Editor Reviews:

Product Description:
They love nothing better than sipping free-trade gourmet coffee, leafing through the Sunday New York Times, and listening to David Sedaris on NPR (ideally all at the same time). Apple products, indie music, food co-ops, and vintage T-shirts make them weak in the knees.

They believe they’re unique, yet somehow they’re all exactly the same, talking about how they “get” Sarah Silverman’s “subversive” comedy and Wes Anderson’s “droll” films. They’re also down with diversity and up on all the best microbrews, breakfast spots, foreign cinema, and authentic sushi. They’re organic, ironic, and do not own TVs.

You know who they are: They’re white people. And they’re here, and you’re gonna have to deal. Fortunately, here’s a book that investigates, explains, and offers advice for finding social success with the Caucasian persuasion. So kick back on your IKEA couch and lose yourself in the ultimate guide to the unbearable whiteness of being.

Praise for STUFF WHITE PEOPLE LIKE:

“The best of a hilarious Web site: an uncannily accurate catalog of dead-on predilections. The Criterion Collection of classic films? Haircuts with bangs? Expensive fruit juice? ‘Blonde on Blonde’ on the iPod? The author knows who reads The New Yorker and who wears plaid.”
–Janet Maslin’s summer picks, CBS.com

“The author of "Stuff White People Like" skewers the sacred cows of lefty Caucasian culture, from the Prius to David Sedaris. . . . It gently mocks the habits and pretensions of urbane, educated, left-leaning whites, skewering their passion for Barack Obama and public transportation (as long as it's not a bus), their idle threats to move to Canada, and joy in playing children's games as adults. Kickball, anyone?”
–Salon.com

“A handy reference guide with which you can check just how white you are. Hint: If you like only documentaries and think your child is gifted, you glow in the dark, buddy.”
–NY Daily News

Rating : - What upper middle class americans like
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.