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Whiter Shades Of Pale: The Stuff White People Like, Coast To Coast, From Seattle's Sweaters To Maine's Microbrews (2010)

by Christian Lander(Favorite Author)

3.7 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

0812982061 (ISBN13: 9780812982060)

languge

English

genre

Humor

publisher

Random House Trade Paperbacks

review 1: I did not read the first one but my brother who rarely reads thought it was hilarious and pretty much forced me to read through this one. Some points it made me smile thinking how fondly I fit the stereotypical white person, some things I didn't even know about like the really old tomatoes and some sections I just skipped over because they were boring. It's like a guidebook. It reminded me a lot of the Hipster Handbook. Except the illustrations were really poorly done. It even mentioned hipster, hippie, artist and freelancer writers related things a lot.
review 2: There is, at its core, only one real joke here: overeducated, organic, NPR-listening, insecure white people are worthy of mockery. That joke, though, never stops being funny as Lander pokes at it from... more dozens of angles over the course of the book. Some of the articles hint at honest concerns for potentially self-destructive behavior (Raw Milk and Not Vaccinating Your Children, among others), but most of the articles are light and silly (Girls With Bangs, Sea Salt, and Ugly Sweater Parties are among my favorites). Personally, I'm not NPR enough to identify with too many of the stereotypes described in the book, but I'm liberal and overeducated enough to get close, and I love that, especially for a culture of people who are often afraid to discuss issues of culture out of a fear of seeming insensitive, this book (and the blog from which it originated) challenges assumptions and priorities with humor to help us see that even white people are part of a culture that looks weird to outsiders, and we should accept that and laugh. less

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