Part Fast Food Nation, part Bobos in Paradise, STARBUCKED combines investigative heft with witty cultural observation in telling the story of how the coffeehouse movement changed our everyday lives, from our evolving neighborhoods and workplaces to the ways we shop, socialize, and self-medicate.
In STARBUCKED, Taylor Clark provides an objective, meticulously reported look at the volatile issues like gentrification and fair trade that distress activists and coffee zealots alike. Through a cast of characters that includes coffee-wild hippies, business sharks, slackers, Hollywood trendsetters and more, STARBUCKED explores how America transformed into a nation of coffee gourmets in only a few years, how Starbucks manipulates psyches and social habits to snare loyal customers, and why many of the things we think we know about the coffee commodity chain are false.
"Starbucked is ...smart cultural criticism minus any academic gobbledygook. Mr. Clark is quite funny as he dryly sends up the excess of the corporate behemoth, and Starbucked is an entertaining, highly readable book....Full of cocktail-party-worthy tidbits." --Adelle Waldman, New York Observer
Description:
From Publishers Weekly
There's a double shot of skepticism in this account of Starbucks' ascendancy as a permanent fixture in the global landscape written by Clark, a Portland-based journalist, who's been mulling over Starbucks ever since the coffeehouse chain opened three branches in his small Oregon hometown. His coverage begins with a Seattle trio who set out to emulate the high-quality coffee of the California-based Peet's chain, before Howard Schultz took over the company and laid plans for its massive expansion. While Clark grudgingly admires Starbucks' ability to repackage coffee as beverage entertainment for a hyperprosperous society in search of emotional soothing, there's a lot he doesn't like about the company. He's convinced that Starbucks diminishes the world's diversity by ruthlessly outmaneuvering local competition on a global scale, and dubs the baristas' work as a textbook McJob. Even the quality of the coffee, he says, has gone downhill. Though Clark loses some of his focus by trying to rope in so many arguments against Starbucks, overall, his dubious perspective on one of the modern world's most ubiquitous icons is just frothy enough to prove entertaining. (Nov. 5)
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Product Description
Part Fast Food Nation, part Bobos in Paradise, STARBUCKED combines investigative heft with witty cultural observation in telling the story of how the coffeehouse movement changed our everyday lives, from our evolving neighborhoods and workplaces to the ways we shop, socialize, and self-medicate.
In STARBUCKED, Taylor Clark provides an objective, meticulously reported look at the volatile issues like gentrification and fair trade that distress activists and coffee zealots alike. Through a cast of characters that includes coffee-wild hippies, business sharks, slackers, Hollywood trendsetters and more, STARBUCKED explores how America transformed into a nation of coffee gourmets in only a few years, how Starbucks manipulates psyches and social habits to snare loyal customers, and why many of the things we think we know about the coffee commodity chain are false.
"Starbucked is ...smart cultural criticism minus any academic gobbledygook. Mr. Clark is quite funny as he dryly sends up the excess of the corporate behemoth, and Starbucked is an entertaining, highly readable book....Full of cocktail-party-worthy tidbits." --Adelle Waldman, New York Observer