June 19, 2005
Working
This book, written in the early 70s by Studs Terkel, was on the shelf at my mom's house, but I never picked it up there. I saw it again on the bookshelf at work where we've amassed English books.
I read it mostly on the train to and from work, sometimes in the morning before making breakfast for the children. Studs Terkel did many hours of interviews with people from all walks of life, having them all talk about their jobs, careers, work. It's not clear what generalizations you can draw from it all, except to say that lots of people had it a lot harder than I do.
If you work, worked, or know people who do, or did, you might want to read this one. It left me feeling that having a meaningful occupation is psychologically quite important, but just working is something we as human beings should be occupying ourselves with freeing each other from.
Posted by Mark at June 19, 2005 03:41 PM