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99% Perspiration: A New Working History of the American Way of Life
An enlightening and entertaining interrogation of the myth of American self-reliance and the idea of hard work as destiny "Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration." This phrase, arguably Thomas Edison's most famous quote, has been drilled into the minds of generations of Americans. A fairly straightforward appraisal of the fact that innovation, discovery, and ingenuity are the result of drive and grit above all, it has also come to represent a much darker that the byproduct of hard work is always success. Those who come out on top are there because they earned it, and everyone else needs to buckle down, glove up, and, maybe one day, they'll get there too. As the wealth gap widens, unemployment soars, and Americans become increasingly dissatisfied with labor conditions, Adam Chandler raises the What happens when perspiration isn't enough? To answer it, he crisscrosses the country interviewing farmworkers, hedge fund managers, tech billionaires, and gas station employees, to reveal just how untenable relying on "perspiration" as a strategy has truly become. He also delves into America's past to reveal how our government, education system, and culture at large have woven the idea of meritocracy deep into the fabric of American society and how some of history's most famous so-called bootstrappers really built their wealth. From George Washington to Bill Gates, 99% Perspiration unpacks the misguided obsession with hard work that has come to define both the American dream and plight, offering insight into how we got here and hope for where we may go.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published January 7, 2025
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3206 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
January 22, 2025
“If working hard made you rich, donkeys would be covered in gold.”
Chandler’s exploration into American exceptionalism as a grift has a broad scope across history. Whether it’s the motived mythologizing of Columbus or America’s obstinance in mandating a living wage, Chandler makes a clear argument about the expectations-versus-reality of being the 99% (illustrated to great effect in the title, co-opting a Thomas Edison quote). But this isn’t a scathing book—nor “anti-American” as an earlier review called it; Chandler isn’t whining, he’s interrogating how the country can improve for the sake of *all* its citizens. Though the transitions between chapters feels a tad tangential, the sum of its parts results in an informative and comprehensive read.
Chandler’s exploration into American exceptionalism as a grift has a broad scope across history. Whether it’s the motived mythologizing of Columbus or America’s obstinance in mandating a living wage, Chandler makes a clear argument about the expectations-versus-reality of being the 99% (illustrated to great effect in the title, co-opting a Thomas Edison quote). But this isn’t a scathing book—nor “anti-American” as an earlier review called it; Chandler isn’t whining, he’s interrogating how the country can improve for the sake of *all* its citizens. Though the transitions between chapters feels a tad tangential, the sum of its parts results in an informative and comprehensive read.
dnf
January 21, 2026maybe it would’ve found its groove eventually but this was way more historical than I had expected. Like I see his point but I didn’t want to read a history book 🫤
March 26, 2025
Adam is a deft writer and a broad topic like this one requires that deft hand. I love the blend of typical non-fiction with magazine-style reporting anecdotes, sprinkled with a dash of Adam’s charm and wit. I will probably revisit several of these individual chapters many times over.
February 4, 2025
Side gigs, hustles, and 5-to-9s are badges of honor in modern USA. But why they necessary tends to fly over some heads - they shouldn’t be necessary. Chandler explains the foundations of how this modern mindset came to be (thanks Chris Columbus) and goes on to discuss the current economic state that makes these side jobs necessary for low-income families. His research is sound and his argument is solid. This is a very well laid-out book that touches on the average American’s experiences.
July 20, 2025
Very good! Some similes and metaphors are soooo millennial that they're kind of cheugy, but Chandler has done his research and he has written a great book!
August 6, 2025
Excellent critique of the "hard work conquers all" aspect of the American Dream. Bonus points for highly entertaining turns of phrase.
September 21, 2025
It begins, as so many American myths do, with a phrase we’ve all been taught to revere: Thomas Edison’s quip about genius being ninety-nine percent perspiration. Adam Chandler seizes on this thread not as a neat epigraph, but as a provocation, pulling us through centuries of national mythmaking and across a continent of lived experience to ask: what happens when perspiration isn’t enough? His answer—part travelogue, part polemic, part oral history, part grim humor—feels like standing at the intersection of folklore and fact, where the slogans of self-reliance meet the brutal data of economic precarity.
