Nik Kroushl

I really wanted this to be a framework or guide post for setting out what you want in a “good enough job”, a work of philosophy maybe. (I read it because Oliver Burkeman recommended it and I really liked Four Thousand Weeks.) But it was more a work of journalism examining some different aspects of our relationship to work through the stories of individual workers, with a few broader statistics thrown in. It was fine for what it was but very little of the book contained new ideas for me and the authors conclusion is kind of just “a lot of our problems with work are institutional and societal, but you probably should just find your own middle ground between caring about your job and building a life outside it”.

At times nausea inducing, always fascinating, either the characters writ large on the page. Gaps where I wanted to know more in some places (like, I wanted to know how Westover dealt with moving in with her partner and overcoming the “living in sin” thoughts) and cyclical in others (many of the stories with Shawn were essentially playing out over and over, although I understand this to be a reflection of the realities of abuse).