Shopping Books

This time around Becky, the spoiled, materialistic bumblehead is unemployed and married to her sure to be long-suffering lover Luke. They spend the early part of the novel honeymooning around the globe for a year while Becky secretly spends all sorts of dough on silly trinkets and other assorted things (such as two dining room tables!) that Luke doesn't want or need. How the business savvy Luke remains oblivious to her spending is beyond me but oblivious he is until they return home and the huge trucks arrive with all of her secret purchases. He frets about the finances and puts her on a budget and, of course, she has a secret credit card that allows her to continue to do major damage. Luke nearly works himself to death while Becky is off putting his career in jeopardy so she can buy a trendy bag. Serves him right for marrying the bubblehead, if you ask me.

When Becky returns home from her travels she discovers she has a half sister and is overjoyed with visions of shopping, sleepovers, popcorn and spending endless hours watching Pretty Woman and Sleepless in Seattle with her new sis. It's difficult to believe this woman is nearing 30 because she thinks like a tween, but what do I know? Much to Becky's dismay she quickly learns that her new sister isn't all she dreamed her up to be. First off she hates shopping, is super thrifty, is an environmental activist and wisely wants nothing to do with Becky. Due to Becky's wildly self-destructive antics the new sis warms up to her and opens up. This part of the book partially redeems Becky's silly behavior. As always, Becky means well in this novel and down deep has a good heart but she's such a materialistic airhead she makes me want to scream throughout most of the book. I'm sure I'll be back for more punishment when the next releases comes my way . . .

Another great addition to the Shopaholic series - Sophie Kinsella once again brings Becky, a quirky but lovable character back into the fray with a wonderful mix of weary world traveling, sisterhood and of course, more shopping!!

We pick Becky up at the end of a 10-month honeymoon with her new hubbie Luke - they've been all over the world and Becky's got a lot of shopping to show for it - but it's easy - she just buys and has it all shipped home - she'll worry about where to put it all later! Becky decides to surprise her parents and her best friend Suze - by arriving in England unexpectedly. Becky's in for a rude surprise - she seems to have been forgotten by her best friend Suze, who's had twins since Becky left for her honeymoon. Along with the twins, Suze's got a brand new buddy that doesn't seemed too thrilled about Becky's return. Even her parents don't seem too thrilled to see her and there's some girl lurking in the background - who can she be? Well, Becky finds out that she's got a sister! It seems that before her parents met, Becky's dad had a romance with a flight attendant and never knew that she'd had a baby girl that she named Jessica. Becky is thrilled to hear about her sister and decides that the best way to bond is by...what else? Shopping!! She quickly learns that Jess doesn't like shopping (Gasp!) and basically finds Becky to be irresponsible and shallow. Becky is determined to change her sisters' mind and travels to the English countryside where Jess lives in order to bridge the gap and find her way into her sisters' heart. Will Becky and Jess become soul mates? Will Jess learn to love shopping? Sophie Kinsella delights her readers once again as she takes us on adventure to find out!

During all the action, we get the story from Luke's perspective a little more - we see why he loves Becky so much and in seeing her through his eyes, we learn to love her just a little bit more!

I read a few books between the last book (...Ties the Knot) and this one, but I found myself falling back into the story easily - It was nice to hear about Becky again! This was a fun story and the ending leads you right into the next book in the series - that's right, I think it might be time for our Shopaholic to have a Baby!!

This was a good book but it was my least favorite of the series. It is worth reading if you've already started the series.

Becky Bloomwood Brandon has done it again... she really cannot be upfront with anyone when it comes to mishaps, but isnt that why we all love her. This book is very comical, and you will still root for Becky even if you know that she should really let others be privy to important information.
I did find Becky's sister a little on the snobby side (snobby as in attitude not moneywise). I thought Becky tried very hard to make a relationship with her, and the sister was very resistant to this.
In the end, things turn out all right, but Becky's journey to "everything will be fine" will have you laughing. Pick this one up for a funny light read.

I was nervous when I started reading this one due to many of the negative reviews, but I have to say, I was happily surprised! I just became a fan of the Shopaholic series and I just love Becky & Luke! I really didn't think their relationship was given enough attention in this first book, but it picked up from there and I will have to say the reader really gets to get in deep with their relationship in this book. I have to agree with a previous reviewer who compared Becky to Lucy Ricardo - that's exactly who she reminds me of. In Sister, I did not find myself feeling as frustrated with Becky for not owning up sooner. Unlike others, I thought she had grown more in this book. She seemed to own up to her mistakes much quicker (there were just SEVERAL to own up to in this book). I really think this one was my all time fave of the series. I have the next one (Baby) ordered already and can't wait to read it. But I do admit that I'm a little sad that it's the last one. I really hope Sophie Kinsella finds a way to bring us more Luke & Becky!

I haven't finished reading this book, but have picked up some good ideas so far.

I would think that most retailers could learn a huge amount about maximizing profits from this book. It was an eye-opening read for me. I am almost sorry that I am not a retailer so that I can't use this information. I wonder if the author has done any writing for professional journals. As others have noted, there isn't enough information on technique for anyone to really critique his methods. Still, though, that would be important mainly for an academician. The ideas themselves are what would be important to a retailer.

From store layout and design to how and why your customers behave the way they do in your store, this book reveals a ton of information that you can use to increase your sales.

It also gives you advice on what changes you can make to help you make the buying experience easier and faster for your customers.

