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  <title><![CDATA[Personal Days: A Novel]]></title>
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  <description><![CDATA[In an unnamed New York-based company, the employees are getting restless as everything around them unravels. There’s Pru, the former grad student turned spreadsheet drone; Laars, the hysteric whose work anxiety stalks him in his tooth-grinding dreams; and Jack II, who distributes unwanted backrubs–aka “jackrubs”–to his co-workers.<br/><br/>On a Sunday, one of them is called at home. And the Firings begin.<br/>Rich with Orwellian doublespeak, filled with sabotage and romance, this astonishing literary debut is at once a comic delight and a narrative tour de force. It’s a novel for anyone who has ever worked in an office and wondered: “Where does the time go? Where does the life go? And whose banana is in the fridge?”<br/><br/><u>Praise for PERSONAL DAYS</u><br/>&quot;Witty and appealing...Anyone who has ever groaned to hear 'impact' used as a verb will cheer as Park skewers the avatars of corporate speak, hellbent on debasing the language....Park has written what one of his characters calls 'a layoff narrative' for our times. As the economy continues its free fall, Park's book may serve as a handy guide for navigating unemployment and uncertainty. Does anyone who isn't a journalist think there can't be two books on the same subject at the same time? We need as many as we can get right now.&quot;                                                                    —<strong><em>The New York Times Book Review <br/></em></strong><br/>&quot;Never have the minutiae of office life been so lovingly cataloged and collated.&quot;                                                                   —&quot;Three First Novels that Just Might Last,&quot; —<strong><em>Time<br/></em></strong><br/>A &quot;comic and creepy début...Park transforms the banal into the eerie, rendering ominous the familiar request &quot;Does anyone want anything from the outside world?&quot; <strong>—<em>The New Yorker</em> <br/><em><br/></em></strong>&quot;The modern corporate office is to Ed Park's debut novel <em>Personal Days</em> what World War II was to Joseph Heller's <em>Catch-22</em>—a theater of absurdity and injustice so profound as to defy all reason....Park may be in line to fill the shoes left by Kurt Vonnegut and other satirists par excellence.&quot;<strong>—Samantha Dunn,</strong> <em>Los Angeles Times<br/></em><br/>&quot;In <em>Personal Days</em> Ed Park has crafted a sometimes funny, sometimes heartbreaking, but always adroit novel about office life...Sharp and lovely language.&quot; <strong>—<em>Newsweek</em> <br/></strong><br/>&quot;A warm and winning fiction debut.&quot; <strong>— <em>Publishers Weekly </em></strong><em><br/><br/></em>&quot;I laughed until they put me in a mental hospital. But <em>Personal Days</em> is so much more than satire. Underneath Park's masterly portrait of wasted workaday lives is a pulsating heart, and an odd, buoyant hope.&quot; <strong>— Gary Shteyngart, author of <em>Absurdistan <br/></em></strong><br/>&quot;The funniest book I've read about the way we work now.&quot; <strong>–William Poundstone, author of <em>Fortune's Formula</em> <br/></strong><br/>&quot;Ed Park joins Andy Warhol and Don DeLillo as a master of the deadpan vernacular.&quot; <strong>—Helen DeWitt, author of <em>The Last Samurai</em></strong><em><br/><br/><br/><br/></em><br/><br/><br/><em>From the Trade Paperback edition.</em>]]></description>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[Personal Days: A Novel]]>
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  <average_rating>3.19</average_rating>
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    <![CDATA[In an unnamed New York-based company, the employees are getting restless as everything around them unravels. There’s Pru, the former grad student turned spreadsheet drone; Laars, the hysteric whose work anxiety stalks him in his tooth-grinding dreams; and Jack II, who distributes unwanted backrubs–aka “jackrubs”–to his co-workers.<br/><br/>On a Sunday, one of them is called at home. And the Firings begin.<br/>Rich with Orwellian doublespeak, filled with sabotage and romance, this astonishing literary debut is at once a comic delight and a narrative tour de force. It’s a novel for anyone who has ever worked in an office and wondered: “Where does the time go? Where does the life go? And whose banana is in the fridge?”<br/><br/><u>Praise for PERSONAL DAYS</u><br/>&quot;Witty and appealing...Anyone who has ever groaned to hear 'impact' used as a verb will cheer as Park skewers the avatars of corporate speak, hellbent on debasing the language....Park has written what one of his characters calls 'a layoff narrative' for our times. As the economy continues its free fall, Park's book may serve as a handy guide for navigating unemployment and uncertainty. Does anyone who isn't a journalist think there can't be two books on the same subject at the same time? We need as many as we can get right now.&quot;                                                                    —<strong><em>The New York Times Book Review <br/></em></strong><br/>&quot;Never have the minutiae of office life been so lovingly cataloged and collated.&quot;                                                                   —&quot;Three First Novels that Just Might Last,&quot; —<strong><em>Time<br/></em></strong><br/>A &quot;comic and creepy début...Park transforms the banal into the eerie, rendering ominous the familiar request &quot;Does anyone want anything from the outside world?&quot; <strong>—<em>The New Yorker</em> <br/><em><br/></em></strong>&quot;The modern corporate office is to Ed Park's debut novel <em>Personal Days</em> what World War II was to Joseph Heller's <em>Catch-22</em>—a theater of absurdity and injustice so profound as to defy all reason....Park may be in line to fill the shoes left by Kurt Vonnegut and other satirists par excellence.&quot;<strong>—Samantha Dunn,</strong> <em>Los Angeles Times<br/></em><br/>&quot;In <em>Personal Days</em> Ed Park has crafted a sometimes funny, sometimes heartbreaking, but always adroit novel about office life...Sharp and lovely language.&quot; <strong>—<em>Newsweek</em> <br/></strong><br/>&quot;A warm and winning fiction debut.&quot; <strong>— <em>Publishers Weekly </em></strong><em><br/><br/></em>&quot;I laughed until they put me in a mental hospital. But <em>Personal Days</em> is so much more than satire. Underneath Park's masterly portrait of wasted workaday lives is a pulsating heart, and an odd, buoyant hope.&quot; <strong>— Gary Shteyngart, author of <em>Absurdistan <br/></em></strong><br/>&quot;The funniest book I've read about the way we work now.&quot; <strong>–William Poundstone, author of <em>Fortune's Formula</em> <br/></strong><br/>&quot;Ed Park joins Andy Warhol and Don DeLillo as a master of the deadpan vernacular.&quot; <strong>—Helen DeWitt, author of <em>The Last Samurai</em></strong><em><br/><br/><br/><br/></em>]]>
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    <rating>4</rating>
  <votes>5</votes>
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  <read_at>Sun Jun 15 00:00:00 -0700 2008</read_at>
  <date_added>Sun Jun 15 08:24:23 -0700 2008</date_added>
  <date_updated>Sun Jun 15 08:38:55 -0700 2008</date_updated>
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    <body><![CDATA[My dog is running up to me, pressing a tennis ball into my leg, then running away from me. Over and over, and has been for the last hour or so, since seven AM, so forgive me if this ins't the lucidest review you've ever read. See I live in this long, basement/garage/bedroom, where there's room for a...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/24541106">more...</a>]]></body>
    
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      <review>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[Personal Days: A Novel]]>
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    <![CDATA[In an unnamed New York-based company, the employees are getting restless as everything around them unravels. There’s Pru, the former grad student turned spreadsheet drone; Laars, the hysteric whose work anxiety stalks him in his tooth-grinding dreams; and Jack II, who distributes unwanted backrubs–aka “jackrubs”–to his co-workers.<br/><br/>On a Sunday, one of them is called at home. And the Firings begin.<br/>Rich with Orwellian doublespeak, filled with sabotage and romance, this astonishing literary debut is at once a comic delight and a narrative tour de force. It’s a novel for anyone who has ever worked in an office and wondered: “Where does the time go? Where does the life go? And whose banana is in the fridge?”<br/><br/><u>Praise for PERSONAL DAYS</u><br/>&quot;Witty and appealing...Anyone who has ever groaned to hear 'impact' used as a verb will cheer as Park skewers the avatars of corporate speak, hellbent on debasing the language....Park has written what one of his characters calls 'a layoff narrative' for our times. As the economy continues its free fall, Park's book may serve as a handy guide for navigating unemployment and uncertainty. Does anyone who isn't a journalist think there can't be two books on the same subject at the same time? We need as many as we can get right now.&quot;                                                                    —<strong><em>The New York Times Book Review <br/></em></strong><br/>&quot;Never have the minutiae of office life been so lovingly cataloged and collated.&quot;                                                                   —&quot;Three First Novels that Just Might Last,&quot; —<strong><em>Time<br/></em></strong><br/>A &quot;comic and creepy début...Park transforms the banal into the eerie, rendering ominous the familiar request &quot;Does anyone want anything from the outside world?&quot; <strong>—<em>The New Yorker</em> <br/><em><br/></em></strong>&quot;The modern corporate office is to Ed Park's debut novel <em>Personal Days</em> what World War II was to Joseph Heller's <em>Catch-22</em>—a theater of absurdity and injustice so profound as to defy all reason....Park may be in line to fill the shoes left by Kurt Vonnegut and other satirists par excellence.&quot;<strong>—Samantha Dunn,</strong> <em>Los Angeles Times<br/></em><br/>&quot;In <em>Personal Days</em> Ed Park has crafted a sometimes funny, sometimes heartbreaking, but always adroit novel about office life...Sharp and lovely language.&quot; <strong>—<em>Newsweek</em> <br/></strong><br/>&quot;A warm and winning fiction debut.&quot; <strong>— <em>Publishers Weekly </em></strong><em><br/><br/></em>&quot;I laughed until they put me in a mental hospital. But <em>Personal Days</em> is so much more than satire. Underneath Park's masterly portrait of wasted workaday lives is a pulsating heart, and an odd, buoyant hope.&quot; <strong>— Gary Shteyngart, author of <em>Absurdistan <br/></em></strong><br/>&quot;The funniest book I've read about the way we work now.&quot; <strong>–William Poundstone, author of <em>Fortune's Formula</em> <br/></strong><br/>&quot;Ed Park joins Andy Warhol and Don DeLillo as a master of the deadpan vernacular.&quot; <strong>—Helen DeWitt, author of <em>The Last Samurai</em></strong><em><br/><br/><br/><br/></em>]]>
