bargain bitch

[verbminx]

I have what seems to me to be an entertaining idea for a website, but I can't really afford to buy another domain and hosting. Anyone want to sponsor me? No? I didn't think so. Too bad. You would have been entertained.

I bought stuff at the bookstore, tonight, as usual. Time/Life had this great "What Life Was Like" series of books, history books, done in the last few years. They were actually GOOD, I checked the one on Elizabethan England out from the library a while ago, and was impressed. Good information, good illustrations; great for a writer who needs to pin down details of daily life, like what a bedroom might have looked like. They were in the bargain books when I stopped at the store, and I got the Age of Chivalry volume; I'll also probably get Rome and Europe's Golden Age. $7.

Then I noticed that those art portfolios B&N was selling this holiday were 75% off, so I got the pinup one. The posters are nice, plus the translucent portfolio alone would normally cost quite a bit more than the $7.50 they were charging.

& I have a discount card, so less than that for each of those, actually.

I picked up a few introductory summary books on various philosophy topics (Kant, Kierkegaard, Sartre, Aristotle), because I need to pick paper topics, and I also copied down two pages of paper ideas from a book of, well, academic paper topics. The introductory books will mostly be returned when I have narrowed down my topic. They were not on sale, damn it.

Finally, I bought a sociology book called The Overspent American: Why We Want What We Don't Need. It's pretty good (and damning) so far, though I disagree with some of its conclusions (for instance, I don't buy a $14 lipstick so that I will look cool when I take it out of my purse; I buy it because I like the specific shade and texture, and it's hard to find. Or in other cases because the cheaper brand has a funny smell or makes the edge of my mouth break out in a rash). Yes, I grasp the irony of me A)reading such a book and B)buying it when I don't need it, and that's kind of the point, you know. I need to downshift.

I also need to go to sleep. Have a splitting headache, but I'm going out tonight, to see a distant friend perform. Whee.

Comments

[ayun.livejournal.com]

There's a book called "Cute, Quaint, Hungry and Romantic" that I read a while back about consumerism and it's great. Goes a lot deeper than the standard 'people are insecure sheep who will do what you tell them' rap of most anti-consumerism books. The author's name is Daniel Harris. There should be remaindered hardcovers floating around - it's a recent paperback release. Harris is kind of a bitch, but his ideas are very compelling and well-argued.

[verbminx.livejournal.com]

oooh, yeah, i read a review of that book on salon when it came out.

the issue that i had is that, if i buy something, it is either

a book
a cd
or
cute, quaint, hungry, and romantic
(but probably not the way the title means.
more in a "must own weird arty crap way".
in an "i actually own a genie phone" way.
in a "stop picking on hello kitty!" way.)

so that's why i didn't read it at the time. given that i am getting my jobless butt into some rather impressive debt lately, though, i thought it might be good to pick up this Juliet Schor book. I'll definitely keep an eye out for the Harris book, though I haven't seen it remaindered yet.

[spooble.livejournal.com]

You know, every time I see what you're reading I'm glad I haven't told everyone the tripe I've been reading lately... :)

[verbminx.livejournal.com]

I read plenty of tripe. I just keep mum about it. Although, a lot less tripe than I used to read. Most of my tripe these days is nonfiction rather than genre fiction.