In my marketing consulting practice I concentrate on "guerrilla marketing" strategies that retailers can use to quickly, easily and inexpensively increase their sales and reading this book is one of the ways. I recommend it to all my clients.

I had never thought upon this until I got this book in my hand.
The information given in the book is based on practical studies conducted in different retail shops, departmental stores. Data gathered has been analyzed thoroughly and findings put in the book. The stuff is kind of hilarious and mind boggling. While you are reading the book you will take some time to think ..Is Paco talking about me?
Paco for instance, discusses the implication of the trolley/baskets on the shopping experience, what happens if your shelves are oriented at an angle of 45 versus 90, what is the sales boost in having a merchandise displayed at the entry of the store versus in some middle section, A kid coming with his/her father is a better customer versus when he/she coming with mother and so on.
Paco has touched base on very common things which can significantly change the shopping and sales.

Check my blog for more [...]

This is a witty, easy-to-read book full of insights into how shopper behave in stores. It'll get you thinking from the customer's point of view and give you a framework for innovating on the retail experience. A must read for retail and marketing professionals. I definitely recommend it.

I got this as audio book and it's few of the amazingly written and performed audio book. We listened to this in our commute and travel and kept us tightly intrigued and left us laughing and thinking at the same time. The author has degree in Asthetics and it shows. The story is pretty honest and simple but very well told. I think author manages to create pretty good humor out of everyday life, observations and his thoughts about himself as well as outside world. The voice for reading audio book has emotions, truth, passion and captivating rhythm. The story is simple: The author ends up as a temp after graduation but he has no willingness to succumb to serve as corporate drone or be "useful" in that context. But then Internet train arrives which is hard to resist but only to end up as customer rep. People who wants to know about how Amazon worked in its hey days will find pretty good meat here (author was about first of 300 employees). This might be probably the only book on inside look in Amazon corporate world unlike other companies like Microsoft and Google. While being funny, author doesn't escape to reflect on today's corporate servitude and how these entities strives to keep it alive by taking in as many bodies it can regardless of trivial passions and purpose that they offer.

I guess my interest in this book was to take a look into the heart of a .COM business to see if the people inside actually beleived some of the crap they were trying to sell people outside. What I mean is that this was a "new economy", and that profits were not what it was about. (god knows how many stocks went over $100 without a single profit in sight!)

Well, the glimse into Amazon was from a single guy, who didn't fit in from the start...so it might be a bit slanted.....on the other hand, he admits to "drinking the cool-aid" a bit himself and getting into the culture.

Bottom line....it looks like the .COM people believed in their jive even more than the people who bought $100/share stock off them.....

As for the book, it was an easy read.....and to me gave me a fair bit of insight into that world. (I was working at a computer company who's stock also went through the sky....but we were also making good profits.)

The run-up of the .COM "bubble" was always a mystery to me...and this book does go some part of the way to help me understand it. (but don't look for technical analysis....just the ramblings of the days in this guy's life at Amazon.....his low's, highs, and lows again)

I bought this book, thinking that it would offer some insight into Amazon.com in terms of what it was like to work there during its halcyon days. Touted as a funny memoir, among other things, I was to discover that it was none of what was promised. In fact, the book was painfully difficult to read, as it was very poorly written, decidedly not funny, and offered little insight into what it really was like to work at Amazon. It was totally sophomoric in terms of what it did say.

The author should be thankful that he was not fired by Amazon, as that is what he richly deserved to have happen based upon his own account of what he was like as an employee. He was a total slacker who treated customers with the contempt that he felt that they deserved. He was totally wasteful of the company's resources. He proudly stole supplies in bulk from the company. When toys were given to him for review purposes, he not only did not bother to review them, he then refused to return the toys to Amazon. He may think that all this is hilarious. Unfortunately, I do not. Reading this drivel felt like it took twenty-one dog years.

Moreover, this book was so poorly written, I am surprised that a reputable publisher went ahead with the expense of actually publishing it. Don't waste your time with this drivel. If you want to read a well-written, interesting book about working at Amazon, read "Amazonia: Five Years at the Epicenter of the Dot. Com Juggernaut" by James Marcus.

