Consumed: How We Buy Class in Modern Britain

Part memoir, part romping social history, part pop-economics primer, Class is a book about who we are in Britain today from The Daily Telegraph's award-winning Retail Editor, Harry Wallop.

Harry delves into the muddle of class distinctions and definitions, characteristics and etiquette to get to the bottom of what class is and how it has radically changed since the 1950s. Class tells the story of how social divisions have softened as Britain has got richer, more modern, more meritocratic, how the definitions and the structures of class have evolved resulting in the swelling of the middle classes. Harry argues that class divides have not disappeared, as some would like to suggest, but that we are still obsessed, if not more so, by categorising ourselves along social dividing lines, but that the benchmarks are no longer our titles, acres owned or what our parents did, but the food we eat, our holiday destinations, where we shop, our clothes, our cars, our books, our homes. This is the story of how what we consumed came to define who we are.

As Retail Editor Harry has spent a disproportionate amount of his working life chronicling the buying habits of the British people, what is selling at John Lewis, what food is no longer popular at Tesco, where they holiday, what property they can afford, their salaries and savings. Using this unique insight, archives and interviews, as well a look back at his own class-confused upbringing, Harry builds a compelling narrative and a new outlook on Britain's social landscape.

So, whether you sit on a couch, settee or sofa? Do your weekly shop in Waitrose, Asda or Sainsbury's? Holiday in Devon or Spain? it says a lot more about you and your class than you might think ...