  </description>
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    <rating>5</rating>
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  <recommended_for><![CDATA[everyone!]]></recommended_for>
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  <read_at>Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007</read_at>
  <date_added>Wed Oct 17 17:11:36 -0700 2007</date_added>
  <date_updated>Sat Oct 20 06:33:06 -0700 2007</date_updated>
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    <body><![CDATA[The best book I ever wrote!]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7858614]]></url>
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      <review>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[Personal Days: A Novel]]>
  </title>
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  <average_rating>3.20</average_rating>
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    <![CDATA[In an unnamed New York-based company, the employees are getting restless as everything around them unravels. There’s Pru, the former grad student turned spreadsheet drone; Laars, the hysteric whose work anxiety stalks him in his tooth-grinding dreams; and Jack II, who distributes unwanted backrubs–aka “jackrubs”–to his co-workers.<br/><br/>On a Sunday, one of them is called at home. And the Firings begin.<br/>Rich with Orwellian doublespeak, filled with sabotage and romance, this astonishing literary debut is at once a comic delight and a narrative tour de force. It’s a novel for anyone who has ever worked in an office and wondered: “Where does the time go? Where does the life go? And whose banana is in the fridge?”<br/><br/><u>Praise for PERSONAL DAYS</u><br/>&quot;Witty and appealing...Anyone who has ever groaned to hear 'impact' used as a verb will cheer as Park skewers the avatars of corporate speak, hellbent on debasing the language....Park has written what one of his characters calls 'a layoff narrative' for our times. As the economy continues its free fall, Park's book may serve as a handy guide for navigating unemployment and uncertainty. Does anyone who isn't a journalist think there can't be two books on the same subject at the same time? We need as many as we can get right now.&quot;                                                                    —<strong><em>The New York Times Book Review <br/></em></strong><br/>&quot;Never have the minutiae of office life been so lovingly cataloged and collated.&quot;                                                                   —&quot;Three First Novels that Just Might Last,&quot; —<strong><em>Time<br/></em></strong><br/>A &quot;comic and creepy début...Park transforms the banal into the eerie, rendering ominous the familiar request &quot;Does anyone want anything from the outside world?&quot; <strong>—<em>The New Yorker</em> <br/><em><br/></em></strong>&quot;The modern corporate office is to Ed Park's debut novel <em>Personal Days</em> what World War II was to Joseph Heller's <em>Catch-22</em>—a theater of absurdity and injustice so profound as to defy all reason....Park may be in line to fill the shoes left by Kurt Vonnegut and other satirists par excellence.&quot;<strong>—Samantha Dunn,</strong> <em>Los Angeles Times<br/></em><br/>&quot;In <em>Personal Days</em> Ed Park has crafted a sometimes funny, sometimes heartbreaking, but always adroit novel about office life...Sharp and lovely language.&quot; <strong>—<em>Newsweek</em> <br/></strong><br/>&quot;A warm and winning fiction debut.&quot; <strong>— <em>Publishers Weekly </em></strong><em><br/><br/></em>&quot;I laughed until they put me in a mental hospital. But <em>Personal Days</em> is so much more than satire. Underneath Park's masterly portrait of wasted workaday lives is a pulsating heart, and an odd, buoyant hope.&quot; <strong>— Gary Shteyngart, author of <em>Absurdistan <br/></em></strong><br/>&quot;The funniest book I've read about the way we work now.&quot; <strong>–William Poundstone, author of <em>Fortune's Formula</em> <br/></strong><br/>&quot;Ed Park joins Andy Warhol and Don DeLillo as a master of the deadpan vernacular.&quot; <strong>—Helen DeWitt, author of <em>The Last Samurai</em></strong><em><br/><br/><br/><br/></em>]]>
  </description>
  <published>2008</published>
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    <rating>2</rating>
  <votes>3</votes>
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  <read_at>Thu Dec 11 00:00:00 -0800 2008</read_at>
  <date_added>Wed Dec 10 18:26:20 -0800 2008</date_added>
  <date_updated>Thu Dec 11 00:52:20 -0800 2008</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[You have to feel a little bit sorry for Ed Park, that his book came out roughly a year after Joshua Ferris's infinitely superior &quot;Then We Came to the End&quot;. The similarities are staggering - the milieu and plot of both books are virtually identical -- a Chicago/Manhattan advertising/graphic...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/39827128">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/39827128]]></url>
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</review>
      <review>
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    <name><![CDATA[Bill]]></name>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[Personal Days: A Novel]]>
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  <ratings_count>506</ratings_count>
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    <![CDATA[In an unnamed New York-based company, the employees are getting restless as everything around them unravels. There’s Pru, the former grad student turned spreadsheet drone; Laars, the hysteric whose work anxiety stalks him in his tooth-grinding dreams; and Jack II, who distributes unwanted backrubs–aka “jackrubs”–to his co-workers.<br/><br/>On a Sunday, one of them is called at home. And the Firings begin.<br/>Rich with Orwellian doublespeak, filled with sabotage and romance, this astonishing literary debut is at once a comic delight and a narrative tour de force. It’s a novel for anyone who has ever worked in an office and wondered: “Where does the time go? Where does the life go? And whose banana is in the fridge?”<br/><br/><u>Praise for PERSONAL DAYS</u><br/>&quot;Witty and appealing...Anyone who has ever groaned to hear 'impact' used as a verb will cheer as Park skewers the avatars of corporate speak, hellbent on debasing the language....Park has written what one of his characters calls 'a layoff narrative' for our times. As the economy continues its free fall, Park's book may serve as a handy guide for navigating unemployment and uncertainty. Does anyone who isn't a journalist think there can't be two books on the same subject at the same time? We need as many as we can get right now.&quot;                                                                    —<strong><em>The New York Times Book Review <br/></em></strong><br/>&quot;Never have the minutiae of office life been so lovingly cataloged and collated.&quot;                                                                   —&quot;Three First Novels that Just Might Last,&quot; —<strong><em>Time<br/></em></strong><br/>A &quot;comic and creepy début...Park transforms the banal into the eerie, rendering ominous the familiar request &quot;Does anyone want anything from the outside world?&quot; <strong>—<em>The New Yorker</em> <br/><em><br/></em></strong>&quot;The modern corporate office is to Ed Park's debut novel <em>Personal Days</em> what World War II was to Joseph Heller's <em>Catch-22</em>—a theater of absurdity and injustice so profound as to defy all reason....Park may be in line to fill the shoes left by Kurt Vonnegut and other satirists par excellence.&quot;<strong>—Samantha Dunn,</strong> <em>Los Angeles Times<br/></em><br/>&quot;In <em>Personal Days</em> Ed Park has crafted a sometimes funny, sometimes heartbreaking, but always adroit novel about office life...Sharp and lovely language.&quot; <strong>—<em>Newsweek</em> <br/></strong><br/>&quot;A warm and winning fiction debut.&quot; <strong>— <em>Publishers Weekly </em></strong><em><br/><br/></em>&quot;I laughed until they put me in a mental hospital. But <em>Personal Days</em> is so much more than satire. Underneath Park's masterly portrait of wasted workaday lives is a pulsating heart, and an odd, buoyant hope.&quot; <strong>— Gary Shteyngart, author of <em>Absurdistan <br/></em></strong><br/>&quot;The funniest book I've read about the way we work now.&quot; <strong>–William Poundstone, author of <em>Fortune's Formula</em> <br/></strong><br/>&quot;Ed Park joins Andy Warhol and Don DeLillo as a master of the deadpan vernacular.&quot; <strong>—Helen DeWitt, author of <em>The Last Samurai</em></strong><em><br/><br/><br/><br/></em>]]>
  </description>
  <published>2008</published>
</book>

    <rating>4</rating>
  <votes>2</votes>
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  <read_at>Mon Aug 04 00:00:00 -0700 2008</read_at>
  <date_added>Wed Jul 30 06:21:22 -0700 2008</date_added>
  <date_updated>Mon Aug 04 06:30:01 -0700 2008</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[This is a fairly quick read, and actually quite amusing. It's about a group of workers in an unnamed office in NYC. The basic plot concerns the ongoing rash of firings that have been going on. Several former workmates are already past-tense when the story opens. There is also a lot of discussion abo...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/28725389">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/28725389]]></url>