Mike Daisey's memoir is about his experience working for amazon.com. In the book, he tells about how he got the job, and how he ended up leaving the job. I chose to read this memoir because, it was kind of the only one I could find that seemed even semi-interesting. I probably should have chosen more carefully, because there were a lot of things in the book that I didn't understand very much. In his memoir Mike Daisey tells about his excitement to join amazon, to how it got to be to the point where he couldn't stand it, to moving to a new position, only to leave amazon .com for good.
The book starts with Mike Daisey introducing himself. He explains how he was lazy, and never really did anything with his life. This is relevant later on in the memoir, when he gets hired for amazon, and actually feels like he is working for a living. Anyway, he ends up moving to Seattle, and getting a job at a temping service. He doesn't like his job, so he starts to look for new jobs. While he is between jobs, he moves in with his girlfriend. His search for a job is ongoing until he finds amazon.com. He applies for the job, and after several interviews, he gets the job, and is entered into a four week training period. He is taught about the company, and how to do the job. He ends up coming out of the training period very enthusiastic about the job. At the end of the training period, he and several other are officially offered the job. He accepts, and starts working in the customer services for amazon.
At first the job is okay and he along with all the others turn into amazon believers. He refers to it as a religion, because they all believe that amazon is like the way of the future, and are pretty much obsessed with their jobs. The job soon becomes unbearable for the author, and he finds himself trying to get out. He tries to write reviews for items, but falls behind, and finds himself at square one. He then applies for a different division that is out of customer service, and finds the job to be very appealing. He is pleased with the job until he starts hearing rumors about lay-offs, and is noticing cuts that the company is making. He is using the bathroom when he sees a spreadsheet, and reads it. It had all of the salaries of all the upper level worker, and some of whom he had worked with. The were making millions of dollars, and were idiots who didn't do anything. He found this combination of things disappointing, and ended up leaving the company because of it.
The whole experience is important to the author, because it wasn't a natural experience working for this big company. From my perspective the author felt like the whole company was kind of weird. I think one of the main reasons that he wrote this book is to expose how odd the job experience was. Especially when he says that the amazon thing turns into like a sort of a religion for him, and his co-workers, and that the CEO of the company, named Jeff, is like a god to them. Also how the job kind of takes over their lives, and the spend all their time focusing on the job, and competing with the other employees.
What the author got for the whole experience is kind of like what I mentioned before. He really got exposed to how strange and unnatural the job situations at companies like that are. He saw first hand how easy it was to fall for this whole system that convinced workers to push themselves too much, because they truly believed that they were actually making a difference, and sort of staring a revolution. As far as the title goes, it is referring to how one of the rules or beliefs is in this time system where the amazon employees are working faster, and so they refer to their years like dog years. I interpreted this to mean that the amazonians, as the author called them were working so hard and quickly that they were getting several years' work done in one year. I thought the book was good, but it was over my reading level, and I found it some parts boring, since it was also over my maturity level, and I couldn't relate to some of the things that the author mentioned.

"21 Dog Years" is a satirical account of life as a Amazon.com employee by self-described slacker Mike Daisey, who was recruited though a staffing company in 1998 to work in Customer Service Tier 1 and left the company in a fit of angst in 2000 in spite of enjoying his position in Business Development. The book's audience might be those seeking workplace comedy or those in search of information about Amazon.com's culture. "21 Dog Years" originated as a one man show, so it aims to entertain. At the same time, the book is very much in the tradition of gonzo journalism: insightful but inherently subjective and self-interested. If it is information about Amazon.com you seek, it's a little difficult to know where the hyperbole begins and ends. Mike Daisey's perspicacity is obvious from Chapter 1, where he observes the predicament of Gen Xers in the Baby Boomer economy of the 1990s, and he never hesitates to dwell on his own faults -which are many. He was a bad Customer Service Rep. He loved his company, but hated his job. Daisey seemed more competent and content in his Business Development position, but most of the book is about his experiences in Customer Service, probably because discontent is more compelling than comfort.

As for whether the book is funny, I think it has more moments of insight than comedy. It is informative only if you are interested in how the company philosophy was felt by low-level employees. The book's most obvious fault is that Mike Daisey is a generally unsympathetic personality. Not so much because he is a liar and a crook, but because he is whiny and self-absorbed. Only his intellect makes "21 Dog Years" readable. "Amazonia", written by Amazon.com employee #55 James Marcus, who spent 5 years with the company, is a more informative, literate account. But Marcus seemed to be trying very hard not to offend anyone, leaving readers to glean his opinions between the lines. "21 Dog Years" suffers from the opposite style: It's all about mouthing off, sometimes to the point of sensationalism. People are either going to love this or hate it, but I'm giving "21 Dog Years" 3 1/2 stars because I found the book to be very readable and intermittently insightful.

A genuine "So-what?" book. It's a conversational-like, easy-read edition that offers the mall weary absolutely no tips for easier buying, no hints on reducing time in lines, no suggestions for smarter spending or faster transactions. One diverting quote on the back cover from an author of another book claims: "Call of the Mall explains why we shop 'til we drop". Well. Not exactly. The book says we Do shop. Only we, evidentally, don't do enough of it.

This is the perfect guidebook for those in Retail 101. It blatantly shows students (et. al.) how they might cleverly separate shoppers from their hard-earned money. Period.

Move those clothing racks. Change the color layouts. Add big graphics to the walls. Put advertising wherever there used to be breathing space. Brighten the lights. Fill up that asile with goods. Beef up the window display. Put in a lively tv-screen and add some snappy music. Get bigger shopping carts. Plant a tree outside. And more. Lots more. --Sketchy directives dreamt up by author Underhill not to help make mall shopping a more pleasant, more efficient experience for all of us, but to make life easier for store managers and employees --not to mention to increase the "bottom line" for store owners, mall-meisters and name brand execs. This is all fine and good, but since I'm usually on the giving end of their profit margins, I note "me, the shopper" is what I thought this book was about.

Yet, if the reader craves a pallet load of thin retail selling-ideas, the book might be enlightening and useful. If malls, on the other hand, can make you irritated, tired, annoyed, restless, then this book is About you. --But take heart. The author has industrial strength ways and means to brighten up your shopping day...all in the hopes that you'll stay longer, walk further, shop more and leave larger dollar amounts at the mall-side checkouts.

For instance, he says that he and his (consulting) company, Envirosell, "have started to track (evidently personal) phone conversations that happen in mall stores...and their apparent effect on buying decisions." [Page 208] (Most interesting!) We can guess why; but How they gather the (private?) information, Underhill doesn't say. [If this is what shopping has come to, maybe we all ought to just stay home more.]

