Reddit reviews A Bunch of Pretty Things I Did Not Buy

The author of this book spent a year painting items she coveted instead of buying them, and put together this book containing those illustrations alongside her ruminations on her relationship to stuff and history of consumption.

It's a quick read, and it focuses mostly on clothing and a little bit on other stuff, but I enjoyed it a lot and a lot of it rang true to lessons I've learned myself the hard way: the mental exclusions for purchases intended to enable creativity. The perils of online shopping shortening the covet-hunt-purchase cycle. It's expensive to be a minimalist, and coveting minimalist aesthetics often paradoxically leads to more consumption. The Diderot Effect, in which buying one expensive thing leads to a consumption spiral where everything else gets upgraded as well. Rule #4.

Recommended reading for anyone in this subreddit. I think part of what I liked about it was that the author is someone who likes stuff and recognizes its appeal, so it doesn't feel like the "buy less" message is coming from a place of judgment or lack of understanding.