Chandler has written a book about work, but it is not a workplace book. This is not your manager’s latest airport bestseller about productivity hacks or synergy. Instead, 99% Perspiration is a sprawling meditation on how Americans have learned to equate labor with identity, worth, morality, and destiny, and how that identification has led us into a dead end of inequality, estrangement, and exhaustion. The scope is massive, at times almost unwieldy, and yet there is something intimate about Chandler’s approach: the people he talks to, the diners he eats in, the cities and towns he crosses to collect stories of a nation bent beneath its own myths.
From George Washington to Jay Gatsby to Bill Gates, Chandler shows how the bootstraps narrative has been woven into American self-understanding, often conveniently leaving out the threads of inheritance, government subsidy, or collective effort that actually stitched these figures into prominence. The mythology is relentless: poverty as moral failing, success as proof of virtue, grit as the sole ingredient of upward mobility. Chandler’s historical chapters remind us that even the revered Founders leaned heavily on enslaved labor, land grants, and state support—facts rarely spotlighted in patriotic lore.
There’s a rhythm to his storytelling that mirrors the rhythms of work itself: long stretches of drudgery punctuated by bursts of insight. He’ll move from Benjamin Franklin moralizing about the poor to a Silicon Valley billionaire decrying universal basic income as a “zoo for humans,” and then suddenly land in a Baltimore mayor’s office, hearing about pilot programs that prove the opposite. The narrative keeps swinging between past and present, theory and practice, until the reader is left both exhausted and newly alert—precisely the point.
What makes this book stand apart are the voices Chandler amplifies: pastors who keep their phones on by the bed in case a congregant needs help, mayors experimenting with guaranteed income, fast-food workers dealing with hostile customers, and a drive-thru chatbot at Hardee’s that both delights and unnerves. The mosaic effect is strong. You begin to hear a chorus: people who work hard, endlessly, yet remain one broken car or medical bill away from disaster.
Chandler’s own reporting is dogged. He drives across bridges most people are too terrified to cross just to test whether an AI assistant can handle a Canadian accent. He sits in Oklahoma with Osage educators reflecting on their first jobs. He tracks how pandemic benefits briefly lightened the burden for millions, only to be yanked away with little explanation. Each vignette adds to the larger portrait of a country that venerates labor while systematically cheapening it.
One of the book’s strongest through-lines is the intersection of technology and work. Chandler is skeptical of the messianic promises of automation, noting that the money poured into AI chatbots and self-checkouts could just as easily fund better wages, training, or service. Instead, he suggests, automation reveals what employers truly think of their workers: expendable, replaceable, and best minimized. The Hardee’s bot may upsell politely, but it cannot call you “honey” or fry hash browns off-script the way Kristi, a human employee, generously did.
This section builds into a larger meditation on estrangement. Americans are increasingly divided by geography, wealth, politics, and now by the very nature of labor. Chandler points to data showing how we live in politically homogenous neighborhoods, scroll through algorithmic feeds that confirm our biases, and rarely encounter people unlike ourselves. Work, once the thing that bound communities together, now separates us: through unequal wages, gigification, or the absence of shared public goods.
For all its bleak diagnoses, 99% Perspiration does not wallow. Chandler insists that solutions exist, and he surfaces them through both history and present experiments. Guaranteed income pilots in Stockton and Baltimore show measurable reductions in stress and improvements in employment. The expanded Child Tax Credit dramatically cut child poverty, only to be killed off for political reasons. National service programs, in his telling, could stitch together generations and classes otherwise atomized by distrust.
