Nickel and Dimed Book Group Discussion

Books and Bites Adult Nonfiction Book Club, a partnership between the Bloomington Public Library and Bloomington Parks and Recreation, met at the Lincoln Leisure Center to discuss Barbara Ehrenreich’s book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, published by Metropolitan Books. Author Barbara Ehrenreich conducted an experiment in 1998 to see how a person could survive in America making six dollars an hour. She worked several low-paying jobs as a waitress, a hotel maid, a cleaning woman, a nursing home aide, and a Wal-Mart sales clerk. The members of the lunchtime book group compared notes on Ms. Ehrenreich’s method of conducting the experiment and evaluated the clarity and honesty of her conclusions. The group also discussed whether parts of this memoir may have been embellished in light of the recent controversy surrounding author James Frey and his book A Million Little Pieces.

The program was introduced with a video clip of Barbara Ehrenreich speaking about her b close