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This year, the
theme of our summer reader is "civic
engagement". This particular theme will
allow students to think critically about social
issues, foster "informed" civic engagement on
our campus (and hopefully, in our communities),
and create a great intellectual understanding
and commitment to participate in the civic life
of our country.
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---About the
Book---
The New York Times
bestseller, and one of the most talked about books of the year,
"Nickel and Dimed" has already become a classic of
undercover reportage. Millions of Americans work for
poverty-level wages, and one day Barbara Ehrenreich decided to
join them. She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding
welfare reform, which promised that any job equals a better
life. But how can anyone survive, let alone prosper, on $6 to $7
an hour? To find out, Ehrenreich moved from Florida to Maine to
Minnesota, taking the cheapest lodgings available and accepting
work as a waitress, hotel maid, house cleaner, nursing-home
aide, and Wal-Mart salesperson. She soon discovered that even
the "lowliest" occupations require exhausting mental and
physical efforts. And one job is not enough; you need at least
two if you intend to live indoors. Nickel and Dimed
reveals low-wage America in all its tenacity, anxiety, and
surprising generosity -- a land of Big Boxes, fast food, and a
thousand desperate strategies for survival. Instantly acclaimed
for its insight, humor, and passion, this book is changing the
way America perceives its working poor. |
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What Others Are Saying... |
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--About the Author--
Barbara Ehrenreich is the author of Nickel and Dimed,
Blood Rites, The Worst Years of Our Lives (a New York
Times bestseller), Fear of Falling, which was
nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award, and
eight other books. A frequent contributor to Time,
Harper's, Esquire, The New Republic, Mirabella, The Nation,
and The New York Times Magazine, she lives near Key
West, Florida. |
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