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</review>
      <review>
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  <isbn>0812978579</isbn>
  <isbn13>9780812978575</isbn13>
  <text_reviews_count type="integer">174</text_reviews_count>
  <title>
    <![CDATA[Personal Days: A Novel]]>
  </title>
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  <average_rating>3.20</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>506</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[In an unnamed New York-based company, the employees are getting restless as everything around them unravels. There’s Pru, the former grad student turned spreadsheet drone; Laars, the hysteric whose work anxiety stalks him in his tooth-grinding dreams; and Jack II, who distributes unwanted backrubs–aka “jackrubs”–to his co-workers.<br/><br/>On a Sunday, one of them is called at home. And the Firings begin.<br/>Rich with Orwellian doublespeak, filled with sabotage and romance, this astonishing literary debut is at once a comic delight and a narrative tour de force. It’s a novel for anyone who has ever worked in an office and wondered: “Where does the time go? Where does the life go? And whose banana is in the fridge?”<br/><br/><u>Praise for PERSONAL DAYS</u><br/>&quot;Witty and appealing...Anyone who has ever groaned to hear 'impact' used as a verb will cheer as Park skewers the avatars of corporate speak, hellbent on debasing the language....Park has written what one of his characters calls 'a layoff narrative' for our times. As the economy continues its free fall, Park's book may serve as a handy guide for navigating unemployment and uncertainty. Does anyone who isn't a journalist think there can't be two books on the same subject at the same time? We need as many as we can get right now.&quot;                                                                    —<strong><em>The New York Times Book Review <br/></em></strong><br/>&quot;Never have the minutiae of office life been so lovingly cataloged and collated.&quot;                                                                   —&quot;Three First Novels that Just Might Last,&quot; —<strong><em>Time<br/></em></strong><br/>A &quot;comic and creepy début...Park transforms the banal into the eerie, rendering ominous the familiar request &quot;Does anyone want anything from the outside world?&quot; <strong>—<em>The New Yorker</em> <br/><em><br/></em></strong>&quot;The modern corporate office is to Ed Park's debut novel <em>Personal Days</em> what World War II was to Joseph Heller's <em>Catch-22</em>—a theater of absurdity and injustice so profound as to defy all reason....Park may be in line to fill the shoes left by Kurt Vonnegut and other satirists par excellence.&quot;<strong>—Samantha Dunn,</strong> <em>Los Angeles Times<br/></em><br/>&quot;In <em>Personal Days</em> Ed Park has crafted a sometimes funny, sometimes heartbreaking, but always adroit novel about office life...Sharp and lovely language.&quot; <strong>—<em>Newsweek</em> <br/></strong><br/>&quot;A warm and winning fiction debut.&quot; <strong>— <em>Publishers Weekly </em></strong><em><br/><br/></em>&quot;I laughed until they put me in a mental hospital. But <em>Personal Days</em> is so much more than satire. Underneath Park's masterly portrait of wasted workaday lives is a pulsating heart, and an odd, buoyant hope.&quot; <strong>— Gary Shteyngart, author of <em>Absurdistan <br/></em></strong><br/>&quot;The funniest book I've read about the way we work now.&quot; <strong>–William Poundstone, author of <em>Fortune's Formula</em> <br/></strong><br/>&quot;Ed Park joins Andy Warhol and Don DeLillo as a master of the deadpan vernacular.&quot; <strong>—Helen DeWitt, author of <em>The Last Samurai</em></strong><em><br/><br/><br/><br/></em>]]>
  </description>
  <published>2008</published>
</book>

    <rating>4</rating>
  <votes>2</votes>
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  <read_at>Sat Dec 20 00:00:00 -0800 2008</read_at>
  <date_added>Fri May 16 09:15:58 -0700 2008</date_added>
  <date_updated>Fri Dec 19 21:34:13 -0800 2008</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[Ed Park does something pretty laudable here, which is, he does a lot of things that should be failures and makes them not at all failures, at all. First he takes a subject that is easily hit with words as a side of a barn is with bullets. He strips the subject of a name and a purpose so as to create...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/22370259">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/22370259]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/22370259]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>26436994</id>
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    <name><![CDATA[Chris &quot;Stu&quot;]]></name>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[Personal Days: A Novel]]>
  </title>
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  <average_rating>3.20</average_rating>
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  <description>
    <![CDATA[In an unnamed New York-based company, the employees are getting restless as everything around them unravels. There’s Pru, the former grad student turned spreadsheet drone; Laars, the hysteric whose work anxiety stalks him in his tooth-grinding dreams; and Jack II, who distributes unwanted backrubs–aka “jackrubs”–to his co-workers.<br/><br/>On a Sunday, one of them is called at home. And the Firings begin.<br/>Rich with Orwellian doublespeak, filled with sabotage and romance, this astonishing literary debut is at once a comic delight and a narrative tour de force. It’s a novel for anyone who has ever worked in an office and wondered: “Where does the time go? Where does the life go? And whose banana is in the fridge?”<br/><br/><u>Praise for PERSONAL DAYS</u><br/>&quot;Witty and appealing...Anyone who has ever groaned to hear 'impact' used as a verb will cheer as Park skewers the avatars of corporate speak, hellbent on debasing the language....Park has written what one of his characters calls 'a layoff narrative' for our times. As the economy continues its free fall, Park's book may serve as a handy guide for navigating unemployment and uncertainty. Does anyone who isn't a journalist think there can't be two books on the same subject at the same time? We need as many as we can get right now.&quot;                                                                    —<strong><em>The New York Times Book Review <br/></em></strong><br/>&quot;Never have the minutiae of office life been so lovingly cataloged and collated.&quot;                                                                   —&quot;Three First Novels that Just Might Last,&quot; —<strong><em>Time<br/></em></strong><br/>A &quot;comic and creepy début...Park transforms the banal into the eerie, rendering ominous the familiar request &quot;Does anyone want anything from the outside world?&quot; <strong>—<em>The New Yorker</em> <br/><em><br/></em></strong>&quot;The modern corporate office is to Ed Park's debut novel <em>Personal Days</em> what World War II was to Joseph Heller's <em>Catch-22</em>—a theater of absurdity and injustice so profound as to defy all reason....Park may be in line to fill the shoes left by Kurt Vonnegut and other satirists par excellence.&quot;<strong>—Samantha Dunn,</strong> <em>Los Angeles Times<br/></em><br/>&quot;In <em>Personal Days</em> Ed Park has crafted a sometimes funny, sometimes heartbreaking, but always adroit novel about office life...Sharp and lovely language.&quot; <strong>—<em>Newsweek</em> <br/></strong><br/>&quot;A warm and winning fiction debut.&quot; <strong>— <em>Publishers Weekly </em></strong><em><br/><br/></em>&quot;I laughed until they put me in a mental hospital. But <em>Personal Days</em> is so much more than satire. Underneath Park's masterly portrait of wasted workaday lives is a pulsating heart, and an odd, buoyant hope.&quot; <strong>— Gary Shteyngart, author of <em>Absurdistan <br/></em></strong><br/>&quot;The funniest book I've read about the way we work now.&quot; <strong>–William Poundstone, author of <em>Fortune's Formula</em> <br/></strong><br/>&quot;Ed Park joins Andy Warhol and Don DeLillo as a master of the deadpan vernacular.&quot; <strong>—Helen DeWitt, author of <em>The Last Samurai</em></strong><em><br/><br/><br/><br/></em>]]>
  </description>
  <published>2008</published>
</book>

    <rating>4</rating>
  <votes>1</votes>
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  <recommended_by><![CDATA[]]></recommended_by>
  <read_at>Tue Jul 08 00:00:00 -0700 2008</read_at>
  <date_added>Sun Jul 06 10:02:29 -0700 2008</date_added>
  <date_updated>Tue Jul 08 16:41:42 -0700 2008</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[So it seems weird to wind up reading two books in a month that are both set in offices told in the first person plural. It seems obvious, after the fact, and it also seems like something that just developed independently of each other. _Personal Days_ winds up being more concerned with resolving all...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/26436994">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/26436994]]></url>
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      <review>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[Personal Days: A Novel]]>
  </title>
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  <average_rating>3.20</average_rating>
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  <description>
