin an exploration of the art of adapting and altering existing buildings. 

By Edward Hollis,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Secret Lives of Buildings as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The plans are drawn up, a site is chosen, foundations are dug: a building comes into being with the expectation that it will stay put and stay for ever. But a building is a capricious thing: it is inhabited and changed, and its existence is a tale of constant and curious transformation. In this radical reimagining of architectural history, Edward Hollis tells the stories of thirteen buildings, beginning with the 'once upon a time' when they first appeared, through the years of appropriation, ruin and renovation, and ending with a temporary 'ever after'. In spell-binding prose, Hollis follows his buildings…


Book cover of The Interior Architecture Theory Reader

Graeme Brooker Author Of 50/50 Words for Reuse: A Minifesto

From my list on interior architecture and reuse of buildings.

Why am I passionate about this?

Graeme Brooker is a Professor and Head of Interior Design at the Royal College of Art London. He has written and published fifteen books on the histories and theories of inside spaces, many of which focus on the reuse of existing artefacts, buildings, and cities. Apart from teaching and writing, when he isn’t cycling, he is often staring intently at the sea in Brighton, where he currently lives.

Graeme's book list on interior architecture and reuse of buildings

Graeme Brooker Why did Graeme love this book?

This book provides a compelling survey of the range of emerging work underpinning the development of the histories, theories, processes, and practices of interior architecture. Its diverse range of contributors and topics outlines a through survey of this new discipline. The book is varied in its scope and content. Start here for a thorough introduction to the fundamental issues surrounding the discipline.

By Gregory Marinic (editor),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Interior Architecture Theory Reader as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Interior Architecture Theory Reader presents a global compilation that collectively and specifically defines interior architecture. Diverse views and comparative resources for interior architecture students, educators, scholars, and practitioners are needed to develop a proper canon for this young discipline. As a theoretical survey of interior architecture, the book examines theory, history, and production to embrace a full range of interior identities in architecture, interior design, digital fabrication, and spatial installation. Authored by leading educators, theorists, and practitioners, fifty chapters refine and expand the discourse surrounding interior architecture.


Book cover of The Re-Use Atlas: A Designer's Guide Towards the Circular Economy

Graeme Brooker Author Of 50/50 Words for Reuse: A Minifesto

From my list on interior architecture and reuse of buildings.

Why am I passionate about this?

Graeme Brooker is a Professor and Head of Interior Design at the Royal College of Art London. He has written and published fifteen books on the histories and theories of inside spaces, many of which focus on the reuse of existing artefacts, buildings, and cities. Apart from teaching and writing, when he isn’t cycling, he is often staring intently at the sea in Brighton, where he currently lives.

Graeme's book list on interior architecture and reuse of buildings

Graeme Brooker Why did Graeme love this book?

The Re-Use Atlas is a timely and comprehensive book, overflowing with projects and ideas, work that is suffused with the compelling enthusiasm of its author and contributors. Upon the first reading of this Atlas, my initial reaction was how reliant all aspects of the book were on the abundance and also the scarcity of existing matter. It is this variability in the sources of the raw material for reuse that has led to the development and description of numerous, clever, engaged strategies for reworking existing materials and buildings. The Re-use Atlas brings these sensibilities into sharp focus, through the numerous ideas and people that it contains, and the exemplary projects that it meticulously depicts. 

By Duncan Baker-Brown,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Re-Use Atlas as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This book is a highly illustrated 'atlas', taking the reader on a journey via four distinct 'steps' (recycling, reuse, reduce, closed loop), from a linear economy towards a system emulating the natural world, i.e, a circular economy. Featuring over 25 detailed case studies describing design exemplars from the worlds of textile and fashion design, product design, interior architecture, architecture and urban design, this book's purpose is to show designers how they can successfully navigate and exploit the emerging field of resource management and the circular economy.

Each step is supplemented with an in depth interview with an expert who is…


Book cover of World Travel: An Irreverent Guide

Deborah Serra Author Of 2 Broads Abroad: Moms Fly the Coop

From my list on making you laugh and love traveling.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a traveler. For me, there’s nothing like that moment when your plane lands on foreign soil. I feel free when I’m somewhere I’ve never been, where I don’t speak the language, understand the menu, or know a single person. It is the ultimate sense of release. I’ve done a great deal of solo traveling, which I thoroughly enjoy, and fortunately for me, my family understands (or at least accepts). From the Congo to Xian to Paris, I’ve never seen enough. 

Deborah's book list on making you laugh and love traveling

Deborah Serra Why did Deborah love this book?

Okay, cards on the table, I cannot be trusted when recommending this book. I have learned more from Anthony Bourdain than from any other traveler, chef, citizen of the world. His open-minded approach to the world is contagious and inspiring. He lets his readers into the untraveled unknown corners of the planet and I’m grateful he shared his journey. I can recommend all of his books, his TV shows, and his essays. The world is sadder without him.

By Anthony Bourdain, Laurie Woolever,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked World Travel as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'Terrific ... His love for his subjects - both the food and the cook - sings' Telegraph 'Christ, could Bourdain weave words ... the guy wrote like a poet' Guardian A celebration of the life and legacy of one of the most important food writers of all time - the inimitable Anthony Bourdain Anthony Bourdain saw more of the world than nearly anyone. His travels took him from his hometown of New York to a tribal longhouse in Borneo, from cosmopolitan Buenos Aires, Paris, and Shanghai to the stunning desert solitude of Oman's Empty Quarter - and many places beyond.…


Book cover of Ethiopia: Through Writers' Eyes

Robert David Author Of Lights, Camera, Jemuru: Ethiopia through the lens of a community film school

From my list on that show you the real Ethiopia.

Why am I passionate about this?

I lived in Ethiopia for 7 years and arrived expecting to find a country beaten down by war and famine, I could not have been more wrong. Ethiopia covers a vast territory and is as deep in history and culture, while its myriad peoples speak over 80 different languages. It remains one of the most mysterious, misunderstood, and least visited countries on the planet, and a paradise for both physical and armchair travelers alike to explore one of the last great largely undiscovered places on earth. I continue to write articles for both national and international newspapers and magazines about Ethiopia and its many wonders. 

Robert's book list on that show you the real Ethiopia

Robert David Why did Robert love this book?

How do you describe and encapsulate a country that can trace its history back to the days of the Queen of Sheba, whose ethnic peoples speak over 80 separate languages and whose many traditions and culture remain untouched by time? The genius of Ethiopia: Through Writers’ Eyes is that it solves this conundrum brilliantly by compiling the writings of explorers, travel writers, and journalists dating from the ancient Greeks right up to the modern day. The result is a fascinating kaleidoscope of images and experiences that turn constantly in this reader’s mind long after putting the book down. It’s a book I return to time after time and it always transports me back to one of the most mysterious and beguiling countries on earth.       

By Yves-Marie Stranger,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Ethiopia as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

There are only a handful of destinations left in the world that have retained their ability to shock the traveller with their unique perspective. These places still awaken a sense of deep wonder as they offer the rare opportunity to observe the world from a different angle. Ethiopia is one of those rare countries. This book is the perfect companion to any exploration of Ethiopia, be it in the precarious saddle of an Abyssinian pony, or from the folds of an armchair. A compendium of all things Ethiopian, the book throws wide open precious windows of understanding, allowing you to…


Book cover of The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Free Yourself and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter
Book cover of Can't We Talk about Something More Pleasant? A Memoir
Book cover of Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash

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