EULA. BISS

A timely and arresting new look at affluence by a consistently surprising writer. "My adult life can be divided into two distinct parts," Eula Biss writes, "the time before I owned a washing machine and the time after." Having just purchased her first home, she now embarks on a roguish and risky self-audit of the value system she has bought into. The result is a radical interrogation of work, leisure, and capitalism. Described by The New York Times as a writer who "advances from all sides, like a chess player," Biss brings her approach to the lived experience of capitalism. Playfully ranging from IKEA to Beyoncé to Pokemon, across bars and laundromats and universities, she asks, of both herself and her class, "In what have we invested?"

Having and Being Had

Karolina

When time is money, as it is now, free time is never free.

At first, I don't understand why it's news that a man who has a woman doing all his housework is finding himself productive. But then I think maybe this is progress. Maybe what's news is that now we're calling this domination, when we used to just call it marriage.

The idea that unions are for people in bad jobs and that people in good jobs don't need to negotiate the terms of their service depends on the belief that good jobs are inherently good and can't be made bad, or more menial. It's a white-collar fantasy.

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