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What Do I Read Next?
(Literary Newsmakers for Students)
- Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy (2002), edited by Ehrenreich and Arlie Russell Hochschild, is a collection of essays examining injustices regarding low-wage female workers around the world. It includes an essay by Ehrenreich, "Maid to Order," which expands on her study of maid work in Nickel and Dimed.
- Ehrenreich's Fear of Falling (1989) is a study of the middle class and their retreat from liberalism. It complements Nickel and Dimed on a thematic level, considering the tension between social classes from another angle.
- Jack London wrote The People of the Abyss (1903) after spending several months investigating slum conditions in London's East End. A work of journalism very similar to Nickel and Dimed, it serves as a useful contrast to Ehrenreich's investigative technique and style and is an illuminating historical document of the poor from another time and culture.
- The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), by George Orwell, was written from a similar desire to examine the plight of London's poor at the time. After examining the living conditions of the lower class, Orwell devotes the second half of his book to socialism as an ideal and how it compares to the reality of socialism in his times.
- Along with London and Orwell's works, John Howard Griffin's Black Like Me (1961) is the book most often compared to Nickel and Dimed. It describes how Griffin dyed his skin black and experienced firsthand what it was like to be an African American in the racially segregated South.