We don’t think we hate cheap things, of course, but we often behave as if we do. We rarely properly appreciate what is around us and doesn’t appear to cost very much – for example, the night sky, pencils, fried eggs, zips, and the holding of hands.

This essay explores the way we can grow disenchanted with our immediate circumstances and pine for what is exotic, costly and out of reach, and gently returns us to ourselves, full of new found wonder and gratitude. Combining literature, economics and sheer good sense, Why We Hate Cheap Things reawakens us to the world around us and to the latent beauty and interest of what we have.

Chapters include:

• Why We Look Down on People Who Don’t Earn Very Much
• On Being an Unemployed Arts Graduate
• Good Materialism
• Why We Are So Bad at Shopping
• Business and the Ladder of Needs
• Using Sex to Sell