Ask a Bookseller: ‘Coming Up Short’ by Robert B. Reich

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.Daniel Wells of Gramercy Books in Bexley, Ohio, recommends the memoir “Coming Up Short” by Robert B. Reich. Wells called it “a beautiful contextualization of the last 70 or so years in American history.”An economist and educator, Reich served as Labor Secretary under President Bill Clinton and economic advisor to President Barack Obama. Reich intersperses the narrative of his life with statistics and facts that ground the story in its political era. Wells, age 25, said he was reminded of being in his high school government class — which he found positive.He was particularly struck by the generational focus of the memoir. Reich was born in 1946, the same year as Donald Trump, Bill Clinton and George W Bush. The memoir explores what his generation inherited following World War II: Where they gained ground, and, as the title suggests, where they came up short.Wells found his conclusion hopeful. He appreciated the sentiments that “we can do this. It's not impossible. It's all about coming together as a community and understanding that there is no ‘us’ versus ‘them.’ We are all together trying to work towards a better society, and the only way we will squander that is if we buy into the idea that we are different somehow.”

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