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| Stuff White People Like: A Definitive Guide to the Unique Taste of Millions | 
 enlarge | List Price: $14.00
Buy New: $7.99
You Save: $6.01 (43%)
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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:
 Not really December 17, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Stuff White People Like is the type of book which takes about 10 minutes to write, and one minute to regret buying.
Look, I'm pretty much your stereotypical white guy. I grew up in and around a large, arguably hip city. I still live around a large, arguably hip city. I am roughly 30 years old. I have done some of the things described, maybe even a few too many. But by and large: I am still a pretty social, fun loving white guy. Yet I don't do the large majority of these things regularly, and actually I find that I HATE about half of them. So that's what really turned me off to this book. Chances are, you'll find yourself feeling the same way.
Terrible website, and even worse as a book. I'm waiting for the sequels, "Stuff Asian People Like" and "Stuff Black People Like" before I think about owning this one.
If you're still tempted, just go read the website and you've understood the whole book!
Ruling: Not very funny, 2 stars.
 Don't buy this book.... December 16, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
...because all the content is identical to the web blog. Granted it's funny and if someone hasn't seen the page you could get away with giving it to them. If you're buying it for yourself just google "stuff white people like" and it should be the first link. There's no extra content either, no notes from the author or extra articles. Shoddy.
P.S. The one star reviews below this are exactly who this book is talking about. baZING!
 Hilarious! December 16, 2008
Stuff White People Like is hilarious because it's true. The only reason a vocal minority of reviews are so negative, even angry, is that these reviewers can't stand having their self-conceited pretenses lampooned. Great book!
What upper middle class americans like November 29, 2008
7 out of 17 found this review helpful
I am white. I consider myself to have a good sense of humor (as I assume even the most humorless among us do). However, the other night I sat with family listening to my brother-in-law reading various parts of Stuff White People Like: A Definitive Guide to the Unique Taste of Millions asking myself why I did not find the book at all funny. There are two reasons I don't find it funny. First the book is not about white people per se. It is describing a class to which I happily belong, upper middle class America. If in place of "white people" the author had instead had used the phrase Americans in the top quintile of the income distribution (white, black, yellow, brown or some combination thereof) or well-to-do Americans I might have found it funnier.
The problem with changing to Stuff Well-To-Do Americans Like: A Definitive Guide to the Unique Taste of Millions is that upper middle class and wealthy Americans- as we send our kids to graduate school, travel abroad, frequent farmers' markets and the like- are more than a bit uncomfortable admitting to ourselves how privileged we are. Better to chalk up the funny things we do to race than our obscenely good fortune and the fact that we have the time and the financial resources to buy organic, travel, give to charities, and throw away money purchasing books like the one under consideration here.
Secondly, no matter what their race, those trying to join the ranks of upper middle class America often appear to family and friends as though they are turning their backs on "who they really are". This book, in its own small way, contributes to this ridiculous notion by identifying so many things that are part and parcel of upper middle class life in America as being white.
In short, take the money you would have wasted on this book and donate it to some charity that is devoted to raising awareness of how desperately poor the mass of humanity still is, raises awareness of climate change, or buy some recyclable grocery bags.
Very good snapshot in time November 29, 2008
This book is incredibly funny and accurate. Perhaps more accurately titled "What Barack Obama's Base Likes", it cuts to the quick of me and my friends who, once upon a time, also thought we were profound for seeking out independent films (until I began to realize how much most of them suck). I even thought I had a leg up with loving Hayao Myazacki films.
My only concern with it is that the progressive urban whites being skewered in the book and labeled "elitist" on this site are, arguably, the first generation completely free of the economic shackles of the past.
I think many began to ask these larger questions about reality and the world in which we live, and naturally came to realize that pesticides in food is no less murder than a bullet, that the automobile dependent landscape simply doesn't work, that intellectualism are good, and that young people raising their own children just doesn't make sense (thus, why "white people" wait as long as they biologically can - they would wait until their 60s if they could). The observation about buses versus subways was pretty darn accurate, but I'm not sure these should be labeled "white" or "elitist" values. They are simply observations of what works and what doesn't.
For example, the exodus from cities to suburbs a generation or two ago was once called "White Flight". But, as black culture has climbed into the middle class, it is clear that they too move away from dangerous neighborhoods, paper-thin walls, and failing schools as soon as they are able. It's human nature, and I think what is now the avant garde of "whiteness" will soon enough become the norm across all cultures (organic food, not Wes Anderson).
The book is a good snapshot in time, though, of a unique period in human history.
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