Stuff I No Longer Buy

Well, not a lot anyway.  I no longer buy the following as much:

• books
• cds
• dvds

Since the internet and the multimedia advances that came with it a long time ago, I've stopped buying the above.

For music, I don't even buy from iTunes.  But if I like the soft copies I hear from specific CD albums, I go buy the CD if I have to.  Similar goes for movies/tv shows, I get their DVDs.  And even then, they'd have to be extremely to my liking that I'd find it worth my time, effort and money to go and buy.

Except for home decor I buy from my travels, I'm just one of those who naturally practices minimalist philosophy when it comes to purchases.  I'd rather not have any more junk or clutter in my home and if I have to it had better be something that serves dual or more purpose.  Even with this blog I limit the tag categories so as not to make it anymore complex than it has to be.

So for books, I'd rather buy those that can be double-purpose, something you'd also be proud to display in the house.  Not something you know you can easily give away or not care if someone doesn't return it after borrowing it.  That way it's more value for money.  Lol!  So I guess this would mean art, design or architecture books that I find interesting.  Or perhaps that's just the industrial designer in me.  I don't buy mass market bestsellers in hard cover.  Besides I no longer have as much time to read as I used to.

So I think I might also cancel my cable subscription soon and just use Internet streaming via a device like Roku.  I might do this next year once my subscription expires. Would cost me less too than the bloated fee I pay for cable.  Thank goodness for Roku or Netflix and the like.  Hehe!

Books & TV

Good stuff I watched recently on TV:

- Australia with Simon Reeve (BBC)
- Indian Ocean with Simon Reeve (BBC)
- World's Most Dangerous Roads (BBC)
- Broadchurch (tv series)

- The Bridge (tv series)
- Lonely Planet Road Less Travelled - Kazakhstan/Turkmenistan episode

Just finished reading some books:
- Caravaggio: A Life Sacred and Profane by Andrew Graham Dixon --> good read, a biography of the artist/painter Caravaggio

- The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova --> wouldn't recommend

The Hundred Foot Journey by Robert Morais - like

And now reading Van Gogh The Life by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith, a biography of the artist Vincent Van Gogh.

Skip This Book

Have you ever bought or read a certain sci-fi/thriller/suspense book and wished you hadn't done either?  That it was just hype and that it didn't live up to it?  Well, I just recently did and hope others would steer clear of this book -- The Passage by Justin Cronin.  You can perhaps borrow it, but I wouldn't recommend buying it.

The story seemed too long or prolonged.  It read like one long, winding and somewhat badly edited movie with no clear direction.

I can't believe I actually finished reading it.  Lol.  The first part seemed okay.  However, I was expecting an ending, like a loose ends tied ending.  But didn't get it.  Why?  'Cause turns out the book is the first of a trilogy.

And then I find out eventually that the author collaborated with Ridley Scott, and that it's the first novel out of a supposed trilogy.  No wonder then.  It was deliberately written with the possibility of having it made into a movie/s.  Talk about hype and commercialization.

You can bet am not gonna bother with the sequels.  And I say this right after I finished reading it and put down the book, and without having known at the time that it's the first of a trilogy or that it's a collaboration with Ridley Scott.

Oh well.

Good Read

That's the cover of the non-fiction novel Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer.  It's the author's personal account of a tragic climb by a few groups of climbers to the summit of Everest on May 10, 1996, where, by the end, at least 8 people died.  And the author was one of the survivors.

my shot of the outside of Mandala Book Shop

I bought the book at the Mandala Book Shop in Pokhara in Nepal prior to our trek, but only got to read it about two months later.  This version is the British publication of the non-fiction, by the publishing house MacMillan.  There's a newer version printed in the U.S., with more photos.

I just finished reading the book last night.  And man, what a read.  Had a hard time putting the book down.  Some passages also are kind of creepy --