Casual, semi-insider store design and point-of-sale suggestions abound (as do the consumers' "So whats," to be sure). --But all this basic merchandising info does nothing for this shopper; and after awhile, reading about strategies and techniques aiming to reel in more and more of my cash gets really dull if not irritating. Page 176 holds a short passage typical of the entire read: "If you're selling high end goods, the rule is 'the fancier the store, the more definite the line between inside and outside [of the store]'." So?... [On page 75, though, is the one revealing line of the book that says it all: "An entrepreneurial approach to the well-appointed restroom could turn even this place into a profit center." (!!)]

What's in "Call of the Mall" that encourages me into my nearest goliath retail haven? Nothing. This sketchbook's got designs and details of buying and selling in the mall, but it's just not written for Mr. or Ms. Mall Shopper. In the end, this mostly understandable, sometimes interesting, quick-to-get-through consultant's plan-book is mostly drowsy reading right from a mall's parking lot, described in Chapter 1.

Underhill's Why We Buy was required reading for my marketing class, and after opening it up, I was hooked by his research and insight into buying behaviors. By contrast, I struggled through 70 pages of Call of the Mall before coming across some of the more interesting aspects of what retailers could do differently. Overall the book presents few compelling insights; it almost feels that he used up all his juicy bits for the first book and really had to dig at the bottom of the barrel for this one.

Final word: Don't bother...

I teach Consumer Marketing and love social science interpretations of 'real world' behavior. Hence I picked up "Call to the Mall" with personal and professional excitement. Overall, I was disappointed. On the plus side, there are some wonderful examples of behavior that we all do or have seen. However, the is sadly little data to back these up for being more than informed opinions of the author or his companions. He has a company that does this, he must have access to great descriptive stats that would increases both the richness and credibility of his observations. The breezy style makes the book fun and easy to read but I found Mr. Underhill strong personal bias toward urban (especially NYC)shopping repeatedly annoying. I have lived in 8 states in both urban (including Manhattan) and suburban settings and the urban (even NYC) shopping isn't all glorious and the mall shopping all tacky, although you might think so after this book. It reminded me of my students in NYC who had so little breadth of experience that they thought all the world wished it could be like NYC. Finally, the walk-through-the-mall structure of the book emphasizes its lack of themes or theses. Not clear what you take-away about understanding shopping behavior, other than Mr. Underhill's opinion that malls are tacky, out-dated and not well designed (very possibly true but not supported by evidence other than his observations). While I understand that he is not an academic, he is a world-renowned expert on descriptive shopping behavior so I was looking for more richness of analysis and insight beyond the examples.

"Call Of The Mall" follows on from the most fascinating, entertaining and useful retail research book ever written, "Why We Buy. The Science of Shopping" which is a must read for everyone involved with retail.

"Call Of The Mall" is also easy to read, though it has far more of Paco Underhill's opinions and far less actual research to back up his conclusions. It examines how Americans use the mall, what it means, why it works when it does and why it often doesn't work at all well.

I have the feeling with this book that Paco Underhill has been reading too much of his publicity and now believes he is a witty, entertaining writer. So, in some ways it's a bit of a let down. However, for anyone involved in a management role within shopping centres it's still a `must read'.

I had to read this book for a consumer-behavior class. The subject matter is so interesting and full of unique little insights about our consumer culture, but Underhill gives only a cursory analysis; in reality, most of the book seems to be a mechanism for name-dropping clients and touting the glorious magic that is...Paco Underhill.

Underhill's writing style is flippant and annoying, but having said that, it is a quick and easy read and a good intro to anyone interested in the topic.

You can take this grocery shopping and along with you to restaurants. Also good when cooking. Find the food group and find the sugar no-nos quickly. We used it from day 1.The New Sugar Busters!(r) Shopper's Guide

It's ok.....mostly common sense information that lot's of people already know just by reading, watching, listening and caring. It's general - but if you are a person that is starting from the beginning, it does let you know what products you can eat or not eat. It does give name products to buy that I have never seen in a grocery store? I will forward this book on to someone who can really use it.

This is the best book for a Sugar Buster user. It is the quickest way to check a food and an easy helper at the grocery store.

I found this book to be a waste of money. I didn't learn anything from it that I had not already found in the Brennan's book.

This is a skinny, incomplete list that's very little help. Yes, it's inexpensive but I wouldn't bother.

There are weightier tomes of this type out there, but this is a readable book that covers the basics in a painless way.

Co-author Satoshi Kanazawa is an evolutionary psychologist at, of all places, The London School of Economics. He also blogs, often entertainingly, as "The Scientific Fundamentalist." His basic point is that humans still have inbred predilictions that were suited to our ancestors 10,000 years ago, and that these are not as easy to put behind us as some would like to believe.

The odd thing is not that what he has to say is especially revelatory. The larger part is not only obvious, but blindingly obvious. For example, he tells us most men find attractive a woman who approximates a Barbie doll and most women would like to look like one. He tells us the burdens of modern parenthood often make people unhappy. He tells us men are motivated by sex. He tells us women are more selective than men in their choice of sexual partners and that they take social and economic status into account. This hardly is startling stuff, yet he treads as cautiously toward his points as though he were traversing a snake pit. The odd thing is that he has cause to tread lightly.

