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ABOUT THE BOOK

Have you ever worked in a minimum-wage job? Do you know what it means to "stretch" a dollar? If you answered YES to any one of these questions, this book is for you. Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich is a true account of the author's experience trying to survive while making a living on six to seven dollars an hour. Her efforts to find a "good paying job" lead her to move from Florida to Maine and then to Minnesota. She discouvers that even low-pyaing jobs can be a mental and physical strain on the body, and that sometimes it takes two low-paying jobs just to make ends meet.

Nickel and Dimed was selected by the LU Common Read Book Committee for its engaging dialogue, and for the broad range of intellectually stimulating campus activities and topics for discussion that it can provide. The Committee members felt strongly that the book conveys a true sense of American life, and therefore would be a of great interest to the campus community. We hope you enjoy the first Common Read book, Nickel and Dimed.

 ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Barbara Ehrenreich is the author of numerous widely published articles and essays and several books, including the New York Times bestseller Nickel and Dimed. She received teh Sydney Hillman Award for Journalism and a Brill's Content "Honorable Mention" (1999) for a chaper of her book, Nickel and Dimed, (Owl Books, 2002) which appeared in Harper's Magazine in January 1999. A second essay entitled "Maid to Order," which grew out of her research for Nickel and Dimed, was also published in Harper's Magazine (2000(.

Ms. Ehrenreich has Ph.D. in Biology from Rockefeller University. She has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards, including a grant for Research and writing from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation (1995). In 1998 and in 2000 she taught essay writing at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley.

Other works by Ms. Ehrenreich include, Fear of Falling: The Inner Life of the Middle Class (Pantheon Books, 1989), which was nominate for a National Book Critics' Award in 1989, Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream published in 2005, and most recently, Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy (January 2007). Ms. Ehrenreich resides in Virginia.

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