Working the Aisles: A Life in Consumption

Reviews / Votes

This exploration of our desires, commercial and otherwise, and how we are manipulated by them and how we manipulate, reaches far beyond the shopping mall critique: Mr Appelbaum ranges from the highly intellectual social psychology and literary deconstruction to a highly personal narrative, with dramatic scenes of arrest and odd love encounters and vivid details from the United States, England, and France. Covering roughly 50 years, from 1960 till a few years ago, Working the Aisles paints a telling picture of the astounding economic and social changes of the half century. This is a very entertaining and at the same time melancholy and thoughtful novel-like trip into our ever-growing appetites. It should satisfy reading appetites of nearly everybody: rigorous scholars and those looking for a good and fresh story. Mr Appelbaum will keep you lively company for a couple of nights. You might even want to light a pipe. --Josip Novakovich, finalist for the Man Booker International Prize, author of April Fool's Day and Shopping for a Better Country