Object-Oriented Onology

We all, by necessity, live with objects. The world is full of them. We touch them, we look at them, we buy them, we break them, we use them to varying degrees of success. One could imagine, as companion volumes, The Idiot’s Guide to Chewing Your Food or Coexisting Successfully with Gravity. The subtitle of How to Live with Objects illuminates the authors’ loftier ambitions: “A modern guide to more meaningful interiors.” Authors Monica Khemsurov and Jill Singer, founders of the popular interior design blog Sight Unseen, write that their book “acts as a detailed primer on how to maximize the visual and emotional impact of your interior, regardless of your space limitations, style preferences, or budget.” In other words, it’s a book of tips and tricks on how to decorate your home. What’s noteworthy—as the words  meaningful and emotional suggest—is that the advice is communicated through quasi-therapeutic language, wherein they invest objects with the po…