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Book Review: Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber

January 8, 2025 by Carolynn

Book Review: Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber

Click for current price: Amazon US, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Australia

Apple, Nook, Kobo, GooglePlay (It’s FREE at your local library!)

Oh, boy, do I have feelings for this book. Errr … and thoughts. One thought is that the data, “38-40% of jobs are bullshit” is inaccurate. When I looked up the stats, the number is one in twenty—much lower.

That said, I’ve had bullshit jobs before, and I’ve known people who have bullshit jobs. Which brings me to another problem with the book. Dr. Graeber believes that bullshit jobs (which he describes as a job where you feel like you do nothing, or you feel what you do is “pernicious”) corrode your soul and your health. I agree with this … sort of … I knew a lot of people who loved their bullshit jobs.

Still, I found it interesting, and it was written from a perspective I don’t normally hear, that of an anarcho-socialist.

Anyway, here’s the blurb:

From David Graeber, the bestselling author of The Dawn of Everything and Debt—“a master of opening up thought and stimulating debate” (Slate)—a powerful argument against the rise of meaningless, unfulfilling jobs…and their consequences.

Does your job make a meaningful contribution to the world? In the spring of 2013, David Graeber asked this question in a playful, provocative essay titled “On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs.” It went viral. After one million online views in seventeen different languages, people all over the world are still debating the answer.

There are hordes of people—HR consultants, communication coordinators, telemarketing researchers, corporate lawyers—whose jobs are useless, and, tragically, they know it. These people are caught in bullshit jobs.

Graeber explores one of society’s most vexing and deeply felt concerns, indicting among other villains a particular strain of finance capitalism that betrays ideals shared by thinkers ranging from Keynes to Lincoln. “Clever and charismatic” (The New Yorker), Bullshit Jobs gives individuals, corporations, and societies permission to undergo a shift in values, placing creative and caring work at the center of our culture. This book is for everyone who wants to turn their vocation back into an avocation and “a thought-provoking examination of our working lives” (Financial Times).

Filed Under: Book Reviews Tagged With: Bullshit Jobs, David Graeber

Featured Sci-fi: Steadfast Star (Interstellar Fleet Book 2) by J.J. Green

January 4, 2025 by Carolynn

Featured Sci-fi: Steadfast Star (Interstellar Fleet Book 2) by J.J. Green

99¢ New Release
Click for current price: Amazon US, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Australia

Apple, Nook, Kobo, GooglePlay

Three ships

One fleet

Many destinies

As Carys Ellis travels to the Polaris system she isn’t too concerned about what might happen. Whatever the future holds, it can’t be worse than her past.

And if it weren’t for her birds she wouldn’t even be aboard the Bres, flagship of the Interstellar Fleet.

But there’s more to the world of the Steadfast Star than expected. The true nature of the beings inhabiting the strange system is revealed, and the lives of all of Carys’s shipmates come under threat.

Carys goes from lowly aviary keeper to the most important person in the crew. She must figure out the answer to the problems facing them, or it’s the end of the voyage for everyone.

Steadfast Star is book two in the exciting space mythic adventure, Interstellar Fleet.

Filed Under: Box Set List Featured Sci-Fi, The Box Set List Features Tagged With: Interstellar Fleet, J. J. Green, Steadfast Star

Featured Sci-fi: Terran Diaspora Anthologies by Daniel Gibbs, Christopher Schmitz, & More

January 4, 2025 by Carolynn

Featured Sci-fi: Terran Diaspora Anthologies by Daniel Gibbs, Christopher Schmitz, & More

Start the Series FREE (Book 2 & 3 only 99¢!)
Click for current price: Amazon US, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Australia

Discover the origins of some of your favorite characters. Witness intense galactic battles from all-new perspectives in one exciting anthology.

Support technician Kenneth Lowe volunteers for a high-dollar job with mysteriously few takers after a crushing breakup. Instead of greener pastures, he finds himself on a desolate planet embedded with a Marine detachment in an epic battle for survival.

Lieutenant Jackson Adams goes undercover to nail a corrupt Coalition officer. But someone else gets to the evidence first, and getting it back from the beautiful thief-for-hire and her silent sidekick will prove more than an adventure.

Major Felix Rothbard’s career hit the skids after rejecting the official narrative that ended Jim Henry’s time in the CDF. When an intelligence recovery mission becomes a desperate extraction, his own position is on the line when he refuses to leave any man behind.

Washed out historian Morton Barley explores the ruins of the derelict medical ship Desmond Doss that suffered a devastating crash without ever firing a shot in battle. He’s determined to solve the mystery of the vanished crew—even if it kills him.

The CSV Zvika Greengold has a new commander since Colonel Terhani’s retirement. But the burden of leadership means more than promotion for Captain Dorva Feldstein—especially when she must send brave men and women out to die.

Experience bravery, honor, and sacrifice across the universe from the minds of your favorite science fiction authors Daniel Gibbs, Steve Rzasa, Steven T. Gary, and Joel Steudler.

