The Books Briefing: The New Literature of Burnout

Early Retirement: a short story

“From a distance, the hum of the highway sounded like waves crashing into land. In his bed, he would pull the covers over his head and imagine being in the ocean. Alone and at peace.”

📚 “Early Retirement,” by Brontez Purnell

THEA TRAFF

Only your boss can cure your burnout

“Burnout is a problem created by the workplace, and changes to the workplace are the best way to fix it.”

📚 Dying for a Paycheck, by Jeffrey Pfeffer

GETTY

Why normal people want to work in Silicon Valley

“There are plenty of abuses of power and absurd anecdotes in Uncanny Valley—a manager forcing a job applicant to take the LSAT on the spot stands out—but the strangest thing about the book is how well it makes Silicon Valley look like a mirage that anybody could be taken in by.”

📚 Uncanny Valley, by Anna Wiener

PETER MARLOW / MAGNUM

This is what happens when society ‘has to function’

“Yun [Ko-Eun]’s late-capitalist satire makes the case that the identity we find through work is almost always shaped by how we have been exploited—or how we have exploited others.”

📚 The Disaster Tourist, by Yun Ko-Eun

RAE RUSSEL / GETTY

The paradox of caring about ‘bullshit’ jobs

“One of the pleasures of reading [Kikuko] Tsumura is her focus … on the care in ostensibly meaningless jobs. She treats boring, unextraordinary people in boring, unextraordinary jobs with an enchantment that many contemporary novels about work seem to actively avoid.”

📚 There’s No Such Thing as an Easy Job, by Kikuko Tsumura

📚 Bullshit Jobs: A Theory, by David Graeber

📚 Temporary, by Hilary Leichter

📚 The New Me, by Halle Butler

About us: This week’s newsletter is written by Kate Cray. The book she’s reading next is Whereabouts, by Jhumpa Lahiri.

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