Katherine Olasken

We've Feng Shui-ed the home and the office. Now it's time for this ancient Chinese art of spatial arrangement and orientation to take on the greatest challenge of all -- the dorm room. Fifteen million kids go off to college each fall, laden down with bedding, wall hangings, computer, books, clothes, stereo, mini-fridge, photos, etc. -- and they are determined to cram it all into one very small dorm room. The problem is compounded when the roommate shows up with an equal pile of stuff.

How do you make a dorm room comfortable and conducive to everything from sleeping to studying to socializing? When confronted with this dilemma in her own tiny, first-year dorm room, author Katherine Olaksen called for help -- and feng shui answered. In Dorm Room Feng Shui, Olaksen presents quick, cheap, and innovative feng shui fixes designed to cure any student's troubles.

A nine-second quiz helps zero in on the life issues that need the most attention, from roommate relationships to career choices, and the corresponding areas of the dorm room to focus on. Light-hearted yet practical text offers simple suggestions for changing the flow of chi (energy) in the room to help ease the problem areas.

The result is a more inviting dorm-room environment, and a charging up of chi, which, according to feng shui theory, will help improve study habits, pump up social life, soothe roomie relations, and even inspire some organizing and clean-up. This is a book that is as irresistible to read as a horoscope, and heaven knows, could prove to be uncannily accurate.