Culture Carton is a monthly lifestyle box for men. Each month you’ll receive curated lifestyle items and literature to enhance your gentlemanly status.
Culture Carton has three subscription options: Essential (just the lifestyle items for $35 a month), Standard (lifestyle items and book for $45 a month), Book Club (monthly book shipped to you for $16 a month).
This is a review of the $45 a month Culture Carton Standard.
This box was sent to us for review purposes. (Check out the review process post to learn more about how we review boxes).
About Culture Carton
The Subscription Box: Culture Carton
The Cost: $45 a month + shipping
ACTIVE DEAL: Free shipping on all orders over $100
CODE: FREESHIPPING
The Products: A curated selection of men’s lifestyle items and a book “that belongs on every man’s bookshelf.”
Ships to: US for a varied cost. Shipping to NC is $7.26. International shipping varies.
December 2018 Culture Carton “Camus” Review
My husband, John, is helping me with this review by testing all of the products and giving me his perspective. I have to keep him away until I snap photos because he always wants to tear open the boxes.
An info card with an introduction to the month’s theme and contents is included. This month’s theme is “Camus.” The items are curated to help you "stand out during the bleak winter months."
Blenders Eyewear Black Tundra Polarized Sunglasses - Retail Value $40
John was super excited to open a pair of sunglasses this month. The matte black frame and dark lenses look modern and sharp. And, the lenses are polarized, which is great! John likes that the frames are lightweight and comfortable. They come with a microfiber bag that can be used to polish them up too.
Fionte Leather Cord Holder (3 pack) - Retail Value $30
My favorite thing about this subscription is that they send stylish, practical items like these cord holders. We have SO MANY cords laying around so any way to wrangle them is appreciated. These little tacos are made from 100% genuine Italian leather. Fionte, a tannery co-op in India, uses a "Reverse Tanning" process on their leather which reduces pollution.
Fionte Leather Key Holder - Retail Value $30
Here's another stylish accessory made with Finote leather. This small, stiff wallet holds John's house key inside and his car key fob on the attached keyring. The holder has a magnetic closure to keep it closed in his pocket or bookbag. I actually might get myself one too; I think it'd be great for carrying just the essential keys when I'm using a small clutch.
The Stranger by Albert Camus - Retail Value $14 (Found here for $12.33)
The Stranger was written by Frech author Alfred Camus in 1942. Its theme is, as with many of Camus' works, an example of the authors' philosophy of Absurdism. The novel narrates the main character's struggle with society wanting him to find value and meaning in life and not actually being able to. It's short and simply laid out but has lots of layers to philosophize about. John read this a long time ago but is happy to revisit it and add it to our library.
Amazon Editorial Review:
The Stranger is not merely one of the most widely read novels of the 20th century, but one of the books likely to outlive it. Written in 1946, Camus's compelling and troubling tale of a disaffected, apparently amoral young man has earned a durable popularity (and remains a staple of U.S. high school literature courses) in part because it reveals so vividly the anxieties of its time. Alienation, the fear of anonymity, spiritual doubt--all could have been given a purely modern inflection in the hands of a lesser talent than Camus, who won the Nobel Prize in 1957 and was noted for his existentialist aesthetic. The remarkable trick of The Stranger, however, is that it's not mired in period philosophy.
The plot is simple. A young Algerian, Meursault, afflicted with a sort of aimless inertia, becomes embroiled in the petty intrigues of a local pimp and, somewhat inexplicably, ends up killing a man. Once he's imprisoned and eventually brought to trial, his crime, it becomes apparent, is not so much the arguably defensible murder he has committed as it is his deficient character. The trial's proceedings are absurd, a parsing of incidental trivialities--that Meursault, for instance, seemed unmoved by his own mother's death and then attended a comic movie the evening after her funeral are two ostensibly damning facts--so that the eventual sentence the jury issues is both ridiculous and inevitable.
Meursault remains a cipher nearly to the story's end--dispassionate, clinical, disengaged from his own emotions. "She wanted to know if I loved her," he says of his girlfriend. "I answered the same way I had the last time, that it didn't mean anything but that I probably didn't." There's a latent ominousness in such observations, a sense that devotion is nothing more than self-delusion. It's undoubtedly true that Meursault exhibits an extreme of resignation; however, his confrontation with "the gentle indifference of the world" remains as compelling as it was when Camus first recounted it. --Ben Guterson
The Verdict: Culture Carton always does a good job of curating novels and items for a theme. John loves the sunglasses and leather organization goods. He's also happy with the novel selection and agrees that it is a great addition to any gentleman's library. This box makes a great gift for any guy who is interested in building his library of classic novels and staple lifestyle items in a fashionable and clever way.
To Wrap Up:
Can you still get this box if you sign up today? No. Sign up now for the February box.
Orders placed before the 15th of the month will be shipped on 15th-17th of month. All orders placed after the 15th will ship the following month.
Coupon – Use code MYSUB10 to save 10% off your first box!
Value Breakdown: The box costs $45.00 + $7.55 shipping to NC and it has a retail value of $114. That means each item breaks down to approximately the following cost:
- Blenders Sunglasses - $18.44
- Fionte Cord Holders - $13.83
- Fionte Key Holder - $13.83
- The Stranger - $6.45
Check out all of our Culture Carton reviews and more men's lifestyle boxes in the Men’s Subscription Box List!
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