A young woman walks into an employment agency and requests a job that has the following traits: it’s close to her home, and it requires no reading, no writing, and, ideally, very little thinking. Her first gig—watching the hidden-camera feed of an author suspected of storing contraband goods—turns out to be inconvenient. (When can she go to the bathroom?) Her next gives way to the supernatural: announcing advertisements for shops that mysteriously disappear. As she moves from job to job—writing trivia for rice cracker packages and punching entry tickets to a purportedly haunted public park—it becomes increasingly apparent that she's not searching for the easiest job at all but something altogether more meaningful. But when she finally discovers an alternative to the daily grind, it comes with a price. This is the first time work by Kikuko Tsumura—winner of Japan's most prestigious literary award—has been translated into English. There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job is as witty as it is unsettling—a jolting look at the maladies of late capitalist life through the unique and fascinating lens of modern Japanese culture.
© 2021 Dreamscape Media (Audiobook): 9781666546132
Translators: Polly Barton
Release date
Audiobook: 15 April 2021
A young woman walks into an employment agency and requests a job that has the following traits: it’s close to her home, and it requires no reading, no writing, and, ideally, very little thinking. Her first gig—watching the hidden-camera feed of an author suspected of storing contraband goods—turns out to be inconvenient. (When can she go to the bathroom?) Her next gives way to the supernatural: announcing advertisements for shops that mysteriously disappear. As she moves from job to job—writing trivia for rice cracker packages and punching entry tickets to a purportedly haunted public park—it becomes increasingly apparent that she's not searching for the easiest job at all but something altogether more meaningful. But when she finally discovers an alternative to the daily grind, it comes with a price. This is the first time work by Kikuko Tsumura—winner of Japan's most prestigious literary award—has been translated into English. There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job is as witty as it is unsettling—a jolting look at the maladies of late capitalist life through the unique and fascinating lens of modern Japanese culture.
© 2021 Dreamscape Media (Audiobook): 9781666546132
Translators: Polly Barton
Release date
Audiobook: 15 April 2021
Step into an infinite world of stories
Overall rating based on 233 ratings
Cozy
Thought-provoking
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Arel
25 Jun 2021
The book is interesting but at the end it became a little confusing.
English
Singapore