His proposals are not prescriptive blueprints so much as invitations. He suggests we need to reclaim time, rest, and community, to dislodge the idea that work is the sole pathway to dignity. He is not naïve about the political challenges. Indeed, part of the book’s power comes from showing how deeply embedded the myths are—how even Franklin, Edison, and Kardashian all, in different centuries, echoed the same refrain: “Work harder.”
The book is most powerful when Chandler blends reportage with cultural history. The stories of actual Americans—truck drivers, teachers, fast-food clerks, small-town pastors—give flesh to the statistics. His wit helps too: a dry aside about “kabourophobia (fear of crabs)” on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge keeps the narrative lively even as he discusses automation anxiety.
Where it falters is in its ambition. Chandler covers so much ground—centuries of history, multiple policy debates, intimate travel sketches—that the through-line sometimes frays. There are chapters that feel digressive, their anecdotes charming but less integrated into the central thesis. And while he nods to prescriptions, some readers may wish for more concrete policy roadmaps. The hope is there, but the path forward can feel vague, more aspiration than action plan.
Still, in a cultural moment when Americans are quitting jobs, debating the value of college, fearing AI displacement, and reeling from decades of stagnant wages, 99% Perspiration arrives as both mirror and map. It shows us how deeply we’ve tied our identities to labor, how those knots tighten in times of crisis, and how they might be loosened by collective reimagining. It is not a cheerful book—Chandler himself admits as much—but it is entertaining, sharp, and urgent.
The consensus among reviewers has been clear: this is an important contribution, if not a perfect one. The praise for its storytelling and scope is tempered by the recognition that it occasionally sprawls. But even those who critique its structure acknowledge that it asks the right questions and forces us to reckon with our myths.
To read 99% Perspiration is to see America laid bare, its contradictions illuminated in neon. We are a nation that sings hymns to hard work while leaving millions unrewarded. We are a people who mistrust collective solutions yet quietly depend on them when disaster strikes. Chandler, with verve and empathy, shows us both the absurdities and the possibilities.
If the book leaves us unsettled, that may be its greatest success. Because in the unsettling lies a path to honesty, and in honesty, perhaps, a way forward. For me, it lands at an 82 out of 100—a book that is vital, flawed, ambitious, and necessary, a diagnosis of a nation at work and at odds with itself.
Chandler has written a book about work, but it is not a workplace book. This is not your manager’s latest airport bestseller about productivity hacks or synergy. Instead, 99% Perspiration is a sprawling meditation on how Americans have learned to equate labor with identity, worth, morality, and destiny, and how that identification has led us into a dead end of inequality, estrangement, and exhaustion. The scope is massive, at times almost unwieldy, and yet there is something intimate about Chandler’s approach: the people he talks to, the diners he eats in, the cities and towns he crosses to collect stories of a nation bent beneath its own myths.
From George Washington to Jay Gatsby to Bill Gates, Chandler shows how the bootstraps narrative has been woven into American self-understanding, often conveniently leaving out the threads of inheritance, government subsidy, or collective effort that actually stitched these figures into prominence. The mythology is relentless: poverty as moral failing, success as proof of virtue, grit as the sole ingredient of upward mobility. Chandler’s historical chapters remind us that even the revered Founders leaned heavily on enslaved labor, land grants, and state support—facts rarely spotlighted in patriotic lore.
There’s a rhythm to his storytelling that mirrors the rhythms of work itself: long stretches of drudgery punctuated by bursts of insight. He’ll move from Benjamin Franklin moralizing about the poor to a Silicon Valley billionaire decrying universal basic income as a “zoo for humans,” and then suddenly land in a Baltimore mayor’s office, hearing about pilot programs that prove the opposite. The narrative keeps swinging between past and present, theory and practice, until the reader is left both exhausted and newly alert—precisely the point.
What makes this book stand apart are the voices Chandler amplifies: pastors who keep their phones on by the bed in case a congregant needs help, mayors experimenting with guaranteed income, fast-food workers dealing with hostile customers, and a drive-thru chatbot at Hardee’s that both delights and unnerves. The mosaic effect is strong. You begin to hear a chorus: people who work hard, endlessly, yet remain one broken car or medical bill away from disaster.
