Encyclopedia of Bad Taste

by Jane Stern, Michael Stern

Alphabetically arranged, this humorous compilation of bad taste and mediocrity covers topics as diverse as fashion, music, people, places, food, furniture, automobiles, and more

Genres: Humor, Nonfiction, Reference, Pop Culture, History, Sociology, Coffee Table Books

331 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1990

Reviews

[Paul Bryant]

The subtitle of this heavenly concoction is: A celebration of American pop culture at its most joyfully outrageous.

This is not so much a book as an aspirin to banish gloom. Of course, America marches on and this book needs a major update to include such modern phenomena as Celebrity Rehab and Autobiographies by People who Aren't 25 Yet - still, it's a wonderful panorama of some truly ghastly shit. For instance

Aerosol cheese
Boudoir photography
(That special present for that special someone)
Breasts, enormous
(Can't mock Americans for that, we have this fetish over here too, but I liked that there was a page called "Breasts, enormous")
Death cars
Fingernail extremism ( I see that creeping in here - now there are entire salons springing up just for nails with slogans like "rake his back and make him howl with these razorsharp bejewelled babies" - no, I made that up. But nearly)
Liberace (So many facelifts he couldn't shut his mouth)
Meat snack foods

"Modern Americans buy meat snack food in shrink-fit plastic packages at the convenience store. They call the snacks Slim Jim, Chubby Sausage, the Big Jerk — manufacturers' words for sorbitol, sodium erythorbate, sodium nitrite, hydrolyzed vegetable protein, monosodium glutamate, corn syrup, and lactic acid starter culture combined with chunked, ground, and formed beef and mechanically deboned poultry. The term "meat snack," like "cheese food" and "creme filling," is food-industry poetry, used to evoke thoughts of meat (or cheese or cream) about products that contain little or none of the substance in question."

- this quote should be written into the Constitution or something like that. Genius!

Mood rings
Perky nuns
Pet clothing
Reclining chairs
Waltzing waters
Tammy Faye Bakker
(Didja ever see a documentary called "The Eyes of Tammy Faye Bakker"? It's a bug-eyed must-see. The stuff that poor woman went through.)
Baton twirling
Children's names
(Which have got immeasurably worse since this book came out - my daughter went to school with Bracken, Angel and DeQuayne)
Cool Whip
Dinosaur Parks
Lawn ornaments
Panty-hose Crafts
Shag Rugs
Sno-Globes (yes!)
Unicorns and rainbows
Velvet paintings
White lipstick

So : got any of those in your house?

[Denise]

Strange book. Vacillates between undisguised classism and racism (see: Low Riders, Mobile Homes) and loving, poetic devotion to The Rise of the Common Man (see: Jello, Cool Whip). I don't know what to make of it all. Beautiful presentation though.

[Laura]

Quite fun to read, though if you're like me, you'll blush while reading it because you actually like a lot of the stuff that appears (e.g., Twinkies).

[Grant]

Mildly entertaining.

[Frederic]

Not really that funny, not really that analytical or insightful. Makes a decent bathroom book though, the entries are short and varied.

[Chris Neal]

This one took me a few months to fully get through... because it was so intriguing, I could never full put it down or stop reading it.
It lists a ton of things society finds in "bad taste" from people (Dolly Parton) to fads (Disco) to things (TV Dinners) to all types of things....
Most pages have more than one photo of each thing as well, only a small handful don't have pictures to go along with said, listed item.

Warning, it's a NSFW book as it includes nudity in its pages in some photos.

Pretty full list that doesn't miss or forget about anything. I definitely thought most of the things in this book were things of "bad taste".

[Tracey]

A re-read, I got the Encyclopedia of Bad Taste as a library discard a few years ago.

As you'd probably guess from the title, this book has short articles (1-3 pages) about kitsch, tackiness and faux pas. Art, cuisine, music, fashion & celebrities are all represented. There could be more pictures for my taste, but the articles are relatively well-written and concise. Written in 1990, it focuses on 1950's- 1980's, with a strong emphasis (IMHO) on the 60's & 70's.