    <![CDATA[In an unnamed New York-based company, the employees are getting restless as everything around them unravels. There’s Pru, the former grad student turned spreadsheet drone; Laars, the hysteric whose work anxiety stalks him in his tooth-grinding dreams; and Jack II, who distributes unwanted backrubs–aka “jackrubs”–to his co-workers.<br/><br/>On a Sunday, one of them is called at home. And the Firings begin.<br/>Rich with Orwellian doublespeak, filled with sabotage and romance, this astonishing literary debut is at once a comic delight and a narrative tour de force. It’s a novel for anyone who has ever worked in an office and wondered: “Where does the time go? Where does the life go? And whose banana is in the fridge?”<br/><br/><u>Praise for PERSONAL DAYS</u><br/>&quot;Witty and appealing...Anyone who has ever groaned to hear 'impact' used as a verb will cheer as Park skewers the avatars of corporate speak, hellbent on debasing the language....Park has written what one of his characters calls 'a layoff narrative' for our times. As the economy continues its free fall, Park's book may serve as a handy guide for navigating unemployment and uncertainty. Does anyone who isn't a journalist think there can't be two books on the same subject at the same time? We need as many as we can get right now.&quot;                                                                    —<strong><em>The New York Times Book Review <br/></em></strong><br/>&quot;Never have the minutiae of office life been so lovingly cataloged and collated.&quot;                                                                   —&quot;Three First Novels that Just Might Last,&quot; —<strong><em>Time<br/></em></strong><br/>A &quot;comic and creepy début...Park transforms the banal into the eerie, rendering ominous the familiar request &quot;Does anyone want anything from the outside world?&quot; <strong>—<em>The New Yorker</em> <br/><em><br/></em></strong>&quot;The modern corporate office is to Ed Park's debut novel <em>Personal Days</em> what World War II was to Joseph Heller's <em>Catch-22</em>—a theater of absurdity and injustice so profound as to defy all reason....Park may be in line to fill the shoes left by Kurt Vonnegut and other satirists par excellence.&quot;<strong>—Samantha Dunn,</strong> <em>Los Angeles Times<br/></em><br/>&quot;In <em>Personal Days</em> Ed Park has crafted a sometimes funny, sometimes heartbreaking, but always adroit novel about office life...Sharp and lovely language.&quot; <strong>—<em>Newsweek</em> <br/></strong><br/>&quot;A warm and winning fiction debut.&quot; <strong>— <em>Publishers Weekly </em></strong><em><br/><br/></em>&quot;I laughed until they put me in a mental hospital. But <em>Personal Days</em> is so much more than satire. Underneath Park's masterly portrait of wasted workaday lives is a pulsating heart, and an odd, buoyant hope.&quot; <strong>— Gary Shteyngart, author of <em>Absurdistan <br/></em></strong><br/>&quot;The funniest book I've read about the way we work now.&quot; <strong>–William Poundstone, author of <em>Fortune's Formula</em> <br/></strong><br/>&quot;Ed Park joins Andy Warhol and Don DeLillo as a master of the deadpan vernacular.&quot; <strong>—Helen DeWitt, author of <em>The Last Samurai</em></strong><em><br/><br/><br/><br/></em>]]>
  </description>
  <published>2008</published>
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    <rating>3</rating>
  <votes>1</votes>
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  <read_at>Fri Jul 04 00:00:00 -0700 2008</read_at>
  <date_added>Tue Jul 01 06:08:24 -0700 2008</date_added>
  <date_updated>Fri Jul 11 16:38:44 -0700 2008</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[bob wrote the best review of this book, you can read it <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.observer.com/node/36493">here</a>.<br/><br/>as you can imagine, i have extreme biases, so i'll keep this one short. this book is about working in an office. it is really great, really funny. i feel for ed that ferris got the jump on him, because the ferris book is just g...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/25999484">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/25999484]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/25999484]]></link>
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      <review>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[Personal Days: A Novel]]>
  </title>
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  <average_rating>3.20</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>506</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[In an unnamed New York-based company, the employees are getting restless as everything around them unravels. There’s Pru, the former grad student turned spreadsheet drone; Laars, the hysteric whose work anxiety stalks him in his tooth-grinding dreams; and Jack II, who distributes unwanted backrubs–aka “jackrubs”–to his co-workers.<br/><br/>On a Sunday, one of them is called at home. And the Firings begin.<br/>Rich with Orwellian doublespeak, filled with sabotage and romance, this astonishing literary debut is at once a comic delight and a narrative tour de force. It’s a novel for anyone who has ever worked in an office and wondered: “Where does the time go? Where does the life go? And whose banana is in the fridge?”<br/><br/><u>Praise for PERSONAL DAYS</u><br/>&quot;Witty and appealing...Anyone who has ever groaned to hear 'impact' used as a verb will cheer as Park skewers the avatars of corporate speak, hellbent on debasing the language....Park has written what one of his characters calls 'a layoff narrative' for our times. As the economy continues its free fall, Park's book may serve as a handy guide for navigating unemployment and uncertainty. Does anyone who isn't a journalist think there can't be two books on the same subject at the same time? We need as many as we can get right now.&quot;                                                                    —<strong><em>The New York Times Book Review <br/></em></strong><br/>&quot;Never have the minutiae of office life been so lovingly cataloged and collated.&quot;                                                                   —&quot;Three First Novels that Just Might Last,&quot; —<strong><em>Time<br/></em></strong><br/>A &quot;comic and creepy début...Park transforms the banal into the eerie, rendering ominous the familiar request &quot;Does anyone want anything from the outside world?&quot; <strong>—<em>The New Yorker</em> <br/><em><br/></em></strong>&quot;The modern corporate office is to Ed Park's debut novel <em>Personal Days</em> what World War II was to Joseph Heller's <em>Catch-22</em>—a theater of absurdity and injustice so profound as to defy all reason....Park may be in line to fill the shoes left by Kurt Vonnegut and other satirists par excellence.&quot;<strong>—Samantha Dunn,</strong> <em>Los Angeles Times<br/></em><br/>&quot;In <em>Personal Days</em> Ed Park has crafted a sometimes funny, sometimes heartbreaking, but always adroit novel about office life...Sharp and lovely language.&quot; <strong>—<em>Newsweek</em> <br/></strong><br/>&quot;A warm and winning fiction debut.&quot; <strong>— <em>Publishers Weekly </em></strong><em><br/><br/></em>&quot;I laughed until they put me in a mental hospital. But <em>Personal Days</em> is so much more than satire. Underneath Park's masterly portrait of wasted workaday lives is a pulsating heart, and an odd, buoyant hope.&quot; <strong>— Gary Shteyngart, author of <em>Absurdistan <br/></em></strong><br/>&quot;The funniest book I've read about the way we work now.&quot; <strong>–William Poundstone, author of <em>Fortune's Formula</em> <br/></strong><br/>&quot;Ed Park joins Andy Warhol and Don DeLillo as a master of the deadpan vernacular.&quot; <strong>—Helen DeWitt, author of <em>The Last Samurai</em></strong><em><br/><br/><br/><br/></em>]]>
  </description>
  <published>2008</published>
</book>

    <rating>4</rating>
  <votes>1</votes>
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  <recommended_for><![CDATA[wage slaves]]></recommended_for>
  <recommended_by><![CDATA[Alex Heminsley]]></recommended_by>
  <read_at>Sat Jun 14 00:00:00 -0700 2008</read_at>
  <date_added>Sat May 31 08:12:54 -0700 2008</date_added>
  <date_updated>Sun Jun 15 15:41:50 -0700 2008</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[Ed Park's book is kind of like <em>The Office</em> meets Kafka. Set in an unnamed company in Manhattan, recently taken over by another company run by faceless Californians, it is a collection of loosely connected anecdotes and observations that captures the absurdity, paranoia, and angst of white-collar wage...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/23372432">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/23372432]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/23372432]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>27382567</id>
    <user>
    <id>113969</id>
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  <isbn>0812978579</isbn>
  <isbn13>9780812978575</isbn13>
  <text_reviews_count type="integer">174</text_reviews_count>
  <title>
    <![CDATA[Personal Days: A Novel]]>
  </title>
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  <average_rating>3.20</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>506</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[In an unnamed New York-based company, the employees are getting restless as everything around them unravels. There’s Pru, the former grad student turned spreadsheet drone; Laars, the hysteric whose work anxiety stalks him in his tooth-grinding dreams; and Jack II, who distributes unwanted backrubs–aka “jackrubs”–to his co-workers.<br/><br/>On a Sunday, one of them is called at home. And the Firings begin.<br/>Rich with Orwellian doublespeak, filled with sabotage and romance, this astonishing literary debut is at once a comic delight and a narrative tour de force. It’s a novel for anyone who has ever worked in an office and wondered: “Where does the time go? Where does the life go? And whose banana is in the fridge?”<br/><br/><u>Praise for PERSONAL DAYS</u><br/>&quot;Witty and appealing...Anyone who has ever groaned to hear 'impact' used as a verb will cheer as Park skewers the avatars of corporate speak, hellbent on debasing the language....Park has written what one of his characters calls 'a layoff narrative' for our times. As the economy continues its free fall, Park's book may serve as a handy guide for navigating unemployment and uncertainty. Does anyone who isn't a journalist think there can't be two books on the same subject at the same time? We need as many as we can get right now.&quot;                                                                    —<strong><em>The New York Times Book Review <br/></em></strong><br/>&quot;Never have the minutiae of office life been so lovingly cataloged and collated.&quot;                                                                   —&quot;Three First Novels that Just Might Last,&quot; —<strong><em>Time<br/></em></strong><br/>A &quot;comic and creepy début...Park transforms the banal into the eerie, rendering ominous the familiar request &quot;Does anyone want anything from the outside world?&quot; <strong>—<em>The New Yorker</em> <br/><em><br/></em></strong>&quot;The modern corporate office is to Ed Park's debut novel <em>Personal Days</em> what World War II was to Joseph Heller's <em>Catch-22</em>—a theater of absurdity and injustice so profound as to defy all reason....Park may be in line to fill the shoes left by Kurt Vonnegut and other satirists par excellence.&quot;<strong>—Samantha Dunn,</strong> <em>Los Angeles Times<br/></em><br/>&quot;In <em>Personal Days</em> Ed Park has crafted a sometimes funny, sometimes heartbreaking, but always adroit novel about office life...Sharp and lovely language.&quot; <strong>—<em>Newsweek</em> <br/></strong><br/>&quot;A warm and winning fiction debut.&quot; <strong>— <em>Publishers Weekly </em></strong><em><br/><br/></em>&quot;I laughed until they put me in a mental hospital. But <em>Personal Days</em> is so much more than satire. Underneath Park's masterly portrait of wasted workaday lives is a pulsating heart, and an odd, buoyant hope.&quot; <strong>— Gary Shteyngart, author of <em>Absurdistan <br/></em></strong><br/>&quot;The funniest book I've read about the way we work now.&quot; <strong>–William Poundstone, author of <em>Fortune's Formula</em> <br/></strong><br/>&quot;Ed Park joins Andy Warhol and Don DeLillo as a master of the deadpan vernacular.&quot; <strong>—Helen DeWitt, author of <em>The Last Samurai</em></strong><em><br/><br/><br/><br/></em>]]>
