The irony of this book is that it's about simplicity, and it's 444 pages in paperback form.

While there is some good information in this book, I don't care for the author's writing style - it could be simplified and pared down. The author needed a good editor. It's far too wordy.
Also, it was published in 1997.

Lots of ideas.

This is a wonderfully comprehensive book on how to simplify all aspects of your life. It is thick, but it's incredibly interesting so you will read it quickly. If you have an interest in minimalism or frugality you will get a lot out of this.

I saw this book sitting on a shelf of books for sale at the library last week. Since I was on my way out with two kids and a heavy bag of books, I didn't have time to look at it before deciding to buy it for only 75 cents. I am only about 10 pages into the book but I have already found that each sentence speaks to me and reiterates the way that I want to live my life. This is a book that EVERYONE should read!

I've been reading this on and off for years now. I can be a really slow reader at times. Besides, I figure I'm mostly living this life, so there's not huge hurry to finish it.

While there is some timeless information in this book, a lot of the information is out of date or no longer relevant. In addition, for a book on simple living, it is not nearly as concise as it could be. Many of the chapters are long meandering slogs which could have been cut down by half or more and still conveyed the same information.

Although there is no groundbreaking or new information in this book, I really enjoyed it. Yeah, you can find most of this information out there on various websites, blogs, and in other books, but this is a really nice comprehensive guide that also includes real-life stories of people who have applied these principles to their lives. The theme of the book focuses on figuring out what your values are and then evaluating whether or not how you spend your time and money support your values. The Simple Living Guide seems to emphasize this more than other books I’ve read on this subject and I really liked that - the book is not just a list of things that everyone should do to simplify your life; it is a guide as to how to make your life more simple for you and acknowledges that this is different for everyone.

I continually strive to live a simple life and found that reading this book got me back on track, inspired me to re-evaluate choices I’ve made, and to continue to think about how to make my life align with my values.

I always treated this book like a re-focusing tool. It's quite long, but I use it like a bible. I can pick a relevant chapter to reread that serves my needs at the time. This was also my first simple living read years ago, and I just really connected with it.

A great reference for simple living! Somewhat dated but seriously a beautiful resource for getting started.

The first couple chapters were good and really thought-provoking. But then it got repetitive, at which point I started skimming pages.

Before you read this one, you may want to consider the irony of a 400+ page book on simplicity. It's a good warning of what you're going to get into.

Despite its length, this book is surprisingly low on useful content. A good half of the book is filled with accounts of particular people's "simple" lives -- either the author's own, or those of people she interviewed. While occassionally interesting, that's not at all helpful for practically simplifying your own life. Of what's left, much of it is Luhrs talking about other simple living books she's read -- but she does not summarize or repeat the information. She tells you what other book you need to go read and then goes on about how great it was and how it helped her, or at least what a nice person the author is.

On top of that, much of the information that is included is now hopelessly out of date. Both the "Cooking and Nutrition" and "Health and Exercise" chapters are utterly obsolete and weren't well grounded in science even when they were written. The "Travel" chapter isn't much better, because the internet has changed that area so drastically. The "Money" chapter is similarly getting long in the tooth, and is only about half as useful as it was when first published.

Finally, there are a LOT of assumptions of privilege in this book. For example, during the "Work" chapter Luhrs rails against working for health benefits, basically calling anyone who does so an idiot who needs to have a long talk with themselves. Going without or buying your own high-deductible individual policy is all well and good if you're relatively young, relatively fit, come from good genes and have never had a serious or chronic health issue. If you're not, however, then you've probably discovered that health insurance is not optional and that you simply can not get it outside of a group rate (and won't be able to until the recent health care reforms go into effect). If that is your case, working full time for a company with health insurance benefits stops being optional -- and then much of her reasoning in the "Time", "Money" and "Work" chapters and throughout the rest of the book becomes invalid.

Even if you are relatively young, fit, and healthy, this book won't be of much help to you unless you're stuck in a cycle of keeping up with the Joneses and aren't sure how to get out. If you've already trimmed the fat from your budget and life, this book will do nothing but frustrate you.

Instead of reading The Simple Living Guide, I recommend that you pick an area of your life you want to simplify and then read a book specifically about this area. This ironically thick guide won't help you nearly as much.

I confess, I could only read two chapters. Somewhere in there I realized that tips on simple living are generally common sense and that devoting time to reading this book was ironic.

What I learned in dabbling here is that I've already simplified my life and I'm probably the one who ought to be writing a book about it. Mine would be much shorter though.