You may not agree with their evaluation of everything in here, but it's a fun read. It's an oversized book & therefore somewhat cumbersome to read.

[G--]

I discovered this book when I lived in Switzerland--yes, it was one of the very few books at our public library about American life. And it contains a hilarious caricature of the worst of American excesses. I was annoyed, and amused, that this is the image of our country that makes it out of the borders [and, quite frankly, I have to admit that it mirrors the image that many Europeans have of americans:] Big: big cars, big breasts, big paintings on black velvet.

[A.C.]

My friend gave this to me as a present one year. I gave her the only compliment that I thought was vaguely worthy of the book: it's in my bathroom library. This is a hilarious book that has topics from Jayne Mansfield and paint by numbers to Liberace and sweatsuits. It also works well as a bathroom book because all of the entries are pretty short. Liberace took a little while; his whole lifestyle was elaborate. If you can find a copy of this book, buy it. It will be well worth your money.

[David Ward]

The Encyclopedia of Bad Taste by Jane & Michael Stern (Harper Collins 1990)(306.4). Man-oh-man, whoever provided the ratings shown on Goodreads for this book were either reading something else or were members of the authors' press team. This book is poorly done, not funny, and dated. I'd recommend this to no one. My rating: 3/10, finished 1/21/14.

[Rie]

Interesting range of subjects, but ugly design. Worth it for the photo of Doris Day with those poodles.

[Gina]

Second favorite book of all time. The Sterns are geniuses and the photography is amazing, especially in the Twinkie and Artistry in Denim sections.

[Lee]

From Accordians to Zoot Suits, this book has all things Bad Taste. The photos are great and the topics are entertaining. Kitschy americana.

[Clover]

I never laugh out loud, except when reading from the Encyclopedia of Bad Taste, AKA the Book of Tacky. Truly wonderful, and the best present I ever got.

[Koeeoaddi]

The pictures! My eyes!

[Lisa Cattrone]

I highly recommend this book

[Elizabeth Sims]

Exhilarating. Funny as all hell. Wonderful.

[Julie Mickens]

Given that is book was written in the late 80s/early 90s, and mostly celebrates kitsch from the 1940s-70s, I read it feeling nostalgia for the nostalgia of an earlier time. The 80s-90s po-mo kitsch blender was actually pretty great, when the mid-century material culture was still the fat of the land, and before ebay scoured the thrift stores clean.

[Nicole Smith]

Not sure how this ended up on my radar, and I don't even remember putting it on hold at the library, but one day it was ready for me to pick up.

It sat in my living room, thumbed through by roommates and ignored by me until after it was overdue. So, I flipped through it, reading at least the title of each entry. What an interesting collection (and A LOT of photos of topless women...)

It was more information about each thing than I wanted to ingest, but interesting to flip through.

[SONA]

A bland and shallow encyclopedia of random “lowbrow” things from American culture. The Sterns do a great job of saying nothing about a lot. The encyclopedia features a random assortment of people, objects, hobbies, and phenomena from the likes of Dolly Parton and Jayne Mansfield to cool whip and Elvisana.

Bad taste has often been associated with “the common man” or “lower classes,” but in the words of John Waters, “There is such a thing as good bad taste and bad bad taste.” The Sterns fail to deliver any sort of nuanced analysis on why certain things resonate with the masses, and why certain things are labeled as “low class.” Instead they kinda only deliver smug, biting commentary on the white-washed history of the things that they have deemed to be low class.

[Dave]

This is the weirdest coffee table book of all time.

[John]

This is more a gag then anything in my opinion, about American excess. It feels a tad tongue and cheek, otherwise, it'd be a bit classicist and racist.

[Cyndy]

A good bathroom read I guess. Some entries were interesting.