"Nickel and Dimed" by Barbara Ehrenreich.

Eye Opening (If You've Been Living in a Hole)
NICKEL AND DIMED: ON (NOT) GETTING BY IN AMERICA
By Barbara Ehrenreich
Henry Holt And Company, 230 pp., $13 (paperback)
The back cover and the last chapter's 25-page evaluation are the most gripping parts of this memoir, which without a doubt originated as an attention-grabbing idea but turned out to be an obvious, repetitive, and unrealistic account of American blue-collar life. Barbara Ehrenreich sets off to do the "old-fashioned journalism," leaving behind the comforts of her air-conditioned office. She ventures out to temporarily reco…