Every era has a pre-packaged wisdom that one questions at one's social peril - in some cases physical peril. There is always much nonsense in the package, along with just enough truth to keep the whole thing plausible if you don't think about it too much. The "nurture is everything" crowd dominated social thought from the end of World War II until very recently. These folks have taken heavy body blows lately, but they still retain much influence. Public doubters need to be ready to be handed unpleasant "-ist" labels of various sorts by some of them.

Nevertheless, it is hard for nurturists to argue convincingly against many of the authors' points. Of course parenthood is a longer and more expensive (from laptops to college tuition) burden than it was 10,000 years ago when kids were net producers by age ten. Of course men do much of what they do to impress women. Of course women notice the status of potential partners. Zsa Zsa Gabor: "I want a man who's kind and understanding. Is that too much to ask of a millionaire?" And so on.

Evolutionary psychology may not turn out to be the package that fully replaces the old wisdom, but it at least will be a part of it. One hopes the nuturists won't be excluded completely. After all, training may not be everything, but it is something.

For anyone who has vaguely heard about Evolutionary Psychology, or who finds conventional psychological dogma unconvincing, this is a useful little primer on the basic state of play in the wonderful world of evolutionary psychology. It is written to appeal to the layperson and has nothing that will tax the brain, so it can be read cover-to-cover inside 60 minutes: a good commute book.

Kanazawa (for the book is his, despite his generous gesture of giving Miller first author credit) takes us on an over-flight that encompasses the grounding tenet of evolutionary psychology: that our minds are as much the result of selection pressure as our bodies. This much is, for anyone capable of a moment's thought, uncontentious. No doubt there are still people who bore others at cocktail parties with tales of Jungian Archetypes or Freudian Ids, but equally there are people who claim to commune with the dead and others who believe the world is governed by gods and goblins. This book is not for such folk, but rather for those interested in how things really work and how they came to be. As such, the book's lightweight style may actually work against it: designed to be easy-to-read for the American market, it may find few takers because a largely religious nation is unlikely to accept such secular notions, whereas it may be too slender a work to appeal to those in Europe who would otherwise be inclined to add this to their collection.

Be that as it may, Kamazawa swiftly wafts us through the essentials: the mind of homo sapiens was formed on the savannah and has not altered notably since then (the contention being that selection pressures cannot operate when faced with a moving target). While this ignores an important principle (if the target is moving, selection pressure favors the animal that can cope with a moving target), it is adequate for most of the main points Kanazawa wants to make. Many people, especially in the USA, may find the reductivist approach inherent in EP to contradict their dearly-held beliefs regarding all manner of things including "free will" and what others would have termed "the perfectability of mankind" but a moment's thought will be enough to show that on the whole EP is closer to the mark than the ramblings of sociologists and traditional psychologists. Sadly, Kanazawa doesn't do much to explicate the most important principle of science: refutability. But he's not really to blame, as EP itself hasn't progressed much beyond some inspired insights and guess-work. It remains to others to develop the mathematical models that have served other branches of science so well, and we can only hope that ten years from now a more complete version of EP will be conveyed to the general reader.

The last section of the book summarizes the "challenges" that faced EP when it was first developed by the authors of The Adapted Mind (Cosmides & Tooby, 1992). Unfortunately in this section Kanazawa reveals how infrequently academics venture out into the wider world: his statement that it remains a puzzle why young men (soldiers) go out to die tells us much more about his research methodology than about the underlying question. Anyone who has spent more than five minutes with anyone in the military can answer the question: young men (and, nowadays, young women too) don't go out to die. They go out believing that their skills, body armor, and the support of their colleagues will be sufficient to enable them to return safely home. And the statistics support this. For every active soldier who goes on a tour of duty in a combat zone, 99% return home from the tour in one piece.

Sadly, Kanazawa actually misses most of the important gaps in EP, such as conformity and the very different agendae of men and women. But again, we can hope that others will map the terrain in these areas.

In summary, a very incomplete and undemanding work that nevertheless is an acceptable primer for those unfamiliar with EP, but a disappointment for anyone with more than a passing acquaintance of what is probably the single most important field in the quest for self-knowledge and comprehension of the human species.

A must read entertaining and politically incorrect truth, this book will probably receive bad reviews from people that see them self in the book, but would rather not. Its all about the human animal we are born, grow, reproduce and die. It's all about sex.

But, don't belive everything you read.

This is a democratically short book which both briefly and fairly cogently lays out the currently known essentials of neuroscience.

Neuroscience is the field which advocates that our minds are not blank slates but rather carefully evolved organs with inbuilt genetic proclivities. Does it mean some are "better" than others or deserve more rights? Not in the least.

What it says is that the behavior of the human brain can be better comprehended with recourse to its evolutionary underpinnings. And it makes some surprising findings:

First and foremost, it says that men and women are essentially different. This is because like all creatures they have an interest in reproduction and producing progeny but because they have vastly different roles in the actual act of reproduction they go about it differently.

One easy illustration of this phenomenon is the fact that the pornography industry is almost exclusively supported by men while the romance novel industry is almost exclusively supported by women. This is because men have less at stake when a pregnancy occurs. They can produce more progeny by having more pairings while women have a better chance at producing progeny by securing a male with resources who's actually willing to devote them in connection with the raising of progeny.

Owing to this inherent difference in reproductive investment, women more than men resort to behaviors that will result in making them more physically desireable (make up, clothing and the like) while men will devote more time to activities that will make them seem more financially suitable.

