You won’t look at a supermarket shelf the same way after reading this sharp-edged exposé.
Where do we spend 2% of our lives and a big chunk of change? At the grocery store, the object of this diligent investigation.
In his second book, Lorr digs behind the scenes at the grocery store. Much of his discussion centers Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods, his thesis forming as his narrative moves along: “A grocery store is a finely tuned instrument to serve human whim, and the diversity of human whim often allows it to do double duty, serving one through the act of serving another.” Yet a grocery store is also a place where the staff is anonymous and usually not well paid—one man who’s worked a fish counter for years laments that he makes only $15 an hour—and where customer behavior is as spoiled as the ancient bits and pieces of fish and seafood that lie buried under the shaved ice. “One of the first things you realize working retail grocery is that people, in general, are hideous and insane,” writes Lorr in his wide-ranging, entertaining blend of journalism and sociology. The narrative is peppered with interviews with a broad cast of characters, including truck drivers, food entrepreneurs, and cashiers, almost all of them underpaid. The author notes along the way that food prices, in real terms, have fallen by nearly three-fourths in the last century at the expense of food workers. He also looks closely at how stores came to be as they are, with their sometimes-tangled tales—e.g., when “Trader” Joe Coulombe became a wine expert largely so he could ease an alcoholic manager out of his job or how the Memphis-based Piggly Wiggly chain long ago “invited [customers] in to frolic among the abundance” while draining their wallets. In the end, what Kitchen Confidential did for restaurants, Lorr’s book does for supermarkets.
You won’t look at a supermarket shelf the same way after reading this sharp-edged exposé.Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-553-45939-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Avery
Review Posted Online: July 22, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
As Wonder Woman might say, Suffering Sappho! This book is fascinating, fun, and consistently enlightening.
From Penelope and Pandora to Katniss Everdeen and Lisbeth Salander, the "hero's journey" gets a much-needed makeover.
In her latest, Tatar—the Harvard professor of folklore and mythology and Germanic languages and literature who has annotated collections of classic fairy tales, Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen, among others—begins by pointing out that all of the faces of heroism discussed in Joseph Campbell's influential book, The Hero With a Thousand Faces (1949), are male. To correct this requires a revision of the concept of heroism itself, rooted in numerous foundational texts. Starting with Greek mythology and Scheherezade and moving through the centuries all the way to the Game of Thrones series and The Queen's Gambit, Tatar incisively explores women's reinvention of heroism to embrace empathy, compassion, and care, often to pursue social justice. Among the many high points in this engaging study: an analysis of Little Women and Anne of Green Gables as autofiction, Jurassic Park as a reimagining of “Hansel and Gretel,” Harriet the Spy as an antiheroine, and a deep dive into the backstory of Wonder Woman. Receiving their own chapters are female sleuths such as Nancy Drew, Miss Marple, and the less well known characters of Kate Fansler, an academic, and Blanche White, who is Black. The book really takes off when it gets to contemporary culture, particularly in a section that identifies a female version of the "trickster" archetype in Everdeen and Salander. Of this lineage, among the shared interesting traits not traditionally associated with women characters is a prodigious appetite. "Like Gretel, Pippi Longstocking, and Lisbeth Salander before her,” writes Tatar, “Katniss gorges on rich food yet her hunger never ceases." The text is illustrated with many reproductions of paintings and other artwork—including a postcardworthy panel from the original Wonder Woman—that add much to the text.
As Wonder Woman might say, Suffering Sappho! This book is fascinating, fun, and consistently enlightening.Pub Date: Sept. 14, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-63149-881-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Liveright/Norton
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A welcome contribution from a newcomer who provides both a different view and balance in addressing one of the country's...
A fresh, provocative analysis of the debate on education and employment.
Up-and-coming economist Moretti (Economics/Univ. of California, Berkeley) takes issue with the “[w]idespread misconception…that the problem of inequality in the United States is all about the gap between the top one percent and the remaining 99 percent.” The most important aspect of inequality today, he writes, is the widening gap between the 45 million workers with college degrees and the 80 million without—a difference he claims affects every area of peoples' lives. The college-educated part of the population underpins the growth of America's economy of innovation in life sciences, information technology, media and other areas of globally leading research work. Moretti studies the relationship among geographic concentration, innovation and workplace education levels to identify the direct and indirect benefits. He shows that this clustering favors the promotion of self-feeding processes of growth, directly affecting wage levels, both in the innovative industries as well as the sectors that service them. Indirect benefits also accrue from knowledge and other spillovers, which accompany clustering in innovation hubs. Moretti presents research-based evidence supporting his view that the public and private economic benefits of education and research are such that increased federal subsidies would more than pay for themselves. The author fears the development of geographic segregation and Balkanization along education lines if these issues of long-term economic benefits are left inadequately addressed.
A welcome contribution from a newcomer who provides both a different view and balance in addressing one of the country's more profound problems.Pub Date: May 5, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-547-75011-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2012
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
