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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 915.49604
EAN num: 9780864424716
ISBN number: 086442471X
Label: Lonely Planet
Manufacturer: Lonely Planet
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 208
Printing Date: September 01, 1996
Publishing house: Lonely Planet
Sale Popularity Level: 776649
Studio: Lonely Planet
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
There was a need for non-attachment, to be sure; but also a prerequisite of knife-like resolve. Here in this exotic land, we were compelled to raise the art of shopping to an experience that was, on the other hand, tinged with desperation, like shopping at Macy's during a one-day-only White Sale.
Shopping for Buddhas is Jeff Greenwald's story of his obsessive search for the perfect Buddha statue. In the backstreets of Kathmandu, he discovers more than he bargained for...and his souvenir-hunting turns into an ironic metaphor for the clash between spiritual riches and material greed. Politics, religion and serious shopping collide in Jeff Greenwald's witty, thought-provoking account of his experiences in Nepal.
Jeff Greenwald is the author of the best-selling travelogue The Size of the World.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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Awful book. The anecdotes are forced and unbelievable, the prose is breathless and yet somehow still bland, and the author never reconciles the central contradiction of the book: following the path of enlightenment not through wisdom or compassion but through crass materialism and self-centered egoism.
If you want an honest, straightforward book about enlightenment while traveling in Nepal, throw this book away and get The Snow Leopard instead. If you want a book that will let you look like you're interested in Asian philosophy without actually challenging your fundamental beliefs, I suppose this book will do.
There were some interesting vignettes on Nepali culture and it's religious history, but they were never developed beyond the level off "hey this is cool and it happened in Nepal."
Rated by buyers 
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This book starts out in a very promising manner and during the very first 20 pages or so I was looking forward to a good read. But it soon degenerates into trivialities, and anyone with an interest in Buddhist art will soon realise Greenwald doesn't have a clue about Buddhist sculpture (this wouldn't matter except that in the writing he pretends to).
The hash-intoxicated epiphany that serves as the book's ending is the most disappointing of all. This might have made a good stop along the way, but the early buildup raises one's expectations and it feels rather unsatisfactory to say the least. (Greenwald's Size of The World suffers from a similar balance problem.)
Readers who like this book will probably be those with limited exposure to travel in Nepal and to Buddhism/Buddhist art. I liked Jeff's earlier book on Nepal, Mr Raja's Neighborhood, more (I see that's out of print, too).
Rated by buyers 
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I very first learned of Jeff Greenwald from the book "A Sense of Place" which is a collection of interviews with authors best known for their travel/adventure writing.
Having been intrigued by the concept behind this book, I immediately checked Amazon to see how well it was received. I was quite surprised to find reviews that ran the spectrum from "Loved it" to "Hated it." I fall into the "Loved it" category.
Jeff's writing is very real, down to earth, funny and intelligent. He's not afraid to admit when he's made a cultural faux pas, and I think this makes for quite an entertaining read. Live and learn, right?
Other readers found the pursuit of the Buddha trite and materialistic, but I saw it as a search for much more. For perfection in one self, a sense of beginning, or one of closure. I have a feeling that this book ended up being a great deal more thought provoking than the author originally intended. The ending of this book actually moved me to tears.
I highly recommend this book, as well as "The Size of The World" by the same author.
Rated by buyers 
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I liked this book! I took the text for face value - what I read is what I got. I did not look beneath the skin for hidden meanings or innuendos. And, as such, I thought it was a wonderful, humorous read with insight from the experiences of an author who clearly cares about the country and the people. I liked the personal, open approach of the text, which is presented in an accessible writing style. Amongst my favorite parts were the descriptions of the life of the Buddha and of the Hindu gods, which were presented in a reader-friendly way. It seems to me that the reviews on Amazon are, for the most part, unfair. I didn't get the idea that Greenwald ever set out to define Buddhism; and I didn't sense an "arrogance" in his story. Rather, I took it as his journey in a Buddhist country whose culture and people captured and led him towards a quest for what he considered a "perfect" image of the Buddha that would always be with him, to either still or energize the mind. I thought it was a great thread to pull the text together. Surely anyone reading this book will connect with the author's commitment to conveying his experiences of Shopping for Buddhas.
Rated by buyers -
If you look for adventure of some Californians in Nepal (and that could be in whatever other place in the world), buy this book. But if your intention is to have a glimpse of what Buddhism as well as Buddhist practioners are, there are dozens of books (that I have read myself and for sure hundreds of others I haven't read yet) that will give you that.
Unfortunately I started to read this book after the fantastic "The Quantum and The Lotus" (by Trinh Xuan Thuan and Matthieu Ricard), which make the reading of "Shopping for Buddhas" a very hard work, as what I was looking for was not adventures of Westerners in Nepal, but some content as well.
When I decided to buy this book I must confess that I didn't read the reviews. If I did that I wouldn't have bought it. So please, consider not only this review from me with "1 star", but also the other ones with higher amount of "stars" before you take your decision.
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