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  • Having and Being Had

  • Written by: Eula Biss
  • Narrated by: Alex McKenna
  • Length: 7 hrs and 15 mins
  • 4.7 out of 5 stars (3 ratings)

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Having and Being Had cover art

Having and Being Had

Written by: Eula Biss
Narrated by: Alex McKenna
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Publisher's Summary

New York Times Editors’ Choice 

Named a Best Book of The Year by Time, NPR, InStyle, and Good Housekeeping

"A sensational new book [that] tries to figure out whether it’s possible to live an ethical life in a capitalist society.... The results are enthralling." (Associated Press)

"A timely and arresting new look at affluence by the New York Times best-selling author, “one of the leading lights of the modern American essay." (Financial Times)

“My adult life can be divided into two distinct parts”, Eula Biss writes, “the time before I owned a washing machine and the time after.” Having just purchased her first home, the poet and essayist now embarks on a provocative exploration of the value system she has bought into. Through a series of engaging exchanges - in libraries and laundromats, over barstools and backyard fences - she examines our assumptions about class and property and the ways we internalize the demands of capitalism. Described by the New York Times as a writer who “advances from all sides, like a chess player,” Biss offers an uncommonly immersive and deeply revealing new portrait of work and luxury, of accumulation and consumption, of the value of time and how we spend it. Ranging from IKEA to Beyoncé to Pokemon, Biss asks, of both herself and her class, “In what have we invested?”

©2020 Eula Biss (P)2020 Penguin Audio

What the critics say

“Compulsively readable ... blends research, reflection and richly rendered personal experience.... This is a book that asks to be read, absorbed and read again.” (BookPage)

“[A] strong new meditation on buying and owning in a society as a white woman where some people descend from Americans once considered property themselves.... This is an essential book for our out-of-control times.” (Lit Hub)

“A stylish, meditative inquiry into the function and meaning of twenty-first-century capitalism.... Biss doesn’t shy away from acknowledging her own privilege, and laces her reflections with unexpected insights and a sharp yet ingratiating sense of humor. . . . this eloquent, well-informed account recasts the everyday world in a sharp new light.” (Publishers Weekly)

What listeners say about Having and Being Had

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