Are Americans obsessed with shopping? Shop 'til You Drop is a lively look at our consumer culture and its role in our everyday lives and society. Is the United States different from other first-world nations in the amount of time we spend shopping or in our attitudes toward consumption? Are we one unified consumer culture or are several cultures operating and battling against one another? Arthur Asa Berger uncovers the answers to these and other questions, considering the sacred roots of consumer culture, the demographics of consumption, theories about competing cultures, and the semiotics of shopping. Accessibly written and entertaining, Shop 'til You Drop is ideal for courses in cultural studies, advertising, and American studies, as well as for anyone curious about our nation's drive to consume.

On the run from her past, Helen Hawthorne becomes a salesclerk at an elite clothing boutique in Fort Lauderdale - a seemingly mundane job that unexpectedly plunges her into a world of danger when she discovers that her employer has been embezzling money and dealing drugs. Original.

Gemologist Andrea Adams is suffering a bad case of burnout at her plum job in the New York Diamond District. So she swaps the Big Apple for Louisville, Kentucky, and joins the S.T.U.D. television shopping network as its newest host. When she's paired up with a hunky but clueless Ken doll of a cohost, Andrea wonders if she made the right move. Top it all off with foul play, a trip to Myanmar, and lots and lots of rubies, and you've got a story any woman would like to read. This exciting and fast-paced novel kicks off Ginny Aiken's Shop-Til-U-Drop Collection.

In his third published book, Enigma Beyond Illusion , Richard D. Kydd Jr. again demonstrates his compassion and concern for his fellow man, his anger at life's injustices, his deep sense of family and community, and his spirituality. With his skillful and often musical touch he operates on many levels at once, frequently blending seemingly opposed emotions. In "The Shopper's Song," for example, he evokes both humor and identification in his description of a compulsive spender, yet the reader can hear Kydd's tone of frustration at the debt that is consuming the poor. "A Quiet Dissertation" is simultaneously hilarious and disturbing, and the chuckle that "Binary Code" evokes is an uneasy one. Kydd's range is wide, swinging from the caustic social comment of "Yo Romeo" through the philosophical introspection of "Solitary Man," and expanding into the spiritual vision of "Life Calling Forth." Although he calls life as he sees it and is sometimes grittily realistic, even cynical and full of apparent despair, it's notable that a number of his works are love poems. Although capable of painting a harsh reality, Kydd is essentially an optimistic poet, and he amply demonstrates his belief that in the end the spirit will triumph, as in "Oh Victorious." This collection of poems will give the reader a full taste of Kydd's broad human vision.

In this age of high consumption shopping is going stronger than ever as a national pastime. We are a culture obsessed and beguiled by the desire for consumer goods. Journalist and shopping addict Klaffke documents the history of shopping, from a time when cattle were currency to the current age of contemporary shopping phenomenon like QVC and eBay. From the history of the mall, to a look at the darker side of shopping culture - kleptomania, shopping addictions, anti-consumerism - this is the definitive chronology of the materialist age.

Number 25 in this choose-your-own-scare series. Shut up in a haunted department store at midnight, you will have to contend with living gargoyles, a seriously disturnbed lift and a vampire night watchman whose guard dog could just be a werewolf...