Filed Under: Box Set List Featured Sci-Fi, The Box Set List Features Tagged With: Christopher Schmitz, Daniel Gibbs, Tales from the Coalition Defense Force, Terran Diaspora Anthologies

Featured Fantasy: An Easy Death (Gunnie Rose Book 1) by Charlaine Harris

January 4, 2025 by Carolynn

Featured Fantasy: An Easy Death (Gunnie Rose Book 1) by Charlaine Harris

$1.99 as of January 4, 2024
Click for current price: Amazon US, Canada (Regular price: United Kingdom, Germany, Australia)

Apple, Nook, Kobo, GooglePlay

From the beloved #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Sookie Stackhouse series, comes a gripping, twisty-turny read following a young gunslinging mercenary on deadly mission through the American Southwest.

In a fractured United States, a new world where magic is acknowledged but mistrusted, a young gunslinger named Lizbeth Rose takes a job offer from a pair of Russian wizards. Lizbeth Rose has a wildly fearsome reputation but these wizards are desperate. Searching the small border towns near Mexico, they’re trying to locate a low-level magic practitioner believed to be a direct descendant of Grigori Rasputin.

As the trio journey through an altered America—shattered into several countries after the assassination of Franklin Roosevelt and the Great Depression—they’re set on by enemies. It’s clear that a powerful force does not want them to succeed in their mission. Lizbeth Rose has never failed a client, but this job may stretch her to her deadly limits.

“Immersive, involving, suspenseful and intriguing, with a main character you’ll love” (Lee Child, #1 New York Times bestselling author), An Easy Death is a fast-paced thriller of the highest order.

Filed Under: Box Set Featured Fantasy, The Box Set List Features Tagged With: An Easy Death, Charlaine Harris, Gunnie Rose

Featured Sci-Fantasy: Heart of Iron by Ashley Poston

January 3, 2025 by Carolynn

Featured Sci-Fantasy: Heart of Iron by Ashley Poston

$1.99 as of January 3, 2024
Click for current price: Amazon US, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Australia

Apple, Nook, Kobo, GooglePlay

*A 2019 Rainbow Book List Selection*

An action-packed tale full of romance, royalty, and adventure, inspired by the story of Anastasia. Perfect for fans of Six of Crows,Cinder, and the cult classic television show Firefly.

Seventeen-year-old Ana is a scoundrel by nurture and an outlaw by nature. Found as a child drifting through space with a sentient android called D09, Ana was saved by a fearsome space captain and the grizzled crew she now calls family. But D09—one of the last remaining illegal Metals—has been glitching, and Ana will stop at nothing to find a way to fix him.

Ana’s desperate effort to save D09 leads her on a quest to steal the coordinates to a lost ship that could offer all the answers. But at the last moment, a spoiled Ironblood boy beats Ana to her prize. He has his own reasons for taking the coordinates, and he doesn’t care what he’ll sacrifice to keep them.

When everything goes wrong, she and the Ironblood end up as fugitives on the run. Now their entire kingdom is after them—and the coordinates—and not everyone wants them captured alive.

What they find in a lost corner of the universe will change all their lives—and unearth dangerous secrets. But when a darkness from Ana’s past returns, she must face an impossible choice: does she protect a kingdom that wants her dead or save the Metal boy she loves?

Filed Under: Box Set Featured Fantasy, Box Set List Featured Sci-Fi, The Box Set List Features Tagged With: Ashley Poston, Heart of Iron

Featured Fantasy: A War for Magic (Legacy of Light Book 1) by M.Lynn & Michelle Bryan

January 3, 2025 by Carolynn

Featured Fantasy: A War for Magic (Legacy of Light Book 1) by M.Lynn & Michelle Bryan

FREE as of January 3, 2024
Click for current price: Amazon US, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Australia

Apple, Nook, Kobo, GooglePlay

A thrilling fantasy adventure perfect for fans of George R.R. Martin and Brandon Sanderson.

Some prophecies aren’t meant to come true.

Prince Trystan Renauld doesn’t believe in the ancient power that once helped his kingdom thrive. The tales say that on the day of his birth, the Tri-Gard, legendary keepers of the magic, stripped it from the very earth and then disappeared, leaving the people to suffer in a dying land.

Now, it’s been twenty years and crops fail to thrive, the earth no longer connected to the ones it once served.

With war on the horizon, Trystan must do anything he can to prepare his people. Even if that means following his sister on a hunt to find the lost keepers and restore a power that might not be real.

Rissa has always known two things. She is in love with Davion, her father’s ward, and no one can ever find out.

When it becomes apparent the kingdom needs her for more than an advantageous marriage, she takes the chance to break free of her chains.

The Tri-Gard is out there. She knows it is.

Along with her brother and Davion, she’s determined to find it.

But, the greatest danger doesn’t come from the enemy amassing on the border. It’s been among them all along.

Dive into this epic fantasy romance with unique worldbuilding, engaging characters, and an impossible love story where good and evil are sometimes the same thing.

Filed Under: Box Set Featured Fantasy, The Box Set List Features Tagged With: A War for Magic, Legacy of Light, M. Lynn, Michelle Bryan

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