The trouble with brunch: work, class and the pursuit of leisure

by Micallef, Shawn

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Title Statements

Full title :The trouble with brunch : work, class and the pursuit of leisure / Shawn Micallef.

Summary

Every weekend, in cities around the world, bleary-eyed diners wait in line to be served overpriced, increasingly outré food by hungover waitstaff. For some, the ritual we call brunch is a beloved pastime; for others, a bedeviling waste of time. But what does its popularity say about shifting attitudes towards social status and leisure? In some ways, brunch and other forms of conspicuous consumption have blinded us to ever-more-precarious employment conditions. For award-winning writer and urbanist Shawn Micallef, brunch is a way to look more closely at the nature of work itself and a catalyst for solidarity among the so-called creative class. Drawing on theories from Thorstein Veblen to Richard Florida, Micallef traces his own journey from the rust belt to a cosmopolitan city where the evolving middle class he joined was oblivious to its own instability and insularity. This book is a provocative analysis of foodie obsession and status anxiety, but it's also a call to reset our class consciousness. The real trouble with brunch isn't so much bad service and outsized portions of bacon, it's that brunch could be so much more.

Edition Statements

Publication Date:2014
Edition:First edition

Publication Statements

Publisher(s):Coach House Books
Place of Publication:Toronto
Language:eng
Publication Date:2014

The Physical Object

Description:1 online resource (107 pages .).

Edition Identifiers

ISBN:1770563652, 9781770563650, 9781770563643, 1770563644, 132254526X, 9781322545264
oclc:ocn887933810
LC Classification:GV14.45
Dewey Decimal:306.4/81

A tale of two brunches -- From the factory floor to the brunch table -- The middle class to the brunching class -- The transnational Buenos Aires brunch -- What is brunch anyway? -- Inside the brunch machine -- Of farmers' markets, Walmart and condos -- The Portland brunch club -- The revolution will come with hollandaise sauce.

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