Wednesday 21 September 2016

Review: Every Thing We Touch: A 24-Hour Inventory of Our Lives

Every Thing We Touch: A 24-Hour Inventory of Our Lives Every Thing We Touch: A 24-Hour Inventory of Our Lives by Paula Zuccotti
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

To navigate modern life we use a myriad of things every single day; phones, spoons, tools, clothes and pencils are just some of the objects that we touch and use every single day. In this book Zuccotti has got people to log everything that they touched, then got them to bring them to a studio to have those things photographed. Each photo was taken on a large white floors and shows that person’s life that day. Some of the items are deeply personal, some have huge sentimental value and others are transitory.

Just a glance at the objects on the page and you can almost always tell if the individual is male or female, young or old, but it sometimes becomes harder as she has people from different cultures bring in the snapshots from their lives. The range of people makes it fascinating too, there are cleaners, cowboys, artists, dancers and even a nun. Each person has a little bio of why they used some of these things and gets to choose a favourite object. It is quite amazing just how many things you touch and use throughout each day just to get up, get to work or school and get back home. There are a number of things that are similar across all the people who participated, technology for example, but Zuccotti has managed to select a diverse range. There is not a huge amount to read though, unless you like reading vast lists, but if you can lay your hands on a copy it is worth spending some time flicking through.

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