Chandler’s own reporting is dogged. He drives across bridges most people are too terrified to cross just to test whether an AI assistant can handle a Canadian accent. He sits in Oklahoma with Osage educators reflecting on their first jobs. He tracks how pandemic benefits briefly lightened the burden for millions, only to be yanked away with little explanation. Each vignette adds to the larger portrait of a country that venerates labor while systematically cheapening it.
One of the book’s strongest through-lines is the intersection of technology and work. Chandler is skeptical of the messianic promises of automation, noting that the money poured into AI chatbots and self-checkouts could just as easily fund better wages, training, or service. Instead, he suggests, automation reveals what employers truly think of their workers: expendable, replaceable, and best minimized. The Hardee’s bot may upsell politely, but it cannot call you “honey” or fry hash browns off-script the way Kristi, a human employee, generously did.
This section builds into a larger meditation on estrangement. Americans are increasingly divided by geography, wealth, politics, and now by the very nature of labor. Chandler points to data showing how we live in politically homogenous neighborhoods, scroll through algorithmic feeds that confirm our biases, and rarely encounter people unlike ourselves. Work, once the thing that bound communities together, now separates us: through unequal wages, gigification, or the absence of shared public goods.
For all its bleak diagnoses, 99% Perspiration does not wallow. Chandler insists that solutions exist, and he surfaces them through both history and present experiments. Guaranteed income pilots in Stockton and Baltimore show measurable reductions in stress and improvements in employment. The expanded Child Tax Credit dramatically cut child poverty, only to be killed off for political reasons. National service programs, in his telling, could stitch together generations and classes otherwise atomized by distrust.
His proposals are not prescriptive blueprints so much as invitations. He suggests we need to reclaim time, rest, and community, to dislodge the idea that work is the sole pathway to dignity. He is not naïve about the political challenges. Indeed, part of the book’s power comes from showing how deeply embedded the myths are—how even Franklin, Edison, and Kardashian all, in different centuries, echoed the same refrain: “Work harder.”
The book is most powerful when Chandler blends reportage with cultural history. The stories of actual Americans—truck drivers, teachers, fast-food clerks, small-town pastors—give flesh to the statistics. His wit helps too: a dry aside about “kabourophobia (fear of crabs)” on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge keeps the narrative lively even as he discusses automation anxiety.
Where it falters is in its ambition. Chandler covers so much ground—centuries of history, multiple policy debates, intimate travel sketches—that the through-line sometimes frays. There are chapters that feel digressive, their anecdotes charming but less integrated into the central thesis. And while he nods to prescriptions, some readers may wish for more concrete policy roadmaps. The hope is there, but the path forward can feel vague, more aspiration than action plan.
Still, in a cultural moment when Americans are quitting jobs, debating the value of college, fearing AI displacement, and reeling from decades of stagnant wages, 99% Perspiration arrives as both mirror and map. It shows us how deeply we’ve tied our identities to labor, how those knots tighten in times of crisis, and how they might be loosened by collective reimagining. It is not a cheerful book—Chandler himself admits as much—but it is entertaining, sharp, and urgent.
The consensus among reviewers has been clear: this is an important contribution, if not a perfect one. The praise for its storytelling and scope is tempered by the recognition that it occasionally sprawls. But even those who critique its structure acknowledge that it asks the right questions and forces us to reckon with our myths.
To read 99% Perspiration is to see America laid bare, its contradictions illuminated in neon. We are a nation that sings hymns to hard work while leaving millions unrewarded. We are a people who mistrust collective solutions yet quietly depend on them when disaster strikes. Chandler, with verve and empathy, shows us both the absurdities and the possibilities.
If the book leaves us unsettled, that may be its greatest success. Because in the unsettling lies a path to honesty, and in honesty, perhaps, a way forward. For me, it lands at an 82 out of 100—a book that is vital, flawed, ambitious, and necessary, a diagnosis of a nation at work and at odds with itself.