  </description>
  <published>2008</published>
</book>

    <rating>5</rating>
  <votes>1</votes>
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          </shelves>
  <recommended_for><![CDATA[Drunk Uncle Joe; anyone who has ever received an email about an imminent server reboot]]></recommended_for>
  <recommended_by><![CDATA[The New Yorker]]></recommended_by>
  <read_at>Tue Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008</read_at>
  <date_added>Tue Jul 15 20:34:50 -0700 2008</date_added>
  <date_updated>Tue Jul 15 20:44:02 -0700 2008</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[For the record, I am giving this book 5 stars even though I'm pretty mad at it right now... for ending. It was a pretty quick read. I would say perfect for that business trip you're about to go on, but if you get to go on paid business trips you are perhaps not quite in the target audience.<br/><br/>...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/27382567">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/27382567]]></url>
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</review>
      <review>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[Personal Days: A Novel]]>
  </title>
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  <average_rating>3.20</average_rating>
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  <description>
    <![CDATA[In an unnamed New York-based company, the employees are getting restless as everything around them unravels. There’s Pru, the former grad student turned spreadsheet drone; Laars, the hysteric whose work anxiety stalks him in his tooth-grinding dreams; and Jack II, who distributes unwanted backrubs–aka “jackrubs”–to his co-workers.<br/><br/>On a Sunday, one of them is called at home. And the Firings begin.<br/>Rich with Orwellian doublespeak, filled with sabotage and romance, this astonishing literary debut is at once a comic delight and a narrative tour de force. It’s a novel for anyone who has ever worked in an office and wondered: “Where does the time go? Where does the life go? And whose banana is in the fridge?”<br/><br/><u>Praise for PERSONAL DAYS</u><br/>&quot;Witty and appealing...Anyone who has ever groaned to hear 'impact' used as a verb will cheer as Park skewers the avatars of corporate speak, hellbent on debasing the language....Park has written what one of his characters calls 'a layoff narrative' for our times. As the economy continues its free fall, Park's book may serve as a handy guide for navigating unemployment and uncertainty. Does anyone who isn't a journalist think there can't be two books on the same subject at the same time? We need as many as we can get right now.&quot;                                                                    —<strong><em>The New York Times Book Review <br/></em></strong><br/>&quot;Never have the minutiae of office life been so lovingly cataloged and collated.&quot;                                                                   —&quot;Three First Novels that Just Might Last,&quot; —<strong><em>Time<br/></em></strong><br/>A &quot;comic and creepy début...Park transforms the banal into the eerie, rendering ominous the familiar request &quot;Does anyone want anything from the outside world?&quot; <strong>—<em>The New Yorker</em> <br/><em><br/></em></strong>&quot;The modern corporate office is to Ed Park's debut novel <em>Personal Days</em> what World War II was to Joseph Heller's <em>Catch-22</em>—a theater of absurdity and injustice so profound as to defy all reason....Park may be in line to fill the shoes left by Kurt Vonnegut and other satirists par excellence.&quot;<strong>—Samantha Dunn,</strong> <em>Los Angeles Times<br/></em><br/>&quot;In <em>Personal Days</em> Ed Park has crafted a sometimes funny, sometimes heartbreaking, but always adroit novel about office life...Sharp and lovely language.&quot; <strong>—<em>Newsweek</em> <br/></strong><br/>&quot;A warm and winning fiction debut.&quot; <strong>— <em>Publishers Weekly </em></strong><em><br/><br/></em>&quot;I laughed until they put me in a mental hospital. But <em>Personal Days</em> is so much more than satire. Underneath Park's masterly portrait of wasted workaday lives is a pulsating heart, and an odd, buoyant hope.&quot; <strong>— Gary Shteyngart, author of <em>Absurdistan <br/></em></strong><br/>&quot;The funniest book I've read about the way we work now.&quot; <strong>–William Poundstone, author of <em>Fortune's Formula</em> <br/></strong><br/>&quot;Ed Park joins Andy Warhol and Don DeLillo as a master of the deadpan vernacular.&quot; <strong>—Helen DeWitt, author of <em>The Last Samurai</em></strong><em><br/><br/><br/><br/></em>]]>
  </description>
  <published>2008</published>
</book>

    <rating>3</rating>
  <votes>1</votes>
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  <recommended_by><![CDATA[]]></recommended_by>
  <read_at>Wed Dec 03 00:00:00 -0800 2008</read_at>
  <date_added>Sun Nov 16 19:13:39 -0800 2008</date_added>
  <date_updated>Wed Dec 03 11:23:27 -0800 2008</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[Good try. Doomed to be overshadowed by Ferris' Then We Came to the End, a similar tale of cubicle-and-layoff angst also told in the first person plural that got there a year earlier and adds up to more. Park's novel has more details and more jokes, but even thinner character development. Having work...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/37910158">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/37910158]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/37910158]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>33492070</id>
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    <id>600853</id>
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    <location><![CDATA[Newberg, OR]]></location>
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  <isbn>0812978579</isbn>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[Personal Days: A Novel]]>
  </title>
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  <average_rating>3.20</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>506</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[In an unnamed New York-based company, the employees are getting restless as everything around them unravels. There’s Pru, the former grad student turned spreadsheet drone; Laars, the hysteric whose work anxiety stalks him in his tooth-grinding dreams; and Jack II, who distributes unwanted backrubs–aka “jackrubs”–to his co-workers.<br/><br/>On a Sunday, one of them is called at home. And the Firings begin.<br/>Rich with Orwellian doublespeak, filled with sabotage and romance, this astonishing literary debut is at once a comic delight and a narrative tour de force. It’s a novel for anyone who has ever worked in an office and wondered: “Where does the time go? Where does the life go? And whose banana is in the fridge?”<br/><br/><u>Praise for PERSONAL DAYS</u><br/>&quot;Witty and appealing...Anyone who has ever groaned to hear 'impact' used as a verb will cheer as Park skewers the avatars of corporate speak, hellbent on debasing the language....Park has written what one of his characters calls 'a layoff narrative' for our times. As the economy continues its free fall, Park's book may serve as a handy guide for navigating unemployment and uncertainty. Does anyone who isn't a journalist think there can't be two books on the same subject at the same time? We need as many as we can get right now.&quot;                                                                    —<strong><em>The New York Times Book Review <br/></em></strong><br/>&quot;Never have the minutiae of office life been so lovingly cataloged and collated.&quot;                                                                   —&quot;Three First Novels that Just Might Last,&quot; —<strong><em>Time<br/></em></strong><br/>A &quot;comic and creepy début...Park transforms the banal into the eerie, rendering ominous the familiar request &quot;Does anyone want anything from the outside world?&quot; <strong>—<em>The New Yorker</em> <br/><em><br/></em></strong>&quot;The modern corporate office is to Ed Park's debut novel <em>Personal Days</em> what World War II was to Joseph Heller's <em>Catch-22</em>—a theater of absurdity and injustice so profound as to defy all reason....Park may be in line to fill the shoes left by Kurt Vonnegut and other satirists par excellence.&quot;<strong>—Samantha Dunn,</strong> <em>Los Angeles Times<br/></em><br/>&quot;In <em>Personal Days</em> Ed Park has crafted a sometimes funny, sometimes heartbreaking, but always adroit novel about office life...Sharp and lovely language.&quot; <strong>—<em>Newsweek</em> <br/></strong><br/>&quot;A warm and winning fiction debut.&quot; <strong>— <em>Publishers Weekly </em></strong><em><br/><br/></em>&quot;I laughed until they put me in a mental hospital. But <em>Personal Days</em> is so much more than satire. Underneath Park's masterly portrait of wasted workaday lives is a pulsating heart, and an odd, buoyant hope.&quot; <strong>— Gary Shteyngart, author of <em>Absurdistan <br/></em></strong><br/>&quot;The funniest book I've read about the way we work now.&quot; <strong>–William Poundstone, author of <em>Fortune's Formula</em> <br/></strong><br/>&quot;Ed Park joins Andy Warhol and Don DeLillo as a master of the deadpan vernacular.&quot; <strong>—Helen DeWitt, author of <em>The Last Samurai</em></strong><em><br/><br/><br/><br/></em>]]>
