Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.51 (900 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0743269365 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 288 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2015-02-20 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
High-speed Internet access, Q-tips and any soap fancier than Ivory, for example, are all ruled out as luxuries. From Publishers Weekly If you've ever contemplated cutting down on your consumerism but couldn't bring yourself to do it, Levine's volume allows you to witness and learn from this drastic experiment without going through the withdrawal yourself. Since giving up shopping entirely is impossible in North America (buying food requires money), the most interesting aspect of Levine's adventure is the process of defining necessity. Since this book is about exploring consumerism rather than economizing (although she does manage to save $8,000 by the end of the year), Levine investigates several anticonsumer movements—she joins her local Voluntary Simplicity group, participates in Buy Nothing Day and consults experts
A. Reader said I Really Thought I Would Love This Book. When my husband and I first got married and bought a house, it was obvious we had come with different spending habits. We could have budgeted, fought about the budget, and ultimately always be stressed about the budget, but luckily my husband heard an int. Ambitious but ultimately disjointed and depressing--Other books do it better. There is some worth to this book--so I gave it 3 stars for "okay." It's just too ambitious, and it ultimately doesn't succeed as a whole.The first problem I have with this book is that the author and her spouse have some strange rules regarding "not buyin. Not what I expected. I thought the author would write more about her struggles to give up spending. There was a little of that but most of it was a political diatribe. I'm so sick of ultra-liberals preaching their weird philosophies to the rest of us. This women has two homes
For the humor and intelligence of its insights, the refreshment of its skepticism, and the surprises of its conclusions, Not Buying It is sure to be on anyone's list of Necessities.. Shocked by the commerce in everything from pet cloning to patriotism, frightened by the downward spiral of her finances and that of the trash-strewn earth, Judith Levine enlists her partner, Paul, in a radical experiment: to forgo all but the most necessary purchases for an entire year. Tracking their progress -- and inevitable lapses -- Levine contemplates need and desire, scarcity and security, consumerism and citizenship. Without consumer goods and experiences, Judith and Paul pursue their careers, nurture relationships, and try to keep their sanity, their identities, and their sense of humor intact. She asks the Big Questions: Can the economy survive without shopping? Are Q-tips necessary? Not Buying It is the confession of a woman any reader can identify with: someone who can't live without French roast coffee or SmartWool socks but who has had it up to here with overconsumption and its effects on the earth and everyone who dwells there