Cozy: The Art of Arranging Yourself in the World

by Isabel Gillies

The New York Tim es bestselling author of Happens Every Day , Isabel Gillies, presents a fresh and inspiring look at the subtle art of cozy—part manifesto, part lifestyle guide, part memoir—that shows fans of The Little Book of Hygge that true comfort comes from within.

When we talk about being cozy, most of us think of a favorite sweater or a steaming cup of tea on a rainy day. But to Isabel Gillies, coziness goes beyond mere objects. To be truly cozy, she argues, means learning to identify the innermost truth of yourself and carrying it into the world, no matter your environment. Starting when she was young, Gillies has gradually learned the art and subtle beauty of creating a life where you feel safe, steadied, and at home in the world. From old family recipes and subway rides to jury duty and hospital stays, in Cozy Gillies shows readers that true ease stems not with throw pillows and a candle, but from opportunities to feel that we are part of something bigger than ourselves, and learn to make ourselves at home no matter where we are. Simple choices can make a hectic life or an uncomfortable situation just a little more comfortable—you just have to know what to do. Just as Marie Kondo offered a philosophy for how to tidy, Gillies offers a new way of occupying the spaces we live in. Starting with yourself, then broadening to your home, your community, and the world at large, Cozy will show you how to bring the truth of who you are into any situation, easy or challenging. As Gillies says, “Cozy isn’t something that just exists. You have to make cozy happen.” Written with profound warmth and featuring hand-drawn illustrations, this wise, necessary book is call to action for each of us to seek out those often-missed opportunities to care for ourselves, and to begin living a more intimate and authentic life.

Genres: Nonfiction, Self Help, Lifestyle, Audiobook, How To, Unfinished, Essays

256 pages, Hardcover

First published February 12, 2019

About the author

Isabel Gillies, a lifelong New Yorker and actress for many years, is the New York Times best selling author of Happens Every Day, A Year and Six Seconds, and Starry Night (FSG), a young adult novel about first love. Her work has been published in Vogue, The New York Times, Real Simple, Cosmopolitan and Saveur. She lives in Manhattan with her husband, kids, and Maude the dog.

Reviews

[Kimber · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've always felt that as the days begin to darken we get into the cozy time of year. But just what is meant by cozy? Gillies excellently articulates the myriad ways people can find to make ourselves cozy and why it is important. As she describes all the things she finds to be cozy, you are urged to do the same. She takes the Art of Being Cozy to a whole new level of self-care. This got me thinking: when I am sick I intuitively make myself cozy--a blanket, a cup of tea.

Cozy is self care, which is different for everyone. It's how you feel most secure.

I thoroughly enjoyed this not just for the topic but for Gillies as a writer. I love how she invites us into her world and is so unabashedly herself. I loved her writing style: engaging, intimate, sometimes even funny and sweet.

A further note: as someone with multiple anxiety disorders including CPTSD, I have found this to be a helpful form of treatment--of finding ways to seek calm throughout your day (Gillies says to "find your anchor"). Which is also a way of centering the self.

[Carole · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was not what I expected. It is a pale imitation of The Little Book of Hygge. The audiobook version is read by the author Isabel Gillies. It is preachy and sometimes boring. This is only my opinion and I am sure that many will enjoy this little book.

[Kazen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book could also be subtitled, 'How to be Cozy Anywhere'. According to Gillies cozy is more than hot tea and fuzzy slippers, it's knowing what calms and centers you. She finds it both in places you would expect (baths) and places you don't (jury duty). If I had to boil it down I'd say that

cozy = self-awareness + mindfulness + self-care

The book starts on a personal scale then broadens out to feeling cozy in your home and in your community. She emphasizes that we'll all find different things comforting, and that part of the journey is figuring out what's cozy to us. Instead of 'this is cozy, do this,' it's 'these things work for me, your mileage may vary.'