  </description>
  <published>2008</published>
</book>

    <rating>4</rating>
  <votes>1</votes>
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  <read_at>Sat Sep 20 00:00:00 -0700 2008</read_at>
  <date_added>Sun Sep 21 21:44:49 -0700 2008</date_added>
  <date_updated>Sun Sep 21 21:51:40 -0700 2008</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[This book touched home-base like no other.  Short snippets of office life put together just like a real office.  In MY old office, things flowed much the way they do in this book; every event was separated by needing to do 30 other things before we could return to the first event.  Office gossip was...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/33492070">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/33492070]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/33492070]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
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    <user>
    <id>247171</id>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[Personal Days: A Novel]]>
  </title>
  <image_url>http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1199552036m/2026701.jpg</image_url>
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  <average_rating>3.20</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>506</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[In an unnamed New York-based company, the employees are getting restless as everything around them unravels. There’s Pru, the former grad student turned spreadsheet drone; Laars, the hysteric whose work anxiety stalks him in his tooth-grinding dreams; and Jack II, who distributes unwanted backrubs–aka “jackrubs”–to his co-workers.<br/><br/>On a Sunday, one of them is called at home. And the Firings begin.<br/>Rich with Orwellian doublespeak, filled with sabotage and romance, this astonishing literary debut is at once a comic delight and a narrative tour de force. It’s a novel for anyone who has ever worked in an office and wondered: “Where does the time go? Where does the life go? And whose banana is in the fridge?”<br/><br/><u>Praise for PERSONAL DAYS</u><br/>&quot;Witty and appealing...Anyone who has ever groaned to hear 'impact' used as a verb will cheer as Park skewers the avatars of corporate speak, hellbent on debasing the language....Park has written what one of his characters calls 'a layoff narrative' for our times. As the economy continues its free fall, Park's book may serve as a handy guide for navigating unemployment and uncertainty. Does anyone who isn't a journalist think there can't be two books on the same subject at the same time? We need as many as we can get right now.&quot;                                                                    —<strong><em>The New York Times Book Review <br/></em></strong><br/>&quot;Never have the minutiae of office life been so lovingly cataloged and collated.&quot;                                                                   —&quot;Three First Novels that Just Might Last,&quot; —<strong><em>Time<br/></em></strong><br/>A &quot;comic and creepy début...Park transforms the banal into the eerie, rendering ominous the familiar request &quot;Does anyone want anything from the outside world?&quot; <strong>—<em>The New Yorker</em> <br/><em><br/></em></strong>&quot;The modern corporate office is to Ed Park's debut novel <em>Personal Days</em> what World War II was to Joseph Heller's <em>Catch-22</em>—a theater of absurdity and injustice so profound as to defy all reason....Park may be in line to fill the shoes left by Kurt Vonnegut and other satirists par excellence.&quot;<strong>—Samantha Dunn,</strong> <em>Los Angeles Times<br/></em><br/>&quot;In <em>Personal Days</em> Ed Park has crafted a sometimes funny, sometimes heartbreaking, but always adroit novel about office life...Sharp and lovely language.&quot; <strong>—<em>Newsweek</em> <br/></strong><br/>&quot;A warm and winning fiction debut.&quot; <strong>— <em>Publishers Weekly </em></strong><em><br/><br/></em>&quot;I laughed until they put me in a mental hospital. But <em>Personal Days</em> is so much more than satire. Underneath Park's masterly portrait of wasted workaday lives is a pulsating heart, and an odd, buoyant hope.&quot; <strong>— Gary Shteyngart, author of <em>Absurdistan <br/></em></strong><br/>&quot;The funniest book I've read about the way we work now.&quot; <strong>–William Poundstone, author of <em>Fortune's Formula</em> <br/></strong><br/>&quot;Ed Park joins Andy Warhol and Don DeLillo as a master of the deadpan vernacular.&quot; <strong>—Helen DeWitt, author of <em>The Last Samurai</em></strong><em><br/><br/><br/><br/></em>]]>
  </description>
  <published>2008</published>
</book>

    <rating>5</rating>
  <votes>1</votes>
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  <recommended_for><![CDATA[]]></recommended_for>
  <recommended_by><![CDATA[]]></recommended_by>
  <read_at>Mon Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008</read_at>
  <date_added>Sun Dec 14 08:56:04 -0800 2008</date_added>
  <date_updated>Sun Dec 14 09:03:01 -0800 2008</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[Funniest book I've read since the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - and I was like 10 years old. An LOLfest. <br/><br/>People in my bookgroup say its a decent portratyal of the corporate world.  Really dead on for some people for their office. Which makes me happy.  Very cheering.<br/><br/>Plus ther...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/40072550">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/40072550]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/40072550]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>38699583</id>
    <user>
    <id>145922</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Alexander]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[Amherst, MA]]></location>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[Personal Days: A Novel]]>
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  <average_rating>3.20</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>506</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[In an unnamed New York-based company, the employees are getting restless as everything around them unravels. There’s Pru, the former grad student turned spreadsheet drone; Laars, the hysteric whose work anxiety stalks him in his tooth-grinding dreams; and Jack II, who distributes unwanted backrubs–aka “jackrubs”–to his co-workers.<br/><br/>On a Sunday, one of them is called at home. And the Firings begin.<br/>Rich with Orwellian doublespeak, filled with sabotage and romance, this astonishing literary debut is at once a comic delight and a narrative tour de force. It’s a novel for anyone who has ever worked in an office and wondered: “Where does the time go? Where does the life go? And whose banana is in the fridge?”<br/><br/><u>Praise for PERSONAL DAYS</u><br/>&quot;Witty and appealing...Anyone who has ever groaned to hear 'impact' used as a verb will cheer as Park skewers the avatars of corporate speak, hellbent on debasing the language....Park has written what one of his characters calls 'a layoff narrative' for our times. As the economy continues its free fall, Park's book may serve as a handy guide for navigating unemployment and uncertainty. Does anyone who isn't a journalist think there can't be two books on the same subject at the same time? We need as many as we can get right now.&quot;                                                                    —<strong><em>The New York Times Book Review <br/></em></strong><br/>&quot;Never have the minutiae of office life been so lovingly cataloged and collated.&quot;                                                                   —&quot;Three First Novels that Just Might Last,&quot; —<strong><em>Time<br/></em></strong><br/>A &quot;comic and creepy début...Park transforms the banal into the eerie, rendering ominous the familiar request &quot;Does anyone want anything from the outside world?&quot; <strong>—<em>The New Yorker</em> <br/><em><br/></em></strong>&quot;The modern corporate office is to Ed Park's debut novel <em>Personal Days</em> what World War II was to Joseph Heller's <em>Catch-22</em>—a theater of absurdity and injustice so profound as to defy all reason....Park may be in line to fill the shoes left by Kurt Vonnegut and other satirists par excellence.&quot;<strong>—Samantha Dunn,</strong> <em>Los Angeles Times<br/></em><br/>&quot;In <em>Personal Days</em> Ed Park has crafted a sometimes funny, sometimes heartbreaking, but always adroit novel about office life...Sharp and lovely language.&quot; <strong>—<em>Newsweek</em> <br/></strong><br/>&quot;A warm and winning fiction debut.&quot; <strong>— <em>Publishers Weekly </em></strong><em><br/><br/></em>&quot;I laughed until they put me in a mental hospital. But <em>Personal Days</em> is so much more than satire. Underneath Park's masterly portrait of wasted workaday lives is a pulsating heart, and an odd, buoyant hope.&quot; <strong>— Gary Shteyngart, author of <em>Absurdistan <br/></em></strong><br/>&quot;The funniest book I've read about the way we work now.&quot; <strong>–William Poundstone, author of <em>Fortune's Formula</em> <br/></strong><br/>&quot;Ed Park joins Andy Warhol and Don DeLillo as a master of the deadpan vernacular.&quot; <strong>—Helen DeWitt, author of <em>The Last Samurai</em></strong><em><br/><br/><br/><br/></em>]]>
  </description>
  <published>2008</published>
</book>

    <rating>5</rating>
  <votes>1</votes>
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  <recommended_for><![CDATA[]]></recommended_for>
  <recommended_by><![CDATA[]]></recommended_by>
  <read_at>Wed Nov 26 00:00:00 -0800 2008</read_at>
  <date_added>Wed Nov 26 11:07:36 -0800 2008</date_added>
  <date_updated>Wed Nov 26 11:16:17 -0800 2008</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[This is one of the best new novels I've read in years. I feel like none of the reviews I've read of it quite describe what it feels like to read it---yes, it's funny, and the word &quot;savage&quot; appears a fair amount, but it's more like, &quot;Oh, someone has finally described what it is like to...]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/38699583]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/38699583]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>28646895</id>
