Meet great authors at Next Chapter Booksellers
- Wednesday, November 20, 2019 - 7:00pm
- 38 S Snelling Ave, St Paul MN 55105
Adam Minter presents Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale
Downsizing. Decluttering. A parent’s death. Sooner or later, all of us are
faced with things we no longer need or want. But when we drop our old
clothes and other items off at a local donation center, where do they go?
Sometimes across the country—or even halfway across the world—to people and
places who find value in what we leave behind.
In Secondhand, Adam Minter, journalist and author of Junkyard Planet, takes
us on an unexpected adventure into the often-hidden, multibillion-dollar
industry of reuse: thrift stores in the American Southwest to vintage shops
in Tokyo, flea markets in Southeast Asia to used-goods enterprises in
Ghana, and more. Along the way, Minter meets the fascinating people who
handle—and profit from—our rising tide of discarded stuff, and asks a
pressing question: In a world that craves shiny and new, is there room for
it all?
Secondhand offers hopeful answers and hard truths. A history of the stuff
we’ve used and a contemplation of why we keep buying more, it also reveals
the marketing practices, design failures, and racial prejudices that push
used items into landfills instead of new homes. Secondhand shows us that it
doesn't have to be this way, and what really needs to change to build a
sustainable future free of excess stuff.
*About the Author:*
Adam Minter is the author of Junkyard Planet: Travels in the Billion-Dollar
Trash Trade and a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. (He grew up in the Twin
Cities, too!)