January 24, 2025
Didn't get past the introduction because the author quoted 3 republican politicians and then discussed them negatively. Could already tell the book was going to be extremely bias.
April 10, 2025
I have often wondered how our individualistic mindset as a nation became so entrenched and this book explores that. It does jump around from interview to interview and covers good ground but it’s entertaining. Most written work that I read on good life quality and contentment often enumerates the necessity of a good support system beginning with your nuclear family for success and it was interesting to read how much of what you hear spouted off to justify not helping people leans heavily on insisting that people who need help are simply “lazy”. What their lived experiences were and are is often glossed over and dismissed, dehumanizing them so they can be discarded by our society. This has not been my experience within my extended family members who are low income.
We all have value but we all do not have the exact same capacity. My sister is profoundly deaf. She cannot hear. I can. This makes us different in need of how much support we need to do the exact same things. Both of us matter.
The struggles and obstacles I’ve witnessed family members endure are endless, the paperwork and constant jumping through hoops are demoralizing. I’ve seen them lose and regain SNAP benefits bc they missed a call or made more money but now aren’t. Struggle to secure and keep affordable and safe housing. My brother struggled to get dental approval through his veteran’s disability. His kids were kicked off Medicaid recently for “fraud”. It isn’t fraud. My ability to provide free childcare has been a flimsy safety net and one that I should reasonably not be responsible for providing. But that’s what happens when a country refuses to provide adequate childcare options to all its citizens.
It was fascinating to read social mobility is similar or less likely in the United States than Europe! That contrasts heavily to messaging Americans come across regularly. Work hard and move up! Apparently, not necessarily. Even obtaining a college degree might not make that happen bc the cost have outstripped their value. I noticed as a young adult that people from my peer groups who (seemingly) had more money in their families were more (seemingly) successful more quickly. Sure, over time education and hard-work did build better lives for me and my family. But it took so much longer to get there and at 43; I can point anyone to the familial support and LUCK it took to make happen. Wouldn’t it be nice to live in a world where that wasn’t what it took?
We all have value but we all do not have the exact same capacity. My sister is profoundly deaf. She cannot hear. I can. This makes us different in need of how much support we need to do the exact same things. Both of us matter.
The struggles and obstacles I’ve witnessed family members endure are endless, the paperwork and constant jumping through hoops are demoralizing. I’ve seen them lose and regain SNAP benefits bc they missed a call or made more money but now aren’t. Struggle to secure and keep affordable and safe housing. My brother struggled to get dental approval through his veteran’s disability. His kids were kicked off Medicaid recently for “fraud”. It isn’t fraud. My ability to provide free childcare has been a flimsy safety net and one that I should reasonably not be responsible for providing. But that’s what happens when a country refuses to provide adequate childcare options to all its citizens.
It was fascinating to read social mobility is similar or less likely in the United States than Europe! That contrasts heavily to messaging Americans come across regularly. Work hard and move up! Apparently, not necessarily. Even obtaining a college degree might not make that happen bc the cost have outstripped their value. I noticed as a young adult that people from my peer groups who (seemingly) had more money in their families were more (seemingly) successful more quickly. Sure, over time education and hard-work did build better lives for me and my family. But it took so much longer to get there and at 43; I can point anyone to the familial support and LUCK it took to make happen. Wouldn’t it be nice to live in a world where that wasn’t what it took?
March 25, 2025
3.5 stars, bumped up because of a couple of winger reviews/ratings.
There's really not that much new here on the stats and data. He references "Poverty, by America" author Matthew Desmond more than once, for example.
The what's wrong is otherwise pretty well detailed. How to fix it? Not so much. There is an interview with Andrew Yang, but Universal Basic Income is only a partial fix at best and a very partial fix in reality. Chandler does mention investment income not being taxed at normal income rates, but doesn't talk about putting more progressivity into tax rates.
