TASTE: Why You Like What You Like

Berger’s book, “Taste: Why You Like What You Like”, is written in the author’s characteristically informal and highly accessible style and notebook-style presentation, with his own lively illustrations and minimal jargon, making it particularly attractive to students who are new to the field. It encourages students to see the topic of taste as highly relevant to their everyday lives. Short extracts from other sources alert readers to some key voices offering different perspectives. This usefully comparative approach encourages students to reflect on the differences and to consider which are most productive for their own purposes. The book is wide-ranging but (wisely for a slim volume) does not seek to be comprehensive, and the choice of topics and examples is necessarily selective (it would be useful to learn later from the readership which examples are most widely regarded as most useful). Above all, Berger’s introduction communicates enthusiasm for the pursuit of understanding its topic and offers tools for students to apply for themselves.

Dr. Daniel Chandler

Aberystwyth University, Wales

Berger approaches the topic of taste with an open eye and a broad perspective. His book with the title “Taste – Why you like what you like” provides the reader with many intellectual tools to approach the pervasive phenomenon of taste. Taste is often tied to personal choice and taste is ubiquitous in today’s world of consumption that offers us so many products among which we can choose, while we think we express ourselves. However, Berger shows that taste is not pure; rather, it is tied to many factors that lie outside of us. The starting point is the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu who has rooted taste in distinction and social classes. Our taste expresses where we are embedded in our society and where we want to go, simultaneously exposing our efforts to those who can read them. The value of the book is that Berger includes theory from semioticians, psychoanalysts, sociologists, Marxists, journalists, and others. This broad perspective is really helpful to understand the complex phenomenon of taste and its many invisible mechanisms.

Prof. Dr. Brigitte Biehl

SRH Berlin University of Applied Sciences

Berlin School of Popular Arts, Germany