I'm thankful for that, and it did get me thinking about what I find cozy. There's curling up with a blanket and a good book and preferably a cat, of course. Fresh flowers on my desk. Libraries. I think Gillies and I would agree on these points. But she finds walks with friends cozy, while I would much rather go on treks across town by myself. And that's fine.

While some of the things she mentions can be enjoyed for free many require disposable income, free time, or comfortable circumstances, and Gillies acknowledges that not everyone has those things. She's also quite determined to find cozy in the most trying circumstances, and I personally draw the line at when you're sick and in pain in a hospital waiting room. She concludes that the nurses' scrubs looked soft and therefore cozy, but... yeah.

The most valuable thing I got from this book is that it shifted my perception of cozy towards situations as well as things. Tea and my reading chair are cozy, for sure, but so is visiting the library and going to the florist to pick out a flower for my desk. So while not life-changing, this book did make me more open to seeing the cozy around me and more comfortable making my own.

[Barbara · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have no idea why this book was written and I have no idea how I got to 71%. I just read a section on why London is so cozy. What? Is the point of this book? Freal though. So far I have gathered that literally anything can be cozy and there is no rules or limitations apparently. And did I really need someone to point out that blankets and sunshine are things people enjoy? I thought about giving up a few times but was kinda bored and in a daze and kept reading and now that I am at 71% I can't give up

[Nicole · Rating 2 out of 5]

How did this book even get published? It's such a mess. For starters, the whole premise is pretty pointless. The moral of the story is that "cozy" is whatever you want to make it be, so why do we then need an entire book - set up dictionary-style - of the author's favorite things? I finished this book - who knows why - but to be honest she complete lost me on about page four when she said that jury duty was cozy! Then there's the matter of the way this book is written. There are a whole bunch of random lists of stuff that seem thrown together and completely unnecessary. It's as if these were her notes while writing the book and rather than actually flush them out into readable sentences, she gave up and just put her notes in the book. The author is also remarkably privileged which comes across as both something she's completely unaware of (talking about taking a bath at least twice every day - ain't nobody got time for that!) and something she's overly apologetic for. On more than one occasion she suggests that elements of cultural appropriation are "cozy" and then calls herself out for it and apologizes - as if that makes everything ok. She also explains things in unnecessary detail: an aside to explain what an Amazon Echo is and how she uses it, a description of what people are eating while she's talking to them, why she's using the word "bummer" even though apparently she has negative associations with the word, etc. By the end I was only finishing this book out of morbid curiosity. It's a fast read, because of the dictionary style, and the last twenty pages or so are recipes I have no desire to make.

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 and half stars.
Seeing a few other reviews here, that to me, seem drastically negative, where people remark that this book was too fluffy, or too silly, or too cloying, etc. Or that they just have no idea why the author wrote it. I am wondering what exactly these people thought a book titled Cozy was going to be about? I expected it would contain friendly unassuming suggestions about how one might make oneself feel a bit more at ease. a light respite from so much ugliness we are all currently facing on multiple fronts. And that is essentially what it turned out to be.

[Tasya · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received an e-arc of this book from publishers through Edelweiss plus in exchange for an honest opinion

DNF at 21%

I'm sorry, I really tried to make it to the 50% mark at least, but I just couldn't. This book really did not speak to me, it felt pointless and long winded at times. I love the concept of cozy being things that we find inside ourselves instead of something we create, but the way it is explained just completely lost me.

[Daisy L · Rating 1 out of 5]

It feels a bit unfair to rate and review a book I didn’t finish, but it was so bad that I had to stop wasting my time on it. The book is a collection of random thoughts of a lady who just started Googling the word “cozy” and asking all her family and friends what they thought of the word. (She actually writes about doing this, it’s a part of the book!) It all reads like a badly written blog post by someone who just wants to name-drop all her important designer and architect friends.

I read it at the same time as The Little Book of Hygge and the latter is so much better - read that one instead!

