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Jennifer Howard

Writer, editor, journalist.

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Jennifer Howard is a writer, editor, and journalist living in Washington, DC. She is the author of  CLUTTER: AN UNTIDY HISTORY (Belt Publishing, 2020).

Item of Note

EVENT ALERT: VA FESTIVAL OF THE BOOK “SHELF LIFE.” If you missed my “Shelf Life” convo earlier this month, watch it here—and catch their Q&A with me here.

Praise for CLUTTER

“Jennifer Howard has written a brilliant and beautiful meditation on the nature of our attachment to things. Reading  Clutter made me long for a life without clutter.” —Malcolm Gladwell, New York Times bestselling author and host of the “Revisionist History” podcast

“In  Clutter, Jennifer Howard offers a fascinating and insightful account of what becomes of the stuff that we accumulate in our homes and lives. It’s a powerful reminder of how the deeply personal acts of daily life are shared across families, cultures, economies, and countries, and a moving account of how one author’s struggle to manage her family’s clutter led to a deeper understanding of what matters most in all of our lives.” —Adam Minter, author of Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale

“Howard’s exploration of one dark corner of consumer culture is quick-witted and insightful—and, appropriately for the subject, refreshingly concise. … A keen assessment of one of society’s secret shames and its little-understood consequences.”—Kirkus Reviews

“In her stern and wide-ranging new manifesto, ‘Clutter: An Untidy History,’ journalist Jennifer Howard takes the anti-clutter message a step further. Howard argues that decluttering is not just a personally liberating ritual, but a moral imperative, a duty we owe both to our children and to the planet.”—The Washington Post

“While Howard argues for individuals curbing consumption and thus reducing their carbon footprint, she indicates systemic solutions are needed…. CLUTTER is a call to rein it all in. It successfully personifies the argument.” —Eve Ottenberg, Washington City Paper

“Spurred by the painful need to clean out her mother’s house, the author meditates on clutter as a microcosm of family and society.” —”New & Noteworthy,” The New York Times Book Review

Order your copy now: Belt Publishing | IndieBound| Bookshop

Blog

Book event: VA Festival of the Book “Shelf Life”

January 24, 2021

Interview: “Rising Up With Sonali”

January 24, 2021

Live at East City Bookshop

December 1, 2020

More posts »

Writing

“A paler shade of white”: HAVING AND BEING HAD by Eula Biss (review)

The Times Literary Supplement

“Do We Have Victorians to Thank for Consumerism?”

LitHub

“The Complicated Role of the Modern Public Library”

Humanities magazine

More work »

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About Jen

Jen Howard sitting in front of a brick wall. She is smiling.

Writer, journalist, editor, gadabout. Book- and nature lover. Washingtonian. LLC. Read more »

Latest Posts

  • Book event: VA Festival of the Book “Shelf Life”
  • Interview: “Rising Up With Sonali”
  • Live at East City Bookshop
  • The TLS: “Coming Clean” (review)
  • Vox: Quoted in an article on “The New Maximalism”

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