And, some of the magazines for whom he writes, like Atlantic? How much do its average readers care? Democratic neoliberals can find "slackers" just as much as GOP wingnuts.
That said, it has its plus sides.
First, the snark level is high, and good — with a caveat and asterisk that if Chandler really and non-snarkily believes Ben Franklin had 15 kids out of wedlock, he needs to improve his research skills.
Second? Ree Drummond, “Pioneer Woman” brand — and per this book, that’s the word — lives in the Pawhuska area of “Killers of the Flower Moon.” Not her birth family, but her in-laws family, is apparently not very popular with the Osage, reading between the lines. "Shock me."
Every Dem presidential nominees since Carter went to law school? Interesting. And, it does say something about today's Democratic Party.
There's really not that much new here on the stats and data. He references "Poverty, by America" author Matthew Desmond more than once, for example.
The what's wrong is otherwise pretty well detailed. How to fix it? Not so much. There is an interview with Andrew Yang, but Universal Basic Income is only a partial fix at best and a very partial fix in reality. Chandler does mention investment income not being taxed at normal income rates, but doesn't talk about putting more progressivity into tax rates.
And, some of the magazines for whom he writes, like Atlantic? How much do its average readers care? Democratic neoliberals can find "slackers" just as much as GOP wingnuts.
That said, it has its plus sides.
First, the snark level is high, and good — with a caveat and asterisk that if Chandler really and non-snarkily believes Ben Franklin had 15 kids out of wedlock, he needs to improve his research skills.
Second? Ree Drummond, “Pioneer Woman” brand — and per this book, that’s the word — lives in the Pawhuska area of “Killers of the Flower Moon.” Not her birth family, but her in-laws family, is apparently not very popular with the Osage, reading between the lines. "Shock me."
Every Dem presidential nominees since Carter went to law school? Interesting. And, it does say something about today's Democratic Party.
April 8, 2025
This was a really interesting read. Evidence provided was compelling and well-presented; ultimately, the conclusion that some sort of mass public service for young adults after high school would improve how we all view work in this country made sense given what came before it.
Chapters had themes, but they were loose, and some subjects of course came up repeatedly (unavoidable in nonfiction like this). Nonetheless I enjoyed reading all of them and the author has a knack for injecting humor in the right places. Some statistics do seem a tad cherry picked but everything is sourced.
After this I think I will go back to the authors other work about fast food in America. I quite enjoyed the book.
Chapters had themes, but they were loose, and some subjects of course came up repeatedly (unavoidable in nonfiction like this). Nonetheless I enjoyed reading all of them and the author has a knack for injecting humor in the right places. Some statistics do seem a tad cherry picked but everything is sourced.
After this I think I will go back to the authors other work about fast food in America. I quite enjoyed the book.
March 16, 2025
3.5
I appreciate his efforts to take what could be a dry research-intensive topic and infuse it with timely observations, real stories and wry humor. The first part felt a bit all over the place, but almost every one of those places is interesting. And did I mention timely?? As I read many sections, current headlines and hostile political/tech bro decisions resonated even more, a clarion call of the dire outcomes that could be headed our way. Definitely worth a read. The author does a great job narrating this book.
I appreciate his efforts to take what could be a dry research-intensive topic and infuse it with timely observations, real stories and wry humor. The first part felt a bit all over the place, but almost every one of those places is interesting. And did I mention timely?? As I read many sections, current headlines and hostile political/tech bro decisions resonated even more, a clarion call of the dire outcomes that could be headed our way. Definitely worth a read. The author does a great job narrating this book.
July 6, 2025
After the first chapter, the book fell into a disarray of meandering chapters with no relatable purpose or structure.
While Chandler provides a bevy of interesting facts, the book is riddled with attempts at either historical or personal journeys that fail to tie to the general theme of the book (which without the title and synopsis most would not be able to discern) and leave you scratching your head as to what to what your brain should be trying to thoughtfully digest.
