Starstruck: The Business of Celebrity
Currid-Halkett (The Warhol Economy) takes a tasty subject and rehashes it into sawdust in her repetitive study of celebrity. She dissects the  collective fascination with some people over others,   postulating that our preference for watching television and surfing the Internet over actual engagement has created a public  lonelier than ever   but with free, instant access to indulge our  voyeuristic tendencies.   Analyzing the appeal of personalities as disparate as Paris Hilton and Bill Gates, she concludes unremarkably that celebrity has little to do with talent or fame, but with an unquantifiable  light   recognized and exploited by those whose livelihoods depend on star-based revenue, including the media. Having made this point, the remainder of the book is reiteration, supported with diagrams and tables that seem unnecessary in supporting the incontrovertible conclusion that  celebrity ultimately hinges on whether we decide to pay attention or not.   A glimmer of interest flares on the penultimate page of the book, when Currid-Halkett observes that,  on the whole many of us care far more about  Aniston'  s latte than the thousands being murdered in Sudan,   a more puzzling phenomenon that could have proved a more promising focus.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.