As the authors wisely point out, these differences in the context of modern society can create odd results like dead beat Dads who serially create then abandon families or unfaithful wives who marry the wealthier man but get pregnant by more physically attractive ones. (On this last score, the authors report that between one and ten and three ten children born are not the biological progeny of the father listed on their birth certificate.)

Secondly it reports that these gender differences can have interesting societal consequences that at first blush might not seem to be gender related. For example, men overwhelming comit violent crime and according to the authors do so for the same reason that artists create and businessmen produce...to secure additional resources to become more attractive to potential mates. In a related theme, once they have those resources, men tend to be less monogamous and more interested in extra marital relationships.

For women, inherited genetic gender roles usually tend them toward helping professions where the emphasis is on empathy and understanding and not systemic thinking. Also in connection with work, the authors assert that women will pursue their goals with less competitiveness than men, putting them at a disadvantage for corporate top jobs...usually secured after some form of competition.

In terms of other macroscopic societal conduct, the authors report that women are more prone to spirituality for a myriad of evolutionary reasons. Interestingly enough, this would've been an excellent point for the authors to cite the book The God Gene which discusses spirituality as a genetic phenomenon. It says that women are genetically more prone to have this gene which enhances the spiritual experience during prayer.

But wisely they cite Pascal Boyer, whose excellent book Religion Explained discusses the morphology of God....that is to say, his (or I guess her) traditionally ascribed qualities. For his Boyer asserts that all depictions of God...though admittedly varied...are morphologically similar in that all Gods are but very special humans with one or more additional powers (viz. they can be all knowing, all powerful, etc.). This finding of Boyer's certainly would harmonize with what the authors wrote.

Interestingly enough, though the authors cite Matt Ridley's Origins of Virtue in their bibliography they don't heavily discuss matters at the heart of his book, specifically that just like other behaviors were evolutionarily preferred so were certain societal behaviors. This is why though all religions have law codes that have an almost verbatim similarity. In this regard, one curious could read Jeffrey Moses' excellent Oneness wherein we find two dozen religious axioms almost verbatim repeated in different law codes (i.e. "the golden rule" "do unto others as you would have done to you" which exists somewhere in every religious system's doctrines).

The the authors didn't make this connection, the evolution of law itself bears great cross cultural similarity. A great case in point of this is the similarity between the Code of Hammurabi and the law codes of the Torah/Old Testament. Interestingly enough, the Code is topped by a depiction of god himself giving Hammurabi the very laws which appear below them on the Obelisk of Hammurabi which recites the Code of Hammurabi just as the Torah/Old Testament both report that God himself delivered the Ten Commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai.

As can be seen, the book is an excellent introduction to a fascinating issue. As can also be seen, it would be a great book to be read along with the others mentioned here as well as several other good available writings on neuroscience such as Helen Fisher's Why We Love, Matt Ridley's The Red Queen and Steven Pinker's How We Think.

What saved this book from getting one star is its entertainment value. It's the sort of book you might want to browse before you go to a cocktail party so you have intriguing conversations starters.

If you are looking for a book like "Blink" or the "Tipping Point" -- look elsewhere. Those books condense studies or observations in thoughtful, intelligent ways to show us how and why things happen -- dumb it down enough to make it entertaining and not dry but without compromising the acuracy. "Why Beautiful People" does only the former -- it dumbs it down to the point of losing any credibility. The authors are so keen on proving a certain point, that they cite incorrect evidence/"facts" and sometimes present someone's hypothesis as manifest truth. They commit the cardinal sin in any kind of research/science -- overstating the facts, trying to mold evidence to fit their existing world view, and making up facts when pieces don't fit as they want. If "Blink" is the NYT, then "Why Beautiful People" is the National Inquirer.

It isn't the subject matter that bothers me (it is interesting and I agree with parts of it). I object to the pseudo-scientific approach. There's some truth to what is written, some parts are intriguing, and other parts are outright ludicrous and make you wonder if the authors can actually be serious. They routinely contradict themselves in the book. The lack of agreement of all the evidence is not the problem..if they dealt with those in a thoughtful manner. Instead they present all their conclusions in an authoritative fashion when much is based on a hunch or limited evidence.

Examples:

They admit that at first they couldn't explain, from an evolutionary standpoint, why men prefer women with bigger breasts (big breasts not any better at producing milk and do not indicate better fertility). So they reason that big breasts sag more with age so men must like big breasts *only* as a way of being able to know if a woman is young (a big breasted woman with perky breasts must be young where as a small breasted woman with perky breasts could be any age and he might get fooled into mating with a woman not in her reproductive prime if he picks the small breasted woman).

Isn't it possible that sometimes humans do things...just because? Maybe men just like breasts. Period.

I'd like to see them try to explain why certain men have shoe or foot fetishes (since the authors don't allow humans to ever be motivated purely by pleasure, by aesthetic appeal, or by cultural conditioning).

And then the suicide bomber thing I didn't get. First, earlier in the book they say that human nature is not mongamous and that humans are designed for one man to have multiple women (polygyny). They then go on to say that culture has little impact in shaping us and that all humans are exactly the same -- that we are ruled by the animal instinct to pass on our genes. But then they single out Islam saying that it is the only ideology associated with suicide bombers (not true, but that's another discussion) -- and say it is because in Islamic societies some men have multiple wives (when they earlier said that polygyny is normal human behavior) and that men who can't compete with more successful men..end up with no wife at all..and the inability to pass on their genes drives them to blow themselves and others up. But then why aren't there any monks who are suicide bombers? Why aren't all celibate men suicide bombers? I think they're being a bit too simplistic when they try to analyze today's political landscape purely in terms of a man's urge to pass on genes to as many women as possible.