[Tiffany · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cozy romanticises the little things in life we find small pleasures and comfort in but may fail to take note. Having recently graduated from high school and fallen into a reading slump following my final exams, this book reminded me of habits and traditions I have as a child in relation to reading books. Gillies’ carefully points out little things, making the reader wonder, “what cozy things make me tick?”. I found myself reading this book during my commute increasingly, finding something cozy in being amongst strangers, present but lost in a book. However, my one criticism of the book is that at times it is highly reflective of a upper-middle class income and although it offers some snippets of coziness which does not require a financial investments, I would have liked to see more if it within the book as well. Overall, Cozy is an easy to book to enjoy and encourages its audience to find joy in the small things and reflects that cozy is not so much about your physical environment but the way you engage with it.

*Thank you to Edelweiss for providing a free Advanced Review Copy in exchange for an honest review.*

[Noel · Rating 2 out of 5]

The idea of this book was good and there were some parts I really liked that made me appreciate aspects of my life more. However...

The author rambles throughout the entire book, going on many tangents that don't seem to connects, she uses the word cozy a million times and never once uses a synonym. She also has many cases of terrible word choice that made me cringe. She included random pictures and lists that aren't even referenced in the text the majority of the time. She also acts like an authority on so many subjects just because she visited a bunch of places. If the text was formated in a story-like manner it would have been better, but instead its really repetitive to the point it's preachy. She even talked about her thought processes on writing the book that were extremely boring. Omit that stuff out! She has no talent for writing, although there were a few good lines. Any average person could come up with something like them though. I had high hopes for this book because of the title, but it was a disappointment.

[Meemz · Rating 1 out of 5]

I didn’t get past the first couple pages, in which the author went on (and on..) about how they love a colonial aesthetic. What? I came here for the cozy but instead I encountered glamorization of the aesthetics of colonialism, which has killed and displaced so many indigenous folks around the world. No thanks. The single star is a formality. I’d give it 0 stars if I could.

[Melchshake · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is a total rip of the Danish book Hygge.

[Ann T · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF at 18%. I really wanted to like this book but I could connect with the way it was written.

[Thushara]

DNF

This book wasn't for me!

[Kimberly Mccune · Rating 1 out of 5]

Probably one of the most self-congratulating and privileged books I have ever read. This should have been a blog post on Real Simple.

[Sarah Nealy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book to be very grounding for me. It felt like sipping on a hot cup of tea on a cold blustery day. I think if you use coziness to connect in the world than this book is for you. It made me feel like I wasn't the only one in the world who thinks fog and rainy day's are the best coziness things in the world!

[Lexi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to love this book so much, and I did most enjoy parts IV & V (Journey and When It Feels Hard), but for the first 50% of the book I kind of just wanted to get on with it. Here are my favorite excerpts:
"...coziness can’t be defined by one standard; it only aligns with what is inside of us. What we know, what we love, what we feel connected to and familiar with."

"So much of cozy you can touch with your hands—a book, bathwater, a mug—but a lot of cozy responds to the ether, the mystic, the ritual and spiritual."

"Pepsi ice cubes and peach cobbler do not change the reason you are in the hospital, but they or something like them, like the blanket-warming ovens, might make the experience more breathable—even, in moments, enjoyable."

"Coziness is not about lying around. It’s the opposite. It’s the fuel you need to engage."

"that is sort of the point of the book: finding connection with anything—even if you don’t like it."

"Coziness, whatever that is to you, is life. It’s life at its greatest."

[Carianne Carleo-Evangelist · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book took me a while to get into. I went to the signing & launch for it, and I was curious but found that it wasn't the right book for that time so I put it aside for a while and passed on the copy to a friend. I'd actually forgotten that I joined the library queue for the Kindle edition and when it landed on my Kindle earlier this week I gave it another go. Surprisingly, I got right into it and finished it quickly. While I still don't find things like the 1 train cozy, I understood Gillies' point that it's how you look at things -- and that cozy is a concept rather than a definite. I also loved her "seven minute Louvre" as sometimes I want to see every nook and cranny of a museum and others (looking at you, Rijksmuseum & Night Watch), I just have a quick hit list. I also enjoyed her seeking out hygge in Denmark and other elements of travel coziness.

