SDSU’s Summer Book Program – Have You Started Reading Yet?

By now, most of you should have started reading the 2005 Summer Book Reading Program selection, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich. If you haven’t, it’s not too late. You can pick up a copy at the SDSU Bookstore at a 15 percent discount.

The Summer Reading Program, introduced at SDSU in fall 2004, is a way to connect all students to each other and to the SDSU community. Students who read the book share a common experience, and are offered opportunities to discuss its themes within small groups of students, faculty and staff. Refer to the Summer Reading Program Web site for more information.

Published in 2001, “Nickel and Dimed” stemmed from Ehrenreich’s questions about the impacts of welfare reform during the late 1990s on low-wage workers. The book presents a different view of the “prosperity” of that period by chronicling the author's experiences working in tedious jobs at the bottom of the economic ladder.

Ehrenreich's book became a New York Times bestseller. A chapter published in Harper’s in 1999 received the Sydney Hillman Award for Journalism and a Brill’s Content “Honorable Mention.” Another chapter – “Maid to Order” –  published by Harper’s in 2000 generated so many letters that the magazine had to create a special section to accommodate them.

Joan Holden’s stage adaptation of the book has also been well received and will be produced by SDSU’s School of Theater, Television, and Film in the fall 2005 semester.

Ehrenreich will visit SDSU during Family Weekend, on September 30. Her visit is sponsored by the Division of Student Affairs, the SDSU Honors Council, and the President’s Leadership Fund.

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