To Consume Is Human

Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are by Rob Walker


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Starting with investigating his own relationship with his Converse Chucks and his rejection of Nike (who now apparently owns Converse), Walker debunks the received wisdom of Old Advertising that consumers are manipulated into needing things they had hithertofore lived happily without. Advertising now seems to just validate what the consumer had already decided. Besides, who actually makes conscious decisions? Doesn't your brain just decide and then you spend time rationalizing?
Walker was in at the inception of the Red Bull (never quite understood that) craze and describes the "new" advertising where products are just put out there and the consumer decides what it means. Sometimes that is done intentionally (Toyota's Scion) and sometimes the manufacturer wrestles with it before finally giving in (Timberland).
The people in your own neighborhood with the secret pitch are outed. Did you realize that people are hired to talk up products and brands by stealth? And, what's more, they will do it for free - without pay and without any reinforcement other than being the first to know. Stunning!


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Falling Slightly FLATulent

Finger Lickin' Fifteen by Janet Evanovich


My rating: 2 of 5 stars
For 14 books I have resisted the urge to eat TastyCakes and donuts despite the "product placements," but this time I started getting a craving for chicken.
Lula, after having witnessed a decapitation, decides to become a prize-winning barbecuer. Don't ask how we got there. I would have thought one decapitation would turn you vegetarian for at least a week if not forever. I am a little disturbed by the scatological (well, maybe not "scat" per se, but flatulent) turn in this book. Does Evanovich run these stories past any of her african-american friends (assuming she has any)?
This is another round of the same-old same-old that makes you wonder why you read them, but then you start picturing Stephanie's grandmother with her gun and a reluctant smile starts to form. How many cars can Stephanie have burned up in one book? you ask yourself. I lost count on this one. Yes, it's still funny. How much longer can the sexual tension/love triangle go on between Stephanie, Joe, and Ranger? Oh, Steph, just sleep with Ranger already! You don't have to describe it to us, but who really believes the reasons you give for not doing it? I mean, you already have. Why all the tsimmis?
Evanovich will keep writing this fluff-with-a-tendency-toward-violence and I will keep reading it and eating bon-bons. Who am I kidding?

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Is It All Over? A Heart-rending Read

Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
It's not up to the brilliance of Hogfather or Going Postal, but it is Pratchett and it is Discworld. Pratchett offers us new characters (and creature - you'd think he'd have run out of them by now) and glimpses of old Ankh-Morpork pals - notably Rincewind, which gives one the uneasy feeling of closure.
The main characters are Glenda and Nutt (no plurals, please) as the oddballs, and Trevor and Juliet (and here Pratchett evokes an Ankh-Morpork "Westside Story") as ... well, the pretty ones. Glenda learns what it means to be a crab in a bucket. The rest don't really learn anything of any use to us. Nutt's epiphany as an "ethnic minority" notwithstanding, it's Glenda's story - Glenda who can confront the Tyrant and the Lady and - horrors! - Mrs. Whitlow. It's Glenda who can go from the crab in the bucket to ... a crab out of the bucket.
Pratchett also gives us a pretty well thought out natural history of that endangering species, the football hooligan and what it means to be a part of the many. There is so much that is good in this book, so much that is Pratchett.
It is also heart-rending. Pratchett forgoes his erstwhile chapters and returns to the relentless narrative only to segregate out some false endings. These are concluded with mostly blank pages that blare out "You think it's all over?" To this reader, it is a reminder of the possibility that this is the end of the Discworld, Pratchett's wise and joyous gift to us. Someone else had to type "most of it" for him, as his Alzheimer's robs him of this ability. I have to keep reminding myself that we have already gotten so much from him, how can we ask for more? And I fear someone else trying to take up the baton - something I can only picture as thinning out the material even more.
I hope this isn't Discworld's last gasp, but I am willing to let my favorites retire with grace: Vimes, the witches, and the unsinkable Nobby Nobbs. Tiffany Aching doesn't have to grow up; Carrot and Angua don't have to marry and raise puppies; Moist von Lipwig needn't make paying taxes fun and exciting. I thank Mr. Pratchett for all the joy he has brought through his writing and send him my love.

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