Sociology — Book Reviews — Dinaburg Writes

Don't Make Me Pull Over!: An Informal History of the Family Road Trip

Structurally, it swings between light personal anecdote and researched didacticism. Tonally, it is like talking to my dad. The author is a total square, and speaks with the casual paternalism born of white, Midwestern, upper middle-class comfort. Take, for example, the position of language regarding airline deregulation:

With some basic parameters and policies for the aviation industry set, the job seemed done.
Except, of course, it wasn’t. In fact, the government was just getting started. As bureaucracies tend to view such matters, if a few good rules are sufficient, then many more are even better. The aviation industry also became swept up in a wave of sentiment opposing free market competition in the 1930s.

I’m not sure whether the anecdotes or the history lessons taught me more, but Pull Over! was at its best when it blended the two.

David DinaburgJune 1, 2021Non-Fiction, Travel, Sociology, Driving, Memoir

Very Important People: Status and Beauty in the Global Party Circuit

Much like you need to be “above 5’9” and under 6 feet” to be considered a model, you need to know what words will be used and how in each specific frame of reference. But VIP never moves too fast, or assumes you come into the pages knowing exactly what a high-end club looks, sounds, or feels like. The book never punishes you for being outside, looking in: in fact, it is presented from the liminal space between inside and outside the scene. As both erstwhile model and active sociologist, the author is in the field, participating without disrupting; an important facet of why the book works as well as it does. As reader, you never feel left outside the velvet ropes so the author can flex their intellectual fortitude.

David DinaburgJanuary 10, 2021Non-Fiction, Nightlife, Sociology