Rob Walker is the "Consumed" columnist for The New York Times Magazine, and the author of Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are (Random House, 2008). Part business report, part cultural anthropology, Consumed explores how and what consumers are responding to in the marketplace. The column is regularly reprinted in many publications all over the world and used a variety of college courses.

"Buying In" assesses branded and material culture in the 21st century - how we got here, and where we might go. The book is "an often startling tour of new cultural terrain," according to Salon, which named the book one of the five best nonfiction works of 2008. According to Michael Pollan: "The most trenchant psychoanalyst of our consumer selves is Rob Walker."

In addition to the Times Magazine, Walker's work has appeared in a wide variety of other publications, from Adbusters to The Wall Street Journal. He is also the proprietor of his own consumer/marketing/design/culture web site, www.murketing.com. That name - Murketing - refers to perhaps his central theme: the convergence of marketing and everyday life.

Rob Walker lives in Savannah, GA, with his wife, photographer Ellen Susan, and their dog, El Rey de los Perros.