An interesting book, and I'm glad I read it.

[Jaclyn · Rating 1 out of 5]

I shouldn't have finished this book. It's as simple as that.

The longer version is that I enjoyed books like "The Year of Living Danishly" so much that I thought there had to be something redeemable further along in the text. Not even kind of. Unfortunately this was something that would have been a charming blog post that instead became a full-length book. It was not well researched or founded on anything substantive other than the author's own personal whims.

I hesitate to say "do not read" because I know it takes a great deal of effort to create a book, but that would be my general commentary.

Still, happy reading and happy cozy living--

(Book 43 - 2019)

[Andrew Edling · Rating 5 out of 5]

@isabelgillies checked out your new book, COZY, and was struck by how accessible your concepts are. Reminds me of my man Marcel Proust's "Madeleine Moment" 🍪 thanks for sharing your talents with us ✌️

[Suzanne Kelman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sweet book!

[Catherine Muller · Rating 3 out of 5]

My cozy is reading a book picked out by @Emily at the BPL on a rainy day with a weekend full of friend time ahead of me

[Brianna · Rating 4 out of 5]

The best way to describe this book is by the title itself: COZY! But in all honesty, reading this book was like a nice warm hug. Gillies practices what she preaches with her writing style: the way she puts her pen to the page is like soft lips sipping warm chai on an autumn afternoon. She somehow finds a way to make simple things that we may take for granted (like a pencil or a song) feel like indulgent sources of gratitude. Reading this book has helped me become more present with all the little joys that life has to offer - from the sweatshirt I'm wearing to the morning routine that I practice.

Furthermore, I enjoyed the premise of the book. Yes, life brings us darkness at times, BUT we can find little things in our lives to help soothe us. One of my favourite quotes from the book:

"When I was a kid, out of nowhere, I would be overcome by a swelling feeling that lives on this earth-with animals, rivers, fried shrimp, my transistor radio, my brothers, my roller skates, and the New York City pavement- was so fantastic I couldn't believe I got to do it. Most of the time, that sensation was fleeting. But the bursts kept me going, and they still do. Those moments are everywhere. It's for you to find them" (p.204)
I deeply share this enthusiasm and gratitude for the sheer beauty and magnificence of life itself.
If you're looking for an uplifting book that will help you lead a genuinely happy lifestyle, look no further.

[Hannah]

A librarian propped up the large text edition on a shelf, and I thought, why not?

Sometimes I pick up librarian recommendations just to defy algorithmic suggestions. Just to stay alive in re: I’m not going to let the internet tell me what the f to do all the time!

Reading others reviews, which mostly lambaste this, I feel like a dweeb admitting that I enjoyed this. In my new job, I’m trying to create situations for kids from profoundly diverse situations (the school must be roughly 75% immigrant families from 5+ countries). I traipse the halls and answer radio calls - a student ran away, a student fell apart and is screaming in the corner, etc. Coming from this new perspective, I am super interested in how to create conditions for other good stuff to happen. And those conditions are different for different people, they are unique to an individual and they’re informed by culture.

Think of it as another version of John Coltrane’s version of “My Favorite Things,” a song that’s definitely on my list of how to stay at ease in different situations.

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is really about what the subtitle says: The Art of Arranging Yourself in the World. Cozy can mean comfortable or even confident. It is often rituals or routines or memories. Basically, Gillies discusses ways people (you) can create spaces in their lives or heads or hearts to feel safe, steady,....cozy. It's an easy read and rather comforting.

