"Everything but the Coffee" by Bryant Simon

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"Everything But The Coffee" - Learning about America from Starbucks by Bryant Simon

The first thing one might be inclined to do upon picking up this book, is to attempt to remove the "illusional" coffee ring from the front cover. Clever. It's part of the jacket design! But don't let that fool you into thinking this is a light read because it's not.

I've only gotten through the first 30 pages and already I'm feeling like a bit of a "sheep." Why do so many of us wander into Starbucks every day on "auto-pilot?" Well, according to this author, it's for "everything but the coffee."

We are consumers. We also like to think of ourselves as educated which means that we can't just drink any old coffee. Or maybe we're working from home and need a spot to meet a friend or colleague.

Here's an excerpt:

"Most have food, plenty of clean, drinkable water, and roofs over their heads. The bulk of our spending, then, is devoted to things that we don't really need to survive. . ."

Wow. That's deep. You can read more excerpts at:


http://www.amazon.com/Everything-but-Coffee-Learning-Starbucks/dp/0520261062/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274375305&sr=1-1

Yikes - gotta run - I'm supposed to meet a friend at Starbucks in 20 minutes :)

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