So there used to be, like, no fun or interesting books about grocery stores and grocery store… stuff. Then Julian Montague released his amazing and comprehensive “The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification” in 2006. A marvelous achievement! Have you seen it?
And in 2007 I submitted my own opus, “Milk Eggs Vodka: Grocery Lists Lost and Found,” a compilation of abandoned grocery lists discovered in grocery carts, market floors, and parking lots across the country.
And now here we are in 2008. What’s left? Oh, plenty, trust me. Hillary Carlip also collects other people’s discarded shopping lists. And she’s been doing it longer than I have. She recently put out a wonderful book called “A la Cart: The Secret Lives of Grocery Shoppers,” in which she imagines and assumes (quite literally and astoundingly!) the identity of the shoppers behind her found lists and writes some backstory about them. I love it. You will too. More: alacartthebook.com