Wednesday, June 19, 2013

The Worst Years of Our Lives

1990, first edition, from Pantheon
Barbara Ehrenreich
The Worst Years of Our Lives: Irreverent Notes from a Decade of Greed
Original price $19.95, purchase price $4.00
Good condition hardcover
C+

I knew it was a bad sign when I enjoyed the more serious essays, especially on economics, than I did the more "irreverent notes."  (Although I will credit her for predicting the Snugli.)  She's not painfully unfunny, she's just not in the league of Katha Pollitt, able to zero in on the truth and be marvelously flippant at the same time.  (Reasonable Creatures will be in 1995.)  The essays here are arranged by topic rather than chronologically, although there is a lot from '89.  Her perspective is atheist left-wing feminist, pre-Baby-Boomer (born in '41), mother of two.  I recall her Nickel and Dimed as a better, more focused book, but I don't own it.

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