Nickel and Dimed: On (not) Getting By in America -by Barbera Ehrenreich

Nickel and Dimed is Barbera Ehrenreich's account of her brief (3 or so month) sojourn into the world of the lower-class worker, the individual (and in this case, primarily women) who works at Wal-Mart, or waitresses, or is a maid- jobs which are generally considered "unskilled."

She does this as an experiment to see how the 1996 welfare reform affected workers who had previously been on welfare or were just barely eligible. and to test the theory that all one needs to escape poverty is a job.

To say her memoir is heart-breaking or eye-opening doesn't do it justice by a stretch. Through her re-telling it becomes eminently clear how seemingly hopeless the situation we've wrought in this country, for the poorest among us, is, and the feeling this revelation most starkly generates is not just guilt, but rather shame at how complacent we are with the situation, and how unwilling any of us are to do anything about it.

It's a problem far to epic and ingrained for any single politician or single piece of legislation to fix, but most likely would require a complete rethinking of the economic machinations of our country.

Despite the book first being published in 2001 (and the experiment itself taking place over the summer of 1999) it's as informative and important a read now, as it was 6 years ago, if not more so, considering just how much more dire the situation can become in such a short span of time.

This is a great book for anyone to check out, but especially for anyone who thinks that any job whatsoever is a ticket out of poverty needs to read this book.

That's one of my favourite books ever written.

I'm currently rereading the Harry Potter series. Several chapters into Prisoner of Azkaban now.

Currently reading The Fires of Heaven by Robert Jordan. The fifth book in The Wheel of Time series. I think it's the third time i'm reading it now, and it's about now that it's starting to get a bit booring. It's a real shame that Jordan put down so much time on describing every detail about everything instead of making things happen all the time.

The Golden Compass (or Northern Lights in the UK)

I finished it last evening and was not surprised in the least that I enjoyed it as much as I did, considering all the praise the trilogy has received since it was released. I intend to start The Subtle Knife this afternoon and will most likely complete it in one sitting. I can't wait to dive back into the story.

I am a bit torn as to whether or not the trilogy ought to be considered "children's literature" because despite containing many elements of other children's fantasy, particularly The Chronicles of Narnia (child protagonist, talking animals) unlike the Narnia series, or even Harry Potter, The Golden Compass, and from what I've read, it's sequels, are much darker and deal in a much more mature way with its themes and situations its characters find themselves in.

As well, the writing for both Narnia and Harry Potter is very whimsical and innocently humorous, and while this isn't a complaint, the same can't be said about The Golden Compass.

I'll try and expand on this when I finish the trilogy and post my comments in here.

Decided to pick up Silence of the lambs by Thomas Harris, and i'm glad i did. I finished the book in two days. First time in looong time that i really feel like finishing a book as quick as possible. The film is great, but the book is, as usual, a lot better. Very well written and Lecter is a great character.

His Dark Materials features a lot of dark and mature themes, but for that matter so does Harry Potter in the later years. Of course, it's quite likely that whether one would qualify that as being appropriate for children would depend on one's views of the themes addressed within; there are some rather controversial themes addressed within, even moreso than the already fairly liberal politics of Harry Potter.

speaking of which, I'm rereading the Potter series now. Four-fifths of the way through Goblet of Fire as we speak.

Still on book six, Half-Blood Prince, further on the book, I can give a good opinion of my current thoughts. Thus far, I can say its more interesting than book five was, which was really good. Harry delving into Voldemort's past so we can get a better perspective on him, I found that pretty interesting. I also like knowing more about the main villain other than "he's eval!" The two attempted murders so far have pretty interesting. Hermione and Ron's little arguments and **** were expected, but enjoyable nonetheless. Harry seems a bit more horny around Ginny, I notice. And I notice Ron and Hermione refusing to admit they're like eachother seems pretty typical, but again, enjoyable. Book's been pretty good so far, as I've said, and I'm waiting to see more on Voldemort, and to find out what happened to Dumbledore's hand. D: