Quick answer
The closest matches are Gig, a 2000 collection of more than 100 Americans describing their jobs, Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich’s undercover account of low-wage work, and Bullshit Jobs, David Graeber’s argument that much paid work feels pointless to those doing it. Further down: Victorian street sellers, Soviet women soldiers, and Terkel’s own oral history of the Depression.
8 books to read after Working
Gig: Americans Talk About Their JobsClosest match
Three editors collected more than 100 first-person accounts of work at the turn of the millennium. The speakers range from a flight attendant, a UPS driver and a pretzel vendor to a Wal-Mart greeter and the politician Barney Frank.
Why read itIt uses Terkel’s exact method, edited monologues about a working day, a quarter of a century later.
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in AmericaClosest match
Between 1998 and 2000 Ehrenreich took a series of low-wage jobs, including waitressing and cleaning, to see whether she could cover her living costs on the pay. The book grew out of a January 1999 article in Harper’s Magazine.
Why read itIt asks Terkel’s question about how work feels, but answers it from inside the job rather than across a tape recorder.
Hired: Six Months Undercover in Low-Wage Britain
Bloodworth spent six months in minimum-wage jobs: in an Amazon warehouse, as a care worker in Blackpool and as an Uber driver. The Times named it current affairs book of the year for 2018, and it was longlisted for the Orwell Prize.
Why read itIt brings the question of what a job does to a body and a family into twenty-first-century Britain.
London Labour and the London Poor
Mayhew, a journalist, interviewed London’s street sellers, scavengers, entertainers and labourers and printed their accounts at length, alongside his own figures on their earnings. The work first appeared as newspaper articles before being collected in volumes.
Why read itMore than a century before Terkel, it let working people describe their own trades in their own words.
Down and Out in Paris and London
Orwell’s first book describes washing dishes in Paris hotel kitchens and then living as a tramp in and around London. He later acknowledged that the incidents happened but had been rearranged.
Why read itIt records kitchen work from below, with the same attention to hours, heat and hierarchy that Terkel’s workers describe.
The Unwomanly Face of War
Alexievich’s first book is built from monologues by Soviet women who served in the Second World War, as snipers, pilots, medics and more. The manuscript was held back for about two years before publication in 1985; she won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2015.
Why read itIt uses the same edited-monologue form as Working, here to record a kind of labour that official histories left out.
Bullshit Jobs: A Theory
The anthropologist expanded a 2013 essay into a book, using hundreds of worker testimonials to argue that many jobs are pointless and psychologically damaging. He sorts them into types such as flunkies, goons, duct tapers, box tickers and taskmasters. Later survey studies have found mixed support for his claims.
Why read itIt complicates Terkel: where Working finds people searching for meaning in hard jobs, Graeber argues many comfortable jobs have none.
Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression
Terkel’s earlier oral history gathers memories of the Depression from across American society, from Dust Bowl migrants and prison inmates to the wealthy.
Why read itIt is the book where Terkel developed the method he used in Working, applied to a decade rather than to jobs.
Frequently asked questions about books like Working
What to read after Working by Studs Terkel?
Are the people in Working real?
Was Working turned into a musical or TV series?
What other books did Studs Terkel write?
Is there a book like Working set outside America?
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