1. Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, by Barbara Ehrenreich
This was my second attempt at this book -- I've been doing a lot of that lately, starting and stopping books. I just figure life is too short and there are too many good books out there to bother with ones that don't interest you. But I had heard too many wonderful things about this particular book, among which was that I could not consider myself a true bleeding-heart liberal and not read it. So I did, and I urge everyone else in the world to also. It's heartbreaking and eye-opening and infuriating, all at the same time.
The book chronicles the author's attempt to live on minimum wage, and she does so in three different parts of the country (the Keys, near her actual home, coastal Maine and the Twin Cities). She took abundantly reasonable steps to make the experiment as real as possible to mimic the experiences of your average blue-collar worker who would have to settle down and try to make a life for him or herself. But, unlike many such folks, she did not have a spouse or any children to support, and she was not burdened with any debt.
And (spoiler alert!, but only if you live in a hole), she couldn't do it. A single, middle-aged, healthy woman could not support herself, eat a semi-healthful diet, and live in anything other than squalor, on minimum wage. And the experiences she recounted of how she was treated in these minimum wage jobs was so depressing, causing many uncomfortable flashbacks of the summer my parents made me work at KMart. Nepotism got me that job (dad was the pharmacist) the summer in between my sophomore and junior years of college (my unpaid internships for the U.S. Congressman and the United Way weren't satisfactorily contributing to the bottom line). My "education," energy and work ethic -- relative to the middle-aged woman who had spent their lives on their feet at those cash registers -- shot me to Employee of the Month and Customer Service Desk Manager a mere two weeks into the job, and I will never forget the disgust and disdain flowing from my co-worker (she was not my supervisor, even though she had been there 12 years and I had been there two weeks), when I got to leave early one day because my new contacts were irritating my eyes. Because who the hell was I? Some college snot without a clue as to how privileged I was, evidenced by the ridiculous amount of time I spent bitching to my parents about that job.
So anyway, a quick must-read, frustrating in that you're left not knowing what you can do to solve a massive problem in our society. But at the very least, the tips we leave will be as large as we can afford, we'll do our best to show our respect, and our children will definitely be forced spend a few summers working shit jobs for no money.
2. Grace (Eventually), Thoughts on Faith, by Anne Lamott
This is the fourth book of hers that I've read, and she is by far one of my favorite writers. Reading most of her non-fiction (the books are largely reprints of columns and essays published previously -- she has written a lot for Salon), is a deeply personal endeavor. She talks motherhood, politics, family, friends, disease, and body image, all with a spiritual bent. Not necessarily a book for the atheists or cynics in the crowd, but definitely one for those of us who are overwhelmed sometimes by fear and self-doubt, and who need help to be reminded to just slow down and take a deep breath.
