People Who Lunch: Essays on work, leisure and loose living

by Sally Olds

This book is about working and not working, hating work and needing to work, intimacy and technology, money and love, labour and pleasure. Across a series of essays, Sally Olds probes the ambivalent utopias of polyamory, cryptocurrency, clubbing, communes, a secret fraternity, and the essay form itself. Curiosity drives each of these adventures into projected worlds, where Olds explores how living with precariousness changes expectations of how a life can be lived in this thrilling appraisal of the state of things.

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays, Philosophy, Psychology

159 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 30, 2022

Reviews

[Jessica · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't quite understand what polyamory or clubbing had to do with rejecting work, but I was willing to accept the premise. Unfortunately, there just wasn't enough in any of the essays to tie everything together or to tie everything back to work. The book read more like a memoir of the author's experiences with each essay topic and I just could not care less about some random person's poly relationship. This wasn't poorly written but it's not the book it's marketed as, and I wouldn't have read it if I had known what it was actually about.

[Abby · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really bad case of a book’s package not at all matching its contents (and the contents not being well written or well connected anyway)

[alexandra-marie figueroa · Rating 2 out of 5]

no es una mala obra, pero definitivamente no lo que presenta inicialmente. las conversaciones que presenta son interesantes y buenas reflexiones sobre el capitalismo y cómo se mueve la cultura alrededor de la producción... y a la vez también una obra que quiere ser más filosofía que praxis.

conversations on polyamory were incredibly interesting, though!

[katie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Being a young adult today sounds absolutely wretched.

[Victoria Lincoln · Rating 3 out of 5]

'For Discussion and Resolution' read a little odd. Super interesting to hear the history of poly and the intersection between post-work, communes etc. and interesting to have her personal and first(?) poly experience, however it just seemed pretty unpleasant, and though she expresses poly doesn't need to defend itself in the face of ridicule and ignorance, I wish she hadn't made it seem so similar to people's fears and stereotypes of it. Maybe if she had briefly mentioned another positive experience she had with it, would've rubbed me slightly better.

Interesting ideas in 'Good Times in Venice's, such as the mirroring of the club scene (excitment-dissappointment loop) with post-ford labour. However id wished I'd watched the Faust play she reviews in the essay, because I had some trouble understanding without contacting. Also a theatre/performance-art review felt a little out of context of the collections - I guess only in sofar as it's form, the analysis was plenty in ljne: leisure, clubbing, sex, capitalism..

The Beautiful Piece, was fantastic.

Crypto forever was great. Such characters. So interesting, so funny.

[Anjali Krishnakumar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Each of these essays is individually interesting (although some of them are somewhat too theoretically dense to be truly understood) but I felt like they weren’t really coming together into a cohesive argument, especially not the thesis statement about “work” that the author lays out. I think as someone who is in the category of ‘people who lunch’ since I work part time in hospitality and full time as a writer and artist I thought I would find this more engaging. Ultimately I think this goes the route of so many white queer writers which can somehow only imagine one particular version of the striving queer artist; someone who lives to make art and party and can somehow eradicate all real world responsibilities. I can’t speak as to whether this is the “right” or “wrong” way of existing but I do think it’s somewhat narrow minded and yet professes to being an expansive world view.

[Connor Parissis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this - the essays on polyamory and crypto were both really well done, insightful and academic, and all done through the lens of an Australian, leftwing framework, albeit a pessimistic lens but an important viewpoint nonetheless.

Minus one star for the bizarre packaging of the book - it's a book of unrelated personal essays (fantastic essays!) and nothing more. Also, not really sure where the first essay was going and while I enjoyed it, think it was a weak way to start the book. But otherwise, I would recommend this.

[Maia Martucci · Rating 2 out of 5]

This wasn’t really for me. I did enjoy her take on poly relationships and crypto but found myself rolling my eyes or disengaged during others.

I feel like the best essay was “The Buffalo Clan” which lead to a deep dive into 22 sutherland street melbourne and the Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes -

[Nadine Danckert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Could have done with this being turned into a novel with ongoing storylines and character development. I think I would have really enjoyed these ideas played out in fiction form. But as essays it was a little jargon heavy and disconnected from reality. Loved reading about melb tho

[Emily Dyer · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF - this book is dry and tough to get through

[Gia (지아) · Rating 2 out of 5]

“You can see what I’m getting at,” CAN I?????

[Brittany]

“Thanks, I hated it!” 🙂‍↕️

[Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sally Olds has a wonderful way with essays. As much as she can deconstruct the formulae, she can also wield them, and this is often just a pleasurable read. Olds - a decade and change younger than me - writes about her 20-something milieu in ways that bring contemporary Melbourne to life. An easy favourite for me was the final essay, Crypto Forever, for the window into a world I little understand. Possibly for the same reason, a least favourite was the parts dealing with polyamory, which felt rather reminiscent of the same journeys many of my peers went on 15 years earlier. Even with material, I found less thought-provoking, however, Olds is an immensely readable writer.