John Bowe - Gig: Americans Talk About Their Jobs

Gig is a fascinating bookthe kind of dangerously episodic study of a big subject that can keep you up all night reading, since there's always time for one more threeor four-page chapter.An engrossing read that's a worthy successor to Terkel.

Washington Post Book World

Amazinga gem of a book that uses only the strength of the human voice to tell an American storysometimes dark, always fascinating.

USA Today

The accounts are wonderfully revealing with gritty and almost shockingly honest detail. For all their variety, they weave a cohesive, passion-filled story of what people bring to their work. It's an addictive read.

Harvard Business Review's Best Business Books of 2000

Keen, disturbing, and deeply felt the stories in Gig deliver a more rousing political wallop than those in Working remarkable and strangely moving.

Susan Faludi, Village Voice

Riveting.

Los Angeles Times

I love this book! It's surprising and entertaining and makes the world seem like a bigger and more interesting place. Gig manages to document everyday life and give pure narrative pleasure at the same time. One feels proud to live in the same country as the people in this book.

Ira Glass, host of NPR's This American Life

A fascinating compilation of what the American workforce has to say about itself.

George Plimpton

Eye-openingmore revealing than any theories a sociologist could concoct. The men and women of Gig126 of themgive a refreshing insight into the attitudes and frustrations of the modern workplace and, in so doing, reveal the literary stuff of dreams unrealized, courage in the face of personal failure, vanity, hubris, regret.

Industry Standard

Entertaining, sobering, validating Ordinary people discuss their jobs with extraordinary candor.

U.S. Weekly

Full of surprises inspiring.

Salon.com

[Gig] amply and repeatedly demonstrates that a tape recorder and some judicious editing can carve one beautiful story after another. You have before you a book that reads like the best party you could ever attend.

Feed magazine

The editors are making a challenging, refreshingand yes, political statement about what we call work.

Ms. magazine

In the age of advanced spin, this book accomplishes a very rare thing. It actually lets workers speak for themselves. No editorializing, no overinterpretation. The result makes for a fascinating read.

Andrew Ross, director of the American Studies Program at New York University

There are chapters that will have readers laughing out loud and passing the book along to spouses and coworkers.

Star-Tribune (Minneapolis)

Emotional and eye-opening, each compelling description offers insight about the job itself and, more important, an intimate view of a single human life.

Austin Chronicle

Nonfiction and fiction lovers, employed and unemployed alike, will enjoy this book and its captivating real-life characters.this wellconsidered, expertly crafted book manages to illustrate how work defines our lives while successfully dodging the tendency to impose a political angle on workers and their work.

Publishers Weekly

Although supermodel Heidi Klum and movie producer Jerry Bruckheimer are included, few famous workers get space in Gig, which is refreshing. Despite the thousands of pages devoted to celebrity journalism every month, it's a lot more interesting to read about a slaughterhouse human resources director or a buffalo rancher than an actor. I can only encourage you to go out and get your hands on this book.

Time Out New York

An engaging, humorous, revealing, and refreshingly human look at the bizarre, life-threatening, and delightfully humdrum exploits of everyone from sports heroes to sex workersall related with the casual intimacy of a barroom chat. From lube jobs to boob jobs, bartending to brainwashing, what makes this compendium so compelling is that no matter how weird the task, it's all in a day's work.

Douglas Rushkoff, author of Coercion, Ecstasy Club, and Media Virus

A remarkable collection of behind-the-scenes insights into how things work at work.

Details

A volume of remarkably entertaining and enlightening interviews with hundreds of Americans who seem to have no qualms telling the absolute honest truth about the way they choose to spend their days.In bringing these stories together, [the authors] have truly accomplished a remarkable feat: when someone asks what life was like in the year 2000, Gig has the answer.

Bookreporter.com

I did spend hours on end with this book, flipping back and forth among the often mesmerizing, personally revealing little discourses by all and sundry.

Kansas City Star

Funny, poignant, intelligent, bizarreand not to be missed.

Fast Company

Intensely readable.

Library Journal

This book would not have been possible without Tomas Clark, Philip Dray, Michelle Golden, Robbie Goolrick, Jason Huang, K. Thor Jensen, Jerry Klingman, Suzy Landa, Bob Levine, Mia LoLordo, Jason Mohr, Anne Newman, Betsy Pearce, Doug Pepper, Nancy Rathbun, Conrad Rippy, Frank Roldan, Steve Ross, Yoshi Sodeoka, George Streeter, Gordon Streeter, Sabin and Beverley Streeter, Lisa Webster, Krista Whetstone, Stephen Daedalus Whetstone, Brian Zeigler, and the many, many people across the country who helped with ideas and assisted us by introducing us to friends, relatives, and acquaintances.

The editors would also like to thank the friends and family members who gave us moral support during our grueling labor of love.