Great book, delievered in poor shape. Told me book was "new" inside cover was bent.

I was quite amazed to find such a good read. A while back I read "The Corporation". This present book describes the strand from the corporate world that deals with weddings. They also have become a racket, and Rebecca Mead has the necessary information.

The group of people that created "bridezillas" and "monsters-in-law" is the group of people that--when they get together to tally up the profits--make fun of, and ridicule them. The world of weddings has gone whack! More than ever young women (and men) are emphasizing the wedding in place of the marriage (guess which one of them lasts a lifetime). When did meaning in such a deep relationship become so shallow?

Mead writes in a clear, open style. She brings you to the scene, and lays it out for you. She writes in a "no nonsense" fashion, and is able to be with people easily, and garner information from them easily. It is a must read for every mother with college-aged children. I gave my copy (upon reading it) to such a mother. Dads should read it as well, to get to know what is happening in the world of wedding preparation.

The best information is in the first two-thirds of the book, but the whole work should be read, especially Mead's afterword. The work is an eye-opener, revealing how everyone is out to make a buck (actually lots of them) on the modern bride. It is amazing how we are kept from this truth, and I am grateful to Rebecca Mead for telling it all.

Still, I wish that she had offered a chapter on types of marriage preparation. Although these deal with marriage more than the wedding, they are offered before the wedding.

I got this book after my own wedding. This book cannot help you plan a wedding or even save money on your wedding it does give you a first hand look at the wedding industry. This book will only appeal to people (primarily women) who have already gone through the process of planning a wedding. I personally would reccomend this book for any new bride looking to learn about wedding industry. This book is best read AFTER you wedding.

One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding
My husband & I first heard this woman on the Dennis Praeger show. This book is an absolute necessity for a parent to read, as well as the bride & groom. Contains historical, sociological aspects of a huge industry, that is not altogether altruistic when it comes to having your precious daughter given in marriage. I highly, highly recommend this book.
Barbie Perkins
San Antonio, Tx.

Next to coal mining and waitressing, one of the more under valued jobs in our society is that of the intrepid, well-informed skeptic, whose role in life is to question that which the rest of us have accepted without full examination. In her new book "One Perfect Day," New Yorker writer Rebecca Mead dares to question our sense of proportion when it comes to how we marry and what it costs us. Her thin but effective book is less an expose, than a sharply written consumer digest of the people and the practices behind that "one perfect day," when bride and groom are encouraged to surrender their financial and emotional sobriety to a $161-billion a year industry. Ms. Mead has done her homework, and offers it up in entertaining bite-size portions that will supply the reader with plenty of cocktail party conversation. While one reviewer found the book "too cynical" for her taste, I believe the author wishes to be more of a consumer advocate than a romance deflator. When she briefly shares the details of her own wedding day, she does so like any bride who's happy to show you the photos. A good read from one of our most observant writers.

This book was something that I picked up on a newspaper recommendation. After the first chapter, I thought that I had mistakenly picked up a book from the children's section. A little girl playing detective with a stuffed monkey? Sorry, she lost me. I thought about pressing on and seeing how long I could hold on until I got to something interesting, but life's too short. On to bigger and better writers.

Catherine O'Flynn does such a good job of delaying important information about characters and their situation that it is almost impossible to review her fine first novel, WHAT WAS LOST, without giving something away. Let me just say that it is set near Birmingham, England, and involves two time periods, 1984 and 2003. In the first, we meet a ten-year-old girl, Kate Meaney, and her older friend Adrian. Kate leads a fantasy life as a detective, mostly observing people at the huge Green Oaks Mall. Though a college graduate, 22-year-old Adrian works behind the counter in his father's newsagent's shop; he is inspired by Kate's energy, but also seems to have a special understanding of her loneliness.

The 2003 sections are set almost entirely in the Mall. The two chief characters there are Lisa, who is assistant manager of a CD and video store, and Kurt, one of the security guards. Their connection with the 1984 story emerges only gradually, in the midst of an account of their frustrating dead-end jobs, their sometimes-comic relationships with their co-workers, and their discovery of one another. It is particularly interesting to see behind the scenes at the Mall, and visit the miles of unpainted concrete block corridors behind the glittering facades. The place becomes a metaphor for life, with most of the characters in the book inhabiting its unglamorous underside. But the people themselves are not uninteresting; indeed, the bleaker their environment, the more we get drawn into their lives as people.

Catherine O'Flynn says that she herself played detective as a child, and worked in a mall music store as an adult, jotting down notes that became the material for much of this book. Perhaps too much; there are times in both periods when the narrative thread is almost lost in the proliferation of anecdote. But this is an engaging book, and when the author pulls the two plot strands together (albeit with the aid of a few coincidences and a tinge of the supernatural) towards the end, it also becomes quite a moving one.

A really good book with many keen observations. The characters really come to life. The book is a good mix of sadness, comedy, and hope!

I was so disappointed with this book. I had high hopes, but found the story very slow and boring. I had a very hard time finishing it, and felt it was a waste of a very long week. The resolution was summed up in one page, and there was nothing leading up to it, just nothing happening until all of the sudden it just ended.

The child's talking and adventures at the mall went way too far into the book, which became very irritating, the middle of the book was boring, the end of the book predictable. Good writing, 1* story.

