More or Less: Essays from a Year of No Buying
(By Susannah Q Pratt)
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| Author | Susannah Q Pratt |
More or Less offers intertwining scenes of home life with sustained reflection on utility, disposability, and community. In the end, this entertaining and thoughtful book addresses the central question of how to live well in a culture of consumerism from which there is no meaningful exit.
Of the collection, Eula Biss, author of Having and Being Had, said, “In this lively collection of essays, Susannah Q. Pratt observes the culture of middle-class consumption from a pause in her own participation. This pause allows her to consider how our lives are ‘both confined and defined’ by that which we own. The resulting meditation on want, need, excess, and garbage asks profound questions about waste, time, and the lost art of thrift.”
Andrew Root, author of The Grace of Dogs and Churches and the Crisis of Decline, said, “With vivid writing and beautiful imagery, Susannah Pratt has brought the beyond into view, unveiling what was once hidden. The essays in More or Less will open you up and move you, asking you to reach for a promising new way of seeing and therefore being in the world. These essays will give you new ways of thinking and talking about consumerism and late capitalism. Each essay is engaging and beautiful.”
Pratt’s manuscript was selected as a winner of the 2021 EastOver Prize for Nonfiction. Walter M. Robinson, author of What Cannot Be Undone and judge for the prize, said, “It’s not every book that can captivate the imagination with the emotional meaning of a son’s basketball shoes! And who among us does not relate to a couple’s attempt to get a grip on the basement—a tender understanding that the memories held by the objects we own but rarely see may be more powerful than we had thought. I came away from reading this book with a different point of view on the things we fill our lives with.””
