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| Stuff White People Like: A Definitive Guide to the Unique Taste of Millions | 
 enlarge | List Price: $14.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (based on 72 reviews)
Sales Rank: 826
Category: Book
Author: Christian Lander
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Studio: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Manufacturer: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Label: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 224
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 9 x 5.9 x 0.5
ISBN: 0812979915
Dewey Decimal Number: 818.602
EAN: 9780812979916
ASIN: 0812979915
Publication Date: July 1, 2008
Release Date: July 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 A Book A White Person Hates! August 2, 2008
11 out of 71 found this review helpful
This book is the most offensive piece of dribble that I have ever had the misfortune of purchasing. Admittedly, I was intrigued by the title. Plus, it was featured in the "Humor" section of the bookstore and I was looking for a good laugh. Apparently, I should have actually opened the book before I took it home! But I did make good use of it afterwards - writing my own comments on what white people (like me) actually like!
In this book, we have 150 "suspected" topics of what white people like. Topic #86 - Shorts: Excuse me, but aren't shorts a universal favorite? What makes white people like it so much? Well, according to the author, us white people like it because we hope that by wearing shorts, it will MIRACULOUSLY encourage the weather to behave so that we can enjoy and use our shorts more often! HUH?
Topic #102: Cleansers. Once again, what makes cleansers a particular favorite of white people? Don't other races and cultures like to be clean and live in a hygenic environment?
And, excuse me, but what white person (or any person for that matter) LIKES to get a #66: Divorce? Lander makes it sound as if the best part about getting married is talking about what happens once you're no longer married. According to Lander, us divorcees can (a) complain about the parents, (b) tell stories about the divorce or (c) complain about the white people divorce rate. It's SKY HIGH, I hear!
Let's not forget about the fact that we white people just LOVE #10: Wes Anderson - whoever he is! Or that we, according to #62, "Know what's Best For Poor People" - the poor people being the people who shop at Wal-Mart and go to community colleges. You've heard it here, everyone! Anyone who shops at Wal-Mart and went to a community college is a poor person, according to this author.
This book fails to entertain, nor to accurately inform (if that is what the purpose of this book is meant for). Yes, we may like "#102: Free Health Care", "# 55: Apologies", and "#76: Bottled Water", but who in this world doesn't like those things too?
Perhaps if the author had researched and inquired about what other white people (excluding himself) actually DO like as opposed what people IN GENERAL like (t-shirts and farmer's markets, anyone?), this MIGHT have passed as an acceptable purchase.
 Stuff Liberals Like August 1, 2008
15 out of 36 found this review helpful
Any truth to the rumor that this whole number - the book, the weblog - originally had the working title above? It makes a lot more sense that way. This is a calculated pretense of satire. It masks a posture struck to allow the author and his liberal cohort to receive self-congratulation. Somebody along the way had the smarts to recognize that substituting "White People" was a better marketing decision. There's some acute perception and witty writing here. It's sufficient to carry the reader along in a state of amusement until that inevitable point, otherwise recognizable in a too-prolonged diet of NPR listening, when finally the tone becomes insufferable.
The book's exquisitely detailed self-consciousness comes with a bit too much enthusiasm to work as satire. There's an annoying dissonance, a sense of falsification, between what one knows of the diversity of real-world white character and this catalogue of socioeconomic strivers' fixations. Laugh opportunities are provided, and insights burnished for approval, but ultimately it's a long joke you're glad to see coming to an end. Some, of course, will find this stuff rings their bell just right. They have here the opportunity to act on that impression.
The haters are mad because the author's got their number. July 27, 2008
7 out of 11 found this review helpful
I have loved Stuff White People Like ever since I stumbled upon it a few months ago. I check the blog often for updates and when I found out they were writing a book, I had to buy it. It covers a lot we've seen before, but this book is so deadly accurate that it's worth a read. I live in Boulder so just about every single thing applies to someone I know. A white person who is offended by this book is like a person from Texas who is offended by King of the Hill. They're simply offended by its accuracy.
 Millenial smashing high adventure! July 26, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
This book is great, he gets 5 stars for strong courage! The book isn't about all whites, it's satire is primarily directed at the middle and upper class Millenial pseudo-liberal Venti slurping, save the world trust fund babies sorts. He's dead on for a lot of parts! Well written! Kudos to the courageous author. Hopefully he's not going to go the way of the Gen X author Copeland who didn't move beyond his critical observerations and got stuck in the cliche of what he thought he knew. Very entertaining book!
White people? July 24, 2008
10 out of 12 found this review helpful
Let me say up front that I enjoyed the book. I thought it was funny, and I snickered throughout the entire book. But, white people??? I would say it is more like liberal people. I don't think this is about ethnicity, or that it is generational - it just seemed more political than anything else.
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