Shoplifting from American Apparel

By Tao Lin

"Tao's writing ... has the force of the real."--Ben Lerner, author of The Topeka School

This autobiographical novella is described by the author as "a shoplifting book about vague relationships," and "an ultimately life-affirming book about how the unidirectional nature of time renders everything beautiful and sad."

From VIP rooms in hip New York City clubs to central booking in Chinatown, from New York University's Bobst Library to a bus in someone's backyard in a Floridian college town, from Bret Easton Ellis to Lorrie Moore, and from Moby to Schumann, Shoplifting from American Apparel explores class, culture, and the arts in all their American forms through the funny, journalistic, and existentially-minded narrative of someone trying to both "not be a bad person" and "find some kind of happiness or something."

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1933633786
• ISBN13: 9781933633787
• Release Date: September 2009
• Publisher: Melville House Publishing
• Length: 112 Pages
• Weight: 0.31 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.1" x 7.1"

Customer Reviews

i got this book at my library and read it in 2 hours and it was good.

Tao lin's writing is good. He only uses words that belong on the page -- no extras, no metaphors, no figurative language -- and that is important in creating a starkly realistic work of fiction. Tao knows what he is doing and those who say he is a 'bad' writer probably don't know what they are talking about. Those people probably believe that if writing is not like the writing they like then it is bad. Tao is not bad. Tao is furthering the minimalist movement, along with K-mart realism and American Literature in general. If you like good writing, American writing, realistic writing, or just want to try something new, or just want to be judgmental: buy this book. Buy it even if you don't want it. Put it on your bookshelf and tell people you are hip because you have a novella of contemporary american lit and the author is a starving artist. Buy it either way.

The best book I've ever paid for

Tao Lin is a good writer, in my opinion. This novella was well-written, to be honest. He is an award-winning author so I kinda expected that. I kinda wished the cover font was in helvetica. Might have looked like an American Apparel ad, funny. I wonder if this is his best-selling book... Either way, this is good book and it made me laugh. It felt relatable and my life was much better after reading it. I used to be depressed and after reading this I felt less depressed. This book is avant-garde because it had g-mail chats inside of it and it sounded like a normal conversation. It's a good read. You should buy it. I highly recommend it.

a kind of quiet space

i adore Tao Lin. i adore the quietness of his writing, and how understated his poetry and short stories are. Shoplifting is gloriously quiet, and the beauty for me doesn't come so much from the way is written, as much as the way that it builds. i read a review on "the Guardian", and had read some of Lin's poetry in "The Lifted Brow" (an australia-based literary journal) and on that basis, was really curious about Shoplifting. it's soft, and yeah, not a great deal happens. but, it has a deeper resonance than that. or maybe it's not deeper. maybe it's just a set of observations, that moves like thinking does. either way, it's one of my favourite books i've read in a long time, and he's one of my favourite writers. and don't miss his Twitter feed, either....

A One-Hour Read

When I was reading this book, I found that I didn't really like any of the characters and realized it was because they were so easy to relate to people in real life, including myself. There are no pretensions. I liked it because there was nothing in it that was like the drivel you find in other books about how people are. I recommend it.