Each month, Books & Booze spotlights a new title that sparks fresh perspective and meaningful conversation.
From bold nonfiction to culturally rish fiction, our picks are chosen to challenge, inspire, and connect us through dialogue.
Distinction: A Social Critique of The Judgement of Taste by Pierre Bourdieu
In this foundational work of sociology, Bourdieu explores how our tastes in art, food, culture, and lifestyle are never purely personal. Instead, they are deeply shaped by class, education, and social context.
Taste, he argues, functions as a social force: a way often unconscious through which individuals differentiate themselves from others, signal belonging, and assign value both to cultural objects and to themselves.
What we like, what we reject, and how we present our preferences quietly reproduce social hierarchies.
A sharp lens on cultural capital, power, and identity, Distinction invites us to question where our preferences come from and what they say about the worlds we move through.