Trish's review
Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping by Judith Levine
I expected this to be simply a personal account of spending a year "not buying it" -- meaning, buying only "essentials." I thought Levine would voice her frustrations and share humorous anecdotes, and would toss in some of the well-known statistics on American consumption (the credit card debt, the home foreclosures, the rapaciously with which we devour the world's resources, the sweat shops filling our stores with cheap crap and our landfills with castoffs, etc.). And she does. But the book is more political and analytical than I expected, and that's a refreshing elevation. Levine refuses to pretend that her experiment in reduced consumption will solve America's consumption issues; she's unafraid to call for policy change.
It's a fascinating book that I think would stand up to a second reading--it would be a great book club selection.
"What I want is autonomy, the sine qua non of Western commercial citizenship. To be creditworthy is to be worthy of resp...more
It's a fascinating book that I think would stand up to a second reading--it would be a great book club selection.
"What I want is autonomy, the sine qua non of Western commercial citizenship. To be creditworthy is to be worthy of resp...more