There are countless other books more worth a readers time.
While Chandler provides a bevy of interesting facts, the book is riddled with attempts at either historical or personal journeys that fail to tie to the general theme of the book (which without the title and synopsis most would not be able to discern) and leave you scratching your head as to what to what your brain should be trying to thoughtfully digest.
There are countless other books more worth a readers time.
February 20, 2025
A really good read. A book about the history of work sounds dry as hell, but Adam Chandler writes it in such a way that it holds your attention and was even entertaining. He’s very humorous despite the hard realities he’s showing us about our own obsession and unhealthy relationship with our work/careers. His writing style kind of reminds me of how Sarah Vowel writes, with a love of history, willing to show the good and the bad, and all with a fair dose of snark.
June 18, 2025
“You work three jobs? Uniquely American, isn't it? I mean, that is fantastic that you're doing that."
To a divorced mother of three, Omaha, Nebraska, Feb. 4, 2005”
― George W. Bush
No, it's not fantastic that single mothers have to do that. Not at all. Everyone deserves basic dignity, a roof over their heads, and a good night's sleep. Why is it that Americans are willing to ditch all of that for a slim chance at being a billionaire?
To a divorced mother of three, Omaha, Nebraska, Feb. 4, 2005”
― George W. Bush
No, it's not fantastic that single mothers have to do that. Not at all. Everyone deserves basic dignity, a roof over their heads, and a good night's sleep. Why is it that Americans are willing to ditch all of that for a slim chance at being a billionaire?
March 29, 2025
An incredibly clear explanation of why we are the way we are and a (realistic, cautious) opening of a discussion as to how we might get beyond our current crisis. Could not be more relevant and could not recommend more strongly.
October 21, 2025
I found this book an excellent read. One that every ‘true’ American should read. If young people read this book and practiced its teachings, we would truly have a better America. That said, I suspect this book is banned in MAGA states. What a shame for America.
December 17, 2024
99% Perspiration is an interesting book about American history despite it's dubious anti-american leftist slanted theme.
February 6, 2025
I liked this! Chandler is funny and whip-smart. Will read more from him!
February 21, 2025
Riveting and very funny!
March 2, 2025
This book is an informative and sometimes even humorous account of how attitudes towards work and individualism in the United States have affected not only our history but also our present.
March 6, 2025
Pretty interesting read. Was surprised that there was a whole section on Tulsa! Only thing that drove me bonkers was the mispronunciation of Pawhuska throughout.
March 25, 2025
Meh. A little too cliche liberal whining, but some good points and an overall reasonable pushback against America's worship of work.
April 15, 2025
A bit haphazard
April 17, 2025
Fun read. As an aging boomer I can relate. Title says it all...
June 12, 2025
Audiobook/Narration: 5/5
Review Copy/Overall Story: 4.5/5
Review to come.
Review Copy/Overall Story: 4.5/5
Review to come.
July 6, 2025
Adam is one of the only writers I know who can write a book this smart and well-researched, and cover tough topics, while making me laugh out loud at least once per chapter.
September 1, 2025
Having a job in USA sucks. Read all about it!
June 18, 2025
I loved this book. It's such catnip for me to have a book that takes conventional wisdom and turns it upside down. I also loved the unique spin on many of the concepts that we know about American aspirations. He essentially takes the American dream and self-reliance and smushes it together to become "the American abracadabra". A lot in this book really resonated with me. I also liked how it didn't have a confident answers - like so many things, it's nuanced and complicated. Like, yes, the government assistance really helps but that shouldn't be the only way that we address economic disparity. He really talked about how leaders should emphasize community or bootstrapping, and how we're all in it together. I also very much enjoyed his random mentions of pop culture type things, like throwing out a comparison to a Peloton instructor, or some other similar thing.
January 7, 2025
99% Perspiration is an exploration of American work culture and how it relates to the American Dream. It is, overall, an easy to follow read but I do wish more interviews were included.
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