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  <id type="integer">2026701</id>
  <isbn>0812978579</isbn>
  <isbn13>9780812978575</isbn13>
  <text_reviews_count type="integer">174</text_reviews_count>
  <title>
    <![CDATA[Personal Days: A Novel]]>
  </title>
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  <link>http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2026701.Personal_Days_A_Novel</link>
  <average_rating>3.20</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>506</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[In an unnamed New York-based company, the employees are getting restless as everything around them unravels. There’s Pru, the former grad student turned spreadsheet drone; Laars, the hysteric whose work anxiety stalks him in his tooth-grinding dreams; and Jack II, who distributes unwanted backrubs–aka “jackrubs”–to his co-workers.<br/><br/>On a Sunday, one of them is called at home. And the Firings begin.<br/>Rich with Orwellian doublespeak, filled with sabotage and romance, this astonishing literary debut is at once a comic delight and a narrative tour de force. It’s a novel for anyone who has ever worked in an office and wondered: “Where does the time go? Where does the life go? And whose banana is in the fridge?”<br/><br/><u>Praise for PERSONAL DAYS</u><br/>&quot;Witty and appealing...Anyone who has ever groaned to hear 'impact' used as a verb will cheer as Park skewers the avatars of corporate speak, hellbent on debasing the language....Park has written what one of his characters calls 'a layoff narrative' for our times. As the economy continues its free fall, Park's book may serve as a handy guide for navigating unemployment and uncertainty. Does anyone who isn't a journalist think there can't be two books on the same subject at the same time? We need as many as we can get right now.&quot;                                                                    —<strong><em>The New York Times Book Review <br/></em></strong><br/>&quot;Never have the minutiae of office life been so lovingly cataloged and collated.&quot;                                                                   —&quot;Three First Novels that Just Might Last,&quot; —<strong><em>Time<br/></em></strong><br/>A &quot;comic and creepy début...Park transforms the banal into the eerie, rendering ominous the familiar request &quot;Does anyone want anything from the outside world?&quot; <strong>—<em>The New Yorker</em> <br/><em><br/></em></strong>&quot;The modern corporate office is to Ed Park's debut novel <em>Personal Days</em> what World War II was to Joseph Heller's <em>Catch-22</em>—a theater of absurdity and injustice so profound as to defy all reason....Park may be in line to fill the shoes left by Kurt Vonnegut and other satirists par excellence.&quot;<strong>—Samantha Dunn,</strong> <em>Los Angeles Times<br/></em><br/>&quot;In <em>Personal Days</em> Ed Park has crafted a sometimes funny, sometimes heartbreaking, but always adroit novel about office life...Sharp and lovely language.&quot; <strong>—<em>Newsweek</em> <br/></strong><br/>&quot;A warm and winning fiction debut.&quot; <strong>— <em>Publishers Weekly </em></strong><em><br/><br/></em>&quot;I laughed until they put me in a mental hospital. But <em>Personal Days</em> is so much more than satire. Underneath Park's masterly portrait of wasted workaday lives is a pulsating heart, and an odd, buoyant hope.&quot; <strong>— Gary Shteyngart, author of <em>Absurdistan <br/></em></strong><br/>&quot;The funniest book I've read about the way we work now.&quot; <strong>–William Poundstone, author of <em>Fortune's Formula</em> <br/></strong><br/>&quot;Ed Park joins Andy Warhol and Don DeLillo as a master of the deadpan vernacular.&quot; <strong>—Helen DeWitt, author of <em>The Last Samurai</em></strong><em><br/><br/><br/><br/></em>]]>
  </description>
  <published>2008</published>
</book>

    <rating>4</rating>
  <votes>1</votes>
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  <read_at>Fri Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008</read_at>
  <date_added>Tue Jul 29 13:31:24 -0700 2008</date_added>
  <date_updated>Fri Aug 01 05:40:41 -0700 2008</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[Ok, when I first started reading this, I thought that it was the same as Joshua Ferris's book &quot;Then We Came to The End&quot; except that Joshua Ferris's story was better.  Both are set in the modern work-place: lay-off fever has gripped the office and both are about the trivial details with whi...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/28646895">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/28646895]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/28646895]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
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  <isbn>0812978579</isbn>
  <isbn13>9780812978575</isbn13>
  <text_reviews_count type="integer">174</text_reviews_count>
  <title>
    <![CDATA[Personal Days: A Novel]]>
  </title>
  <image_url>http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1199552036m/2026701.jpg</image_url>
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  <average_rating>3.20</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>506</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[In an unnamed New York-based company, the employees are getting restless as everything around them unravels. There’s Pru, the former grad student turned spreadsheet drone; Laars, the hysteric whose work anxiety stalks him in his tooth-grinding dreams; and Jack II, who distributes unwanted backrubs–aka “jackrubs”–to his co-workers.<br/><br/>On a Sunday, one of them is called at home. And the Firings begin.<br/>Rich with Orwellian doublespeak, filled with sabotage and romance, this astonishing literary debut is at once a comic delight and a narrative tour de force. It’s a novel for anyone who has ever worked in an office and wondered: “Where does the time go? Where does the life go? And whose banana is in the fridge?”<br/><br/><u>Praise for PERSONAL DAYS</u><br/>&quot;Witty and appealing...Anyone who has ever groaned to hear 'impact' used as a verb will cheer as Park skewers the avatars of corporate speak, hellbent on debasing the language....Park has written what one of his characters calls 'a layoff narrative' for our times. As the economy continues its free fall, Park's book may serve as a handy guide for navigating unemployment and uncertainty. Does anyone who isn't a journalist think there can't be two books on the same subject at the same time? We need as many as we can get right now.&quot;                                                                    —<strong><em>The New York Times Book Review <br/></em></strong><br/>&quot;Never have the minutiae of office life been so lovingly cataloged and collated.&quot;                                                                   —&quot;Three First Novels that Just Might Last,&quot; —<strong><em>Time<br/></em></strong><br/>A &quot;comic and creepy début...Park transforms the banal into the eerie, rendering ominous the familiar request &quot;Does anyone want anything from the outside world?&quot; <strong>—<em>The New Yorker</em> <br/><em><br/></em></strong>&quot;The modern corporate office is to Ed Park's debut novel <em>Personal Days</em> what World War II was to Joseph Heller's <em>Catch-22</em>—a theater of absurdity and injustice so profound as to defy all reason....Park may be in line to fill the shoes left by Kurt Vonnegut and other satirists par excellence.&quot;<strong>—Samantha Dunn,</strong> <em>Los Angeles Times<br/></em><br/>&quot;In <em>Personal Days</em> Ed Park has crafted a sometimes funny, sometimes heartbreaking, but always adroit novel about office life...Sharp and lovely language.&quot; <strong>—<em>Newsweek</em> <br/></strong><br/>&quot;A warm and winning fiction debut.&quot; <strong>— <em>Publishers Weekly </em></strong><em><br/><br/></em>&quot;I laughed until they put me in a mental hospital. But <em>Personal Days</em> is so much more than satire. Underneath Park's masterly portrait of wasted workaday lives is a pulsating heart, and an odd, buoyant hope.&quot; <strong>— Gary Shteyngart, author of <em>Absurdistan <br/></em></strong><br/>&quot;The funniest book I've read about the way we work now.&quot; <strong>–William Poundstone, author of <em>Fortune's Formula</em> <br/></strong><br/>&quot;Ed Park joins Andy Warhol and Don DeLillo as a master of the deadpan vernacular.&quot; <strong>—Helen DeWitt, author of <em>The Last Samurai</em></strong><em><br/><br/><br/><br/></em>]]>
  </description>
  <published>2008</published>
</book>

    <rating>4</rating>
  <votes>1</votes>
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  <recommended_by><![CDATA[]]></recommended_by>
  <read_at>Fri Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008</read_at>
  <date_added>Sat Aug 30 14:05:06 -0700 2008</date_added>
  <date_updated>Sat Aug 30 14:05:06 -0700 2008</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[I really liked this book on some level it seemed to be more about hanging around than actually about following too much of the story line although of course there was one. The Storyline while it didn't garner a lot of my attention throughout the book had an ending that surprised me which doesn't hap...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/31602828">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/31602828]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/31602828]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>23760938</id>
    <user>
    <id>616053</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Rachel]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[Washington, DC]]></location>
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  <isbn>0812978579</isbn>
  <isbn13>9780812978575</isbn13>
  <text_reviews_count type="integer">174</text_reviews_count>
  <title>
    <![CDATA[Personal Days: A Novel]]>
  </title>
  <image_url>http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1199552036m/2026701.jpg</image_url>
  <small_image_url>http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1199552036s/2026701.jpg</small_image_url>
