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Books, 'n stuff
Oct. 9th, 2005 10:32 amYesterday morning, when Ross, the kid, and I were at the mall picking up shoes for the kid's halloween costume, I wandered into the Waldenbooks and wandered out with Barbara Ehrenheich's Nickle and Dimed - On (Not) Getting By in America. (And also Cheri "![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
wicked_wish" Priest's Four and Twenty Blackbirds - there was much exclaiming when we saw it, face proudly out, on the shelf. And Terry Pratchett's latest too. Yesterday was a very good day for books. And shoes, but I digress.)
If you're not familiar with the premise of the book, Amazon's review sums it up thusly: "Essayist and cultural critic Barbara Ehrenreich has always specialized in turning received wisdom on its head with intelligence, clarity, and verve. With some 12 million women being pushed into the labor market by welfare reform, she decided to do some good old-fashioned journalism and find out just how they were going to survive on the wages of the unskilled--at $6 to $7 an hour, only half of what is considered a living wage. So she did what millions of Americans do, she looked for a job and a place to live, worked that job, and tried to make ends meet."
Last night, at about 4:30 am, I finished Nickel and Dimed; I tried and failed to put it down at several points between midnight and 4:30. The book is both compelling, and easy to read (once you get past her habit of switching between the present and the past tense to refer to past events). It's also sobering; she points out "Just bear in mind, when I stumble, that this is in fact the best case scenario: a person with every advantage that ethnicity and education, health and motivation can confer attempting, in a time of exuberant prosperity, to survive in the economy's lower depths." Ehrenreich's experiment occured in the boom times of 2000, in tight job market. When I was finished the book, my overwhelming question was "my god, what happened to all of the people she met under George Bush?" It's a sobering, and depressing thought.
My other thought? I'm never going to hire one of the big chain cleaning services, not least because of the way they treat their workers; the way they compel their employees to clean houses is also pretty horrific.
It's also a book I feel compelled to pass on; if anyone wants to borrow the book, please let me know.
wicked_wish" Priest's Four and Twenty Blackbirds - there was much exclaiming when we saw it, face proudly out, on the shelf. And Terry Pratchett's latest too. Yesterday was a very good day for books. And shoes, but I digress.)If you're not familiar with the premise of the book, Amazon's review sums it up thusly: "Essayist and cultural critic Barbara Ehrenreich has always specialized in turning received wisdom on its head with intelligence, clarity, and verve. With some 12 million women being pushed into the labor market by welfare reform, she decided to do some good old-fashioned journalism and find out just how they were going to survive on the wages of the unskilled--at $6 to $7 an hour, only half of what is considered a living wage. So she did what millions of Americans do, she looked for a job and a place to live, worked that job, and tried to make ends meet."
Last night, at about 4:30 am, I finished Nickel and Dimed; I tried and failed to put it down at several points between midnight and 4:30. The book is both compelling, and easy to read (once you get past her habit of switching between the present and the past tense to refer to past events). It's also sobering; she points out "Just bear in mind, when I stumble, that this is in fact the best case scenario: a person with every advantage that ethnicity and education, health and motivation can confer attempting, in a time of exuberant prosperity, to survive in the economy's lower depths." Ehrenreich's experiment occured in the boom times of 2000, in tight job market. When I was finished the book, my overwhelming question was "my god, what happened to all of the people she met under George Bush?" It's a sobering, and depressing thought.
My other thought? I'm never going to hire one of the big chain cleaning services, not least because of the way they treat their workers; the way they compel their employees to clean houses is also pretty horrific.
It's also a book I feel compelled to pass on; if anyone wants to borrow the book, please let me know.
