The Virago Book of the Joy of Shopping

by Jill Foulston

Jane Austen found her sister Cassandra a locket. Joan Didion bought nail enamel and a toaster on impulse. Karyn Bosnak charged $20,000 on credit cards, and Elizabeth Wurtzel got caught shoplifting. George Eliot, for some reason, hated shopping. Jane Eyre cringes at Mr Rochester's pre-wedding excess, while Undine Spragg's spending drives her husband to despair. The Girl with a Pearl Earring turns up her nose at some stale meat, Tom Ripley lusts after Venetian leather, and Mrs. Dalloway chooses flowers on Bond Street. As people began to shop more, novelists imagined them doing it. The darker side of shopping is here in the letters, diaries, and memoirs of those who remember blackmarkets and rations. There are even records from the England's central criminal court of audacious and desperate five-finger discounts, and a recent account of brawling at IKEA. The Virago Book of Shopping revels in the lists, the etiquette, and the thrills of finding just the right thing.

Genres: Fashion

320 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Isheeka · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was torn between 3 and 4 stars for this, because there were lots of passages that I skipped, because they weren't really speaking to me and because I feel a bit time-poor at the moment. But I've decided on 4 stars because the bits that I did read (around two-thirds of the book) were so delightful in their humour and astuteness. I felt like these women were my kind of women, women like me. I loved the perfectly described joy, extravagance, folly, impulsiveness and regret of shopping by all these women who, across decades and even across centuries, had equally rich, fraught and complex relationships with shopping. I don't think this book should be called 'The Joy of Shopping' if only because it does explore so much more than just the joy of it.