The Way We Are

Rating:
Summary: This isn't rocket science...
Review: ...but it is good, clean, fun urban anthropolgy. Whether she's looking at gloves or stockings or wigs or the way we eat our food, Margaret Visser's essays are always light-hearted journeys through things we'd otherwise take for granted.

Other reviewers here have said this book is useless, since the information Visser collects is available elsewhere. That may be true, but what she does is bring it all together and present it in a uniformly enjoyable fashion.

I, for one, don't want to pend years sifting through all the sociology, anthropology and history texts that Visser has, just to unearth the "trivial" tidbits she brings to light. So I'm just grateful that she does all the dirty work, and happy for books like hers that I can flip through in my spare time.

Rating:
Summary: This isn't rocket science...
Review: ...but it is good, clean, fun urban anthropolgy. Whether she's looking at gloves or stockings or wigs or the way we eat our food, Margaret Visser's essays are always light-hearted journeys through things we'd otherwise take for granted.

Other reviewers here have said this book is useless, since the information Visser collects is available elsewhere. That may be true, but what she does is bring it all together and present it in a uniformly enjoyable fashion.

I, for one, don't want to pend years sifting through all the sociology, anthropology and history texts that Visser has, just to unearth the "trivial" tidbits she brings to light. So I'm just grateful that she does all the dirty work, and happy for books like hers that I can flip through in my spare time.

Rating:
Summary: No Rhyme or Reason
Review: One cannot help but wonder why the author bothered. She borrows facts lavishly from much better sources than herself, adds nothing, wanders from subject to subject without rhyme or reason and never tells you what she intends or intended. What a monumental waste of time!

Rating:
Summary: Very Enjoyable!
Review: Perhaps you ought to be a Visser fan before opening thiscollection of short newspaper essays -- Much Depends on Dinner is acomplete delight. It's definitely a light read, don't take it toseriously, each essay is highly digestible and quietly thoughtful.