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Fake

By Kati Stevens
Series: Object Lessons
0.0 (0 reviews)
3.61 goodreads logo

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Check link for latest rating. ( 33 ratings, 15 reviews)
Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
Fake by Kati Stevens is part of the Object Lessons series, revealing the hidden histories and cultural significance of imitations in everyday life. From ancient prosthetics to modern faux furs and meat analogues, the book explores why society often mistrusts "fakes" despite their pervasive presence. Stevens examines our psychological and socioeconomic relationships with these replicas, illustrating how they reshape our ideas of authenticity and value.
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Format: Paperback / softback
$2199
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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

Ideal for readers interested in arts, culture, design, and social psychology, this book appeals to those curious about the meanings behind everyday objects and the evolving concept of authenticity.

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Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.

The electric candle and faux fur, coffee substitutes and meat analogues, Obama impersonators, prosthetics. Imitation this, false that. Humans have been replacing and improving upon the real thing for millennia โ€“ from wooden toes found on Egyptian mummies to the Luxor pyramid in Las Vegas. So why do people have such disdain for so-called โ€œfakesโ€?

Kati Stevens's Fake discusses the strange history of imitations, as well as our ever-changing psychological and socioeconomic relationships with them. After all, fakes aren't going anywhere; they seem to be going everywhere.

Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.

Series: Object Lessons

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  • Bicycle
    Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. These days the bicycle often appears as an interloper in a world constructed for cars. An almost miraculous 19th-century contraption, the bicycle promises to transform our lives and the world we live in, yet its time seems always yet-to-come or long-gone-by. Bicycle by...
    By Dr Jonathan Maskit
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  • Rust
    Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Itโ€™s happening all the time, all around us. We cover it up. We ignore it. Rust takes on the many meanings of this oxidised substance, showing how technology bleeds into biology and ecology. Jean-Michel Rabatรฉ combines art, science, and autobiography to share his...
    By Professor Jean-Michel Rabatรฉ
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  • Bookshelf
    Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Every shelf is different, and every bookshelf tells a different story. One bookshelf can creak with character in a bohemian coffee shop, while another can groan with gravitas in the Library of Congress. Bookshelf by writer and historian Lydia Pyne explores these differences...
    By Lydia Pyne
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  • Burger
    Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. The burger, long the All-American meal, is undergoing an identity crisis. From its shifting place in popular culture to efforts by investors such as Bill Gates to create the non-animal burger that can feed the world, the burgerโ€™s identity has become as malleable...
    By Carol J. Adams
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  • Cigarette Lighter
    Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Smokers, survivalists, teenagers, collectorsโ€ฆ The cigarette lighter is a charged, complex, yet often entirely disposable object that moves across these various groups of people, acquiring and emitting different meanings while always supplying its primary function, that of ignition. While the lighter may seem...
    By Jack Pendarvis
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  • Earth
    Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. In Earth, a planetary scientist and a literary humanist explore what happens when we think of the Earth as an object viewable from space. As a โ€œblue marble,โ€ โ€œa blue pale dot,โ€ or, as Chaucer described it, โ€œthis litel spot of erthe,โ€ the...
    By Professor Jeffrey Jerome Cohen and Profsesor Linda T. Elkins-Tanton
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  • Egg
    Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. This book is about a strange objectโ€”strange in part because it is something that we all have been, and that many of us eat. Nicole Walker's Egg relishes in sharp juxtapositions of seemingly fanciful or repellent topics, so that reproductive science and gustatory...
    By Dr. Nicole Walker
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  • Eye Chart
    Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Desert nomads tested their vision by distinguishing a pair of stars. But we have since created more disquieting ways to test the strength of the eyes. Reading the eye chart is an exercise in failure, since it only gets interesting when you cannot...
    By Professor William Germano
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  • High Heel
    Best Fifteen Books of March 2019, Refinery29Best Nonfiction Books of 2019, Paste Magazine Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Fetishized, demonized, celebrated, and outlawed, the high heel is central to the iconography of modern womanhood. But are high heels good? Are they feminist? What does it mean for a...
    By Summer Brennan
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  • Hood
    Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. We all wear hoods: the Grim Reaper, Red Riding Hood, torturers, executioners and the executed, athletes, labourers, anarchists, rappers, babies in onesies, and anyone whoโ€™s ever grabbed a hoodie on a chilly day. Alison Kinneyโ€™s Hood explores the material and symbolic vibrancy of...
    By Alison Kinney
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  • Jet Lag
    Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Jet lag is a momentary condition resulting from the human body and its inner clock being pitched against the time-leaping effects of modern aviation. But more than that, it is a situation that explains time, technology, and the human body. Jet lag epitomises...
    By Dr. Christopher J. Lee
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  • Mushroom
    Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. They are the things we step on without noticing and the largest organisms on Earth. They are symbols of inexplicable growth and excruciating misery. They are grouped with plants, but they behave more like animals. In their inscrutability, mushrooms are wondrous organisms. The...
    By Dr. Sara Rich
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Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?

Fake has been praised for its insightful critique of authenticity and imitation. The Seattle Book Review notes it as a compelling examination of what we seek in "real" versus fake objects. Emily Anthes, author of Frankensteinโ€™s Cat, calls it "fascinating, clever, and utterly perspective-altering," highlighting Kati Stevens as the genuine article in thoughtful cultural analysis.

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Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781501338137

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 20 September 2018

Country: United States

Imprint: Bloomsbury Academic

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 14.0mm

Width: 118.0mm

Height: 164.0mm

Weight: 151g

Pages: 160

Collections

Arts & Culture Education & Reference Fashion & Design Kati Stevens Non-Fiction Philosophy & Psychology Philosophy & Stoicism Series: Object Lessons

About the Author

Kati Stevens is a public affairs specialist based in Washington, D.C. Her writing has appeared in The Hairpin and The Billfold.

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