Sex and Real Estate : Why We Love Houses

Rating:
Summary: Dreadful
Review: After quickly exhausting the cultural significance of Jello-O boxes in her previous book, SYMPTOMS OF CULTURE, Marjorie Garber has now produced little more than a book for realtors. The result is banal and rather stupid--anything but revelatory. But perhaps the reader below doesn't take the criticism far enough: this book has really nothing to say about the scandalous cost of real estate in most major U.S. cities, the large number of people who are homeless, and the millions of folks who are gouged every month by unscrupulous landlords (how sexual is that, Professor Garber?). Until recently, cultural critics expressed nominal interest in improving our society. Nowadays, concerned only about their fat publishing advances, all they seem able to do is exhibit nauseating complicity with society's ugliest elements.

Rating:
Summary: Dreadful
Review: After quickly exhausting the cultural significance of Jello-O boxes in her previous book, SYMPTOMS OF CULTURE, Marjorie Garber has now produced little more than a book for realtors. The result is banal and rather stupid--anything but revelatory. But perhaps the reader below doesn't take the criticism far enough: this book has really nothing to say about the scandalous cost of real estate in most major U.S. cities, the large number of people who are homeless, and the millions of folks who are gouged every month by unscrupulous landlords (how sexual is that, Professor Garber?). Until recently, cultural critics expressed nominal interest in improving our society. Nowadays, concerned only about their fat publishing advances, all they seem able to do is exhibit nauseating complicity with society's ugliest elements.

Rating:
Summary: I read it in my (too small and soon to be redone) bathtub
Review: Don't excoriate Garber for the title of this book; authors typically don't choose the title or write jacket copy. It is true that the book has little to do with sex. It should probably be titled "Miscellaneous thoughts on American houses". If you're about to buy, remodel, or sell a house, this book will make a nice comforting read in the tub. It is sort of like watching Jerry Springer or Oprah and realizing that there are plenty of people whose lives are even more messed up than one's own. Skip the book if you're not about to engage in a huge real estate transaction of some sort.

Rating:
Summary: I read it in my (too small and soon to be redone) bathtub
Review: Don't excoriate Garber for the title of this book; authors typically don't choose the title or write jacket copy. It is true that the book has little to do with sex. It should probably be titled "Miscellaneous thoughts on American houses". If you're about to buy, remodel, or sell a house, this book will make a nice comforting read in the tub. It is sort of like watching Jerry Springer or Oprah and realizing that there are plenty of people whose lives are even more messed up than one's own. Skip the book if you're not about to engage in a huge real estate transaction of some sort.

Rating:
Summary: House and Home
Review: For those interested in the difference between house and home, this IS the book. Not only is it an intense review of the comparison of house and home, but it tackles the topic of the contemporary obsession with the past and instant tradition. References a lot of literary texts as well as psycho-analytical studies and "Emily Post" style writings.

Rating:
Summary: House and Home
Review: For those interested in the difference between house and home, this IS the book. Not only is it an intense review of the comparison of house and home, but it tackles the topic of the contemporary obsession with the past and instant tradition. References a lot of literary texts as well as psycho-analytical studies and "Emily Post" style writings.

Rating:
Summary: Only for the Professional!
Review: Okay, I read all the other views, but I sell Real Estate, and lots of it - I can tell you that she nails the emotions many people attach to their homes. If you make your living selling homes you will find this book helpful, especially if you've had a run of nut case buyers!

Rating:
Summary: Only for the Professional!
Review: Okay, I read all the other views, but I sell Real Estate, and lots of it - I can tell you that she nails the emotions many people attach to their homes. If you make your living selling homes you will find this book helpful, especially if you've had a run of nut case buyers!

Rating:
Summary: Inane Nonsense
Review: This book is so bad, it deserves less than one star. I'm surely not alone in wondering why the William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of English at Harvard has stooped to publishing this kind of nonsense. Garber obviously thinks she's being hip in discussing "grabby" topics like "sexy" real estate, but the result is simply embarrassing and puerile--a new intellectual low for cultural studies, which in most quarters is already straining for credibility.

Rating:
Summary: Frivolous but fun
Review: This is a fascinating concept, and a marketable one as well, in light of America's current infatuation with the Edifice Complex. Considering the author's scholarly credentials, SEX AND REAL ESTATE should have been a absorbing book. "Should have" is the pivotal phrase here. No question that Garber's body of knowledge is vast--she hops all over the map with only the most tenuous connection to her thesis. Maybe she merely was showing off how much smarter she is than the average reader. While I have no doubt but that this fact is true, the book still quickly descends into boring psychobabble. Anyone seeking enlightenment is bound to be disappointed.