Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture

ELLEN RUPPEL SHELL is a correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly and writes for Discover, The New York Times Magazine, Smithsonian, and other publications. She is associate professor and codirector of the Program in Science Journalism at Boston University.

How did Americans become the most voracious consumers in the world? This book unmasks the transformation of a frugal nation into one made up of the world's most notorious spendthrifts. Shell offers a historical perspective that spans the various steps of this transition at all levels of the economy--from department stores to supermarkets. Lorna Raver is an apt narrator for this title because her voice has the mature quality of one who may have seen some of the events she recounts. Her dry tone conveys the sardonic subtext that runs throughout the narrative as it switches between objective and subjective accounts in equal parts. She explains with gusto the growth of the discount market in the U.S. M.R. © AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine