PositiveThe Times Literary Supplement (UK)Woloson’s book is a history of buying \'crap\' – Magic Wand hand mixers, Beanie Babies, knock-off Staffordshire figurines, devices to measure the freshness of eggs (The Eggs Ray), hair in a can, Thighmasters, Baconizers – as well as a dossier of marketing ploys including one of the most fundamental of all: the \'allure of infinite variety\', or the art of heterogeny ... The book meticulously categorizes ephemeral goods by selling tactic, including an enthralling chapter on how sales of mid-twentieth-century mass-produced souvenir plates and collectable figurines were driven by sensationalist backstories and artificial scarcity, promoted through magazines and collectors’ fan clubs ... These tales are both cautionary and accusatory. As consumers, we have all bought into this seductive and corrupt system.
