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Title details for There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job by Kikuko Tsumura - Available

There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job

by Kikuko Tsumura
ebook
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"[A] 21st-century response to Herman Melville's 'Bartleby, the Scrivener.'" -NPR


"A thought-provoking, drily funny critique of capitalism and the systems of self-worth that are built around it." -TIME, "Must-Read Books of the Year"
A young woman walks into an employment agency and requests a job that has the following traits: it is close to her home, and it requires no reading, no writing, and ideally, very little thinking.
Her first gig—watching the hidden-camera feed of an author suspected of storing contraband goods—turns out to be inconvenient. (When can she go to the bathroom?) Her next gives way to the supernatural: announcing advertisements for shops that mysteriously disappear. As she moves from job to job—writing trivia for rice cracker packages; punching entry tickets to a purportedly haunted public park—it becomes increasingly apparent that she's not searching for the easiest job at all, but something altogether more meaningful. And when she finally discovers an alternative to the daily grind, it comes with a price.
This is the first time Kikuko Tsumura—winner of Japan's most prestigious literary award—has been translated into English. There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job is as witty as it is unsettling—a jolting look at the maladies of late capitalist life through the unique and fascinating lens of modern Japanese culture.
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Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Kindle Book

  • ISBN: 9781635576924
  • Release date: March 23, 2021

OverDrive Read

  • ISBN: 9781635576924
  • Release date: March 23, 2021

EPUB ebook

  • ISBN: 9781635576924
  • File size: 902 KB
  • Release date: March 23, 2021
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Formats

Kindle Book
OverDrive Read
EPUB ebook

subjects

Fiction Literature

Languages

English

"[A] 21st-century response to Herman Melville's 'Bartleby, the Scrivener.'" -NPR


"A thought-provoking, drily funny critique of capitalism and the systems of self-worth that are built around it." -TIME, "Must-Read Books of the Year"
A young woman walks into an employment agency and requests a job that has the following traits: it is close to her home, and it requires no reading, no writing, and ideally, very little thinking.
Her first gig—watching the hidden-camera feed of an author suspected of storing contraband goods—turns out to be inconvenient. (When can she go to the bathroom?) Her next gives way to the supernatural: announcing advertisements for shops that mysteriously disappear. As she moves from job to job—writing trivia for rice cracker packages; punching entry tickets to a purportedly haunted public park—it becomes increasingly apparent that she's not searching for the easiest job at all, but something altogether more meaningful. And when she finally discovers an alternative to the daily grind, it comes with a price.
This is the first time Kikuko Tsumura—winner of Japan's most prestigious literary award—has been translated into English. There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job is as witty as it is unsettling—a jolting look at the maladies of late capitalist life through the unique and fascinating lens of modern Japanese culture.
Expand title description text
Fiction Literature