Why write a book about Amazon when all the info is on the website, you all ask? It's simple: to provide a hard-copy ready reference, and this book COVERS IT ALL. Everything dealing with both sides (buyer/seller) is here. Also is excellent for those new to the online-shopping experience. A crucial book, and a top-floor volume in the Dummies series.

I should have read this book first and avoided alot of problems THANK-YOU ILS.jess

IT says in the title this book is by "Mara Friedman and mara friedman" but do not be mislead, this is only one person so you get a biased point of view throughout the book. It's basically next to useless: you can't order things from the book, you can't start your own competing website. It doesn't even tell you how.

The "Dummies" series has really fallen down. The last good one they wrote was "Post-It Notes for Dummies" which provided a much-needed rarely-explored analyses of the history of the Post-it, misconceptions on the Post-it (they are not ALL yellow, believe it or not) and multiple uses for the Post-it. One time this model on the catwalk was totally covered in Post-its like she was wearing a Post-it dress. It was very cool.

In summary if you don't like leaving notes lying around DO NOT buy Post-Its and do not bother buying the Post-It book. Unless you want to start your own competing post-it company or something.

Amazon seems to have a lot of zombies wandering around. So many people jumping around screaming at one another about subjects they know nothing about. People that think Modest Mouse is the next Beatles, then of course everyone raving about Al Gore's new movie. The puppets dance and the crowd cheers for more as their marionette strings bob up and down. They scream when you question their intelligence and they cry when you make them realize that the Da Vinci code, and broke Back Mountain are fictional tales and not some kind of in your face "movement". What they need is a primer to help better guide the strings with. This book is a tool that they can use for that!!!

ok so i've never read this book, but if you need a book to navigate amazon.com, then you should just give me your money instead. I mean, I know it's hard to type a word and press enter, and then press buy; i think the real difficulty of amazon.com is how the author managed to write XXX pages about navigating amazon.com. Having said that, it almost makes me want to buy this book, so I'm changing my 1 Star to 2.

Like the subject line says. The readers the authors have in mind must be very (very!) beginner-level computer users. Here's two examples of this hand-holding from one page:

"Zen Cart's drop-down menu works in 2 ways: 'hover' your mouse pointer over an Admin Category to see a drop-down menu or click on a menu item..."

"... we will use the following convention '->' to indicate the steps... Thus, if you read (Click on Configuration -> My Store' - this means: First - click on the 'Configuration' link and then Click on the 'My Store' link."

If either of those points was new to you, then this is the book for you. (But, should relative newbies be venturing into Zen Cart?)

Also, I opted for the download version. I wish I hadn't! Two problems. The digital book runs as a (clunky!) executable, which prompts the user for a security code. Fair enough. But, when I tried to read it at work, the office firewall (I guess) would not allow the executable to access the internet -- and, not being my office's SysAdmin, I couldn't alter the permissions. So, I can only read this book at home. Fair enough, again. Cause there's a print-out option. But, that's the second problem. When printing some of the book's tables, right-most columns get cut off. I tried different settings on my printer, but, no go.

Anyway, the other reason I'm writing this, is to direct people who are not so new to PC's as to not know what "PC" stands for that there's a better set of online guides. Have a look at the Zen Cart section of "www. madmumbler.com". I wish I'd known about them before I plonked down my hard-earned yen!

Again, this book is not bad -- except for the printing problem with the digital version, which is bad. It's just too simple.

This book is an over priced, overly simplified guide to Zen Cart. There is nothing here that any reasonably knowledgeable person wouldn't already know or could learn in the help file. No insight at all. The graphics and layout are decidedly low tech making its relatively high price a poor value.

I am finding this book very helpful. I am not exactly a new user. I messed around with a number of oscommerce like cart systems before I settled on Zencart to actually use. I think you need a book to help describe all the ins and outs and this book helps with that. I choose between this book and the other one promoted on the Zen website more less randomly. I skipped most of the begining part about installing the program and use it to look up different features. I think it does as good a job as possible leading someone through the installation process. I'll say however, that setting up a Zen cart is not something a rank beginner should try if you need a store running quickly. This book does not cover add-on modules or the template system but either does the other one. Almost everyone will need to mess with addons and the template to some degree so you are pretty much forced to seek help through the forums. I have a store running now and this book helped. There have been some very frustrating moments and the process is quite time consuming.

First, if you're a beginner to ecommerce and you have no idea what you're doing, I recommend this book wholeheartedly. That's what it's for. Well, four stars-- see below.

If you know what you're doing, or you want to do anything semi-technical like migrating from another store like oscommerce, using EasyPopulate, importing from databases et cetera, I still give this book three stars.

I felt like it was missing a short appendix on data imports. They aren't all that hard, but they are semi-technical and it seemed like the author wanted to shy away from that to avoid scaring people. So put it at the end of the book where the newbies don't have to look at it.

Finally, as someone else here said, the layout is extremely ugly.

All in all, good book, and if you're going to be working with ZenCart you should probably have it. If you're new to ecommerce or not skilled with web tech stuff, you should definitely have it. But it's lacking in a couple of respects. Perhaps, guys, this could be corrected in a new edition?

I was opening an ecommerce store and debating between zen and oscommerce so I sent for two books this and another. When this book came I was highly disappointed. The printing was large to expand the book. The content was poor and over-priced. Baby Einstein Day On The Farm Gift Basket