[Betsy Gant]

Couldn't finish. Only read 20% before I realized that this is indeed a book full of random tangents, has no editing, and is a complete waste of my time. I was hopeful that this would be a calming, cozy and inspiring book, but instead it is a conglomeration of chaos.

[Mara · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF. I was disappointed by this book almost from the very start. It was interesting, for a time, to read a list of what makes Gillies herself feel cozy (and how she manages to be cozy in almost any circumstance) and to reflect on what might do the same for me. Then it got a bit monotonous, but I committed to finishing the book because I thought there might be some additional insight that would make it worth powering through.

However, I hit a breaking point. You see, throughout the start of the book, the author seems painfully aware of the reader's gaze, but this awareness does not result in any attempt to argue how and why a controversial act (like borrowing attributes of other cultures) may be cozy in certain circumstances, while it is certainly inappropriate in others. Instead, she simply writes "...things have gotten tricky--there is much more opportunity to step on toes or to offend inadvertently. With that in mind I will carefully row on..." and row on she does, not very carefully.

In the chapter where I quit, "Civics," there isn't any reflection at all on how the cozy act of--get this--jury duty(!) may not be cozy at all for the folks actually impacted by the criminal justice system or even anyone who works in a job that doesn't compensate them for the time they must take to serve. No no, she blithely insists, "...jury duty is one of the coziest experiences we have as Americans." She was so afraid to offend in the beginning of the book, but what is most offensive is what goes completely unacknowledged throughout--her blindness to the way in which her ability to view any circumstance as cozy is directly enabled by her immense privilege. As someone benefitting from the exact same privileges, I cannot in good conscience recommend this book. Instead, let's reflect on WHO gets to feel cozy and what we can do to broaden that for each other.

[Kristi · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked the premise, and have looked for things that make me cozy (identified them, and sometimes seeked them out in a new place) since reading this book. However, I felt the book’s structure could’ve been stronger. For example, Gillies references certain things that make something cozy, like control, but these things are only mentioned every once and awhile and never clearly defined and outlined thoroughly in the beginning. It seems like they should be if they are the key points backing up what the book is about. There is also a lot of apologizing at the start of chapters. While I admire Gillies’ efforts to acknowledge how varied the world is, sometimes it’s best to just say what you want to say. I found a lot of it weaving in all different directions, but my favorite parts were the lists of things that make someone cozy, especially the list at the end of the Acknowledgements. All in all, I think it’s worth reading enough of the book to get the premise of it, and to make you reflect on what makes you cozy personally. That is definitely a nice result of reading the book :)

[Emmie · Rating 5 out of 5]

"We're all different, but I'm pretty sure we all want to hold on to something."

So much truth in this statement. I adored this book. I found it incredibly life changing and soul provoking. This book took us into the world of Cozy and what it means to find coziness within yourself and in all of the little things that make up who we are. We can't control our circumstances, but we can control how respond to the things that happen to us. We can control what we focus on and how we allow it to impact our lives.

Living with a chronic illness, life has been anything but cozy lately. Hospitals, doctors appointments, scans, scans and more scans. Things have been rough and life has felt so dark, but this book was the spark that I needed to shift my perspective.

I gave it 5 stars because I feel like this book has an important message for everyone. Read it, you won't regret it, I promise.

[Marta · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is no strong sense of organization in Cozy, but the tone is warm and conversational. It's a relaxing read, if not a compelling one, but some wonderful thoughts were sprinkled in, like the one below.
" You don't have to be in a foreign country to feel far away. When my first husband told me he was leaving, I felt lost In my own kitchen. When my father had a stroke, I felt lost in my own driveway. When my dog died at the vet when I wasn't with her, I felt lost in my own bed. The questions are: What will bring you back? What will help you find your way? How can you survive the disorientation? I think besides radical bold moves often required to walk another mile, sometimes a good place to start is by holding your reading glasses in your palm, wrapping a scarf around your neck, or listening for birdsong in a tree above."