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  <average_rating>3.20</average_rating>
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  <description>
    <![CDATA[In an unnamed New York-based company, the employees are getting restless as everything around them unravels. There’s Pru, the former grad student turned spreadsheet drone; Laars, the hysteric whose work anxiety stalks him in his tooth-grinding dreams; and Jack II, who distributes unwanted backrubs–aka “jackrubs”–to his co-workers.<br/><br/>On a Sunday, one of them is called at home. And the Firings begin.<br/>Rich with Orwellian doublespeak, filled with sabotage and romance, this astonishing literary debut is at once a comic delight and a narrative tour de force. It’s a novel for anyone who has ever worked in an office and wondered: “Where does the time go? Where does the life go? And whose banana is in the fridge?”<br/><br/><u>Praise for PERSONAL DAYS</u><br/>&quot;Witty and appealing...Anyone who has ever groaned to hear 'impact' used as a verb will cheer as Park skewers the avatars of corporate speak, hellbent on debasing the language....Park has written what one of his characters calls 'a layoff narrative' for our times. As the economy continues its free fall, Park's book may serve as a handy guide for navigating unemployment and uncertainty. Does anyone who isn't a journalist think there can't be two books on the same subject at the same time? We need as many as we can get right now.&quot;                                                                    —<strong><em>The New York Times Book Review <br/></em></strong><br/>&quot;Never have the minutiae of office life been so lovingly cataloged and collated.&quot;                                                                   —&quot;Three First Novels that Just Might Last,&quot; —<strong><em>Time<br/></em></strong><br/>A &quot;comic and creepy début...Park transforms the banal into the eerie, rendering ominous the familiar request &quot;Does anyone want anything from the outside world?&quot; <strong>—<em>The New Yorker</em> <br/><em><br/></em></strong>&quot;The modern corporate office is to Ed Park's debut novel <em>Personal Days</em> what World War II was to Joseph Heller's <em>Catch-22</em>—a theater of absurdity and injustice so profound as to defy all reason....Park may be in line to fill the shoes left by Kurt Vonnegut and other satirists par excellence.&quot;<strong>—Samantha Dunn,</strong> <em>Los Angeles Times<br/></em><br/>&quot;In <em>Personal Days</em> Ed Park has crafted a sometimes funny, sometimes heartbreaking, but always adroit novel about office life...Sharp and lovely language.&quot; <strong>—<em>Newsweek</em> <br/></strong><br/>&quot;A warm and winning fiction debut.&quot; <strong>— <em>Publishers Weekly </em></strong><em><br/><br/></em>&quot;I laughed until they put me in a mental hospital. But <em>Personal Days</em> is so much more than satire. Underneath Park's masterly portrait of wasted workaday lives is a pulsating heart, and an odd, buoyant hope.&quot; <strong>— Gary Shteyngart, author of <em>Absurdistan <br/></em></strong><br/>&quot;The funniest book I've read about the way we work now.&quot; <strong>–William Poundstone, author of <em>Fortune's Formula</em> <br/></strong><br/>&quot;Ed Park joins Andy Warhol and Don DeLillo as a master of the deadpan vernacular.&quot; <strong>—Helen DeWitt, author of <em>The Last Samurai</em></strong><em><br/><br/><br/><br/></em>]]>
  </description>
  <published>2008</published>
</book>

    <rating>3</rating>
  <votes>1</votes>
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  <read_at>Wed Jun 04 00:00:00 -0700 2008</read_at>
  <date_added>Thu Jun 05 07:42:59 -0700 2008</date_added>
  <date_updated>Thu Jun 05 07:42:59 -0700 2008</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[Oh, hilariously rendered workplace paranoia! You make my actual workplace so much more palatable. Being reminded to keep the paragraph markers on in a word processing program by a supervisor who signs correspondence &quot;thanks muchly&quot;--what is that in comparison to being emailed a boss's to d...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/23760938">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/23760938]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/23760938]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>38614226</id>
    <user>
    <id>664158</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Christopher]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[The United Kingdom]]></location>
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  <isbn>0812978579</isbn>
  <isbn13>9780812978575</isbn13>
  <text_reviews_count type="integer">174</text_reviews_count>
  <title>
    <![CDATA[Personal Days: A Novel]]>
  </title>
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  <average_rating>3.20</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>506</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[In an unnamed New York-based company, the employees are getting restless as everything around them unravels. There’s Pru, the former grad student turned spreadsheet drone; Laars, the hysteric whose work anxiety stalks him in his tooth-grinding dreams; and Jack II, who distributes unwanted backrubs–aka “jackrubs”–to his co-workers.<br/><br/>On a Sunday, one of them is called at home. And the Firings begin.<br/>Rich with Orwellian doublespeak, filled with sabotage and romance, this astonishing literary debut is at once a comic delight and a narrative tour de force. It’s a novel for anyone who has ever worked in an office and wondered: “Where does the time go? Where does the life go? And whose banana is in the fridge?”<br/><br/><u>Praise for PERSONAL DAYS</u><br/>&quot;Witty and appealing...Anyone who has ever groaned to hear 'impact' used as a verb will cheer as Park skewers the avatars of corporate speak, hellbent on debasing the language....Park has written what one of his characters calls 'a layoff narrative' for our times. As the economy continues its free fall, Park's book may serve as a handy guide for navigating unemployment and uncertainty. Does anyone who isn't a journalist think there can't be two books on the same subject at the same time? We need as many as we can get right now.&quot;                                                                    —<strong><em>The New York Times Book Review <br/></em></strong><br/>&quot;Never have the minutiae of office life been so lovingly cataloged and collated.&quot;                                                                   —&quot;Three First Novels that Just Might Last,&quot; —<strong><em>Time<br/></em></strong><br/>A &quot;comic and creepy début...Park transforms the banal into the eerie, rendering ominous the familiar request &quot;Does anyone want anything from the outside world?&quot; <strong>—<em>The New Yorker</em> <br/><em><br/></em></strong>&quot;The modern corporate office is to Ed Park's debut novel <em>Personal Days</em> what World War II was to Joseph Heller's <em>Catch-22</em>—a theater of absurdity and injustice so profound as to defy all reason....Park may be in line to fill the shoes left by Kurt Vonnegut and other satirists par excellence.&quot;<strong>—Samantha Dunn,</strong> <em>Los Angeles Times<br/></em><br/>&quot;In <em>Personal Days</em> Ed Park has crafted a sometimes funny, sometimes heartbreaking, but always adroit novel about office life...Sharp and lovely language.&quot; <strong>—<em>Newsweek</em> <br/></strong><br/>&quot;A warm and winning fiction debut.&quot; <strong>— <em>Publishers Weekly </em></strong><em><br/><br/></em>&quot;I laughed until they put me in a mental hospital. But <em>Personal Days</em> is so much more than satire. Underneath Park's masterly portrait of wasted workaday lives is a pulsating heart, and an odd, buoyant hope.&quot; <strong>— Gary Shteyngart, author of <em>Absurdistan <br/></em></strong><br/>&quot;The funniest book I've read about the way we work now.&quot; <strong>–William Poundstone, author of <em>Fortune's Formula</em> <br/></strong><br/>&quot;Ed Park joins Andy Warhol and Don DeLillo as a master of the deadpan vernacular.&quot; <strong>—Helen DeWitt, author of <em>The Last Samurai</em></strong><em><br/><br/><br/><br/></em>]]>
  </description>
  <published>2008</published>
</book>

    <rating>2</rating>
  <votes>0</votes>
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  <recommended_for><![CDATA[]]></recommended_for>
  <recommended_by><![CDATA[]]></recommended_by>
  <read_at></read_at>
  <date_added>Tue Nov 25 08:15:15 -0800 2008</date_added>
  <date_updated>Tue Nov 25 08:21:48 -0800 2008</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[The office and its workers seems to be the preeminent vehicle for any American writer in the first decade of the 21st century - or more rather, the stultifying, soul-destorying mediocrity to which most people submit their waking lives, that is modern work.  And so this tale of office workers operati...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/38614226">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/38614226]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/38614226]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>64802461</id>
    <user>
    <id>1654645</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Debbie]]></name>
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  <isbn>0812978579</isbn>
  <isbn13>9780812978575</isbn13>
  <text_reviews_count type="integer">174</text_reviews_count>
  <title>
    <![CDATA[Personal Days: A Novel]]>
  </title>
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  <average_rating>3.20</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>506</ratings_count>
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    <![CDATA[In an unnamed New York-based company, the employees are getting restless as everything around them unravels. There’s Pru, the former grad student turned spreadsheet drone; Laars, the hysteric whose work anxiety stalks him in his tooth-grinding dreams; and Jack II, who distributes unwanted backrubs–aka “jackrubs”–to his co-workers.<br/><br/>On a Sunday, one of them is called at home. And the Firings begin.<br/>Rich with Orwellian doublespeak, filled with sabotage and romance, this astonishing literary debut is at once a comic delight and a narrative tour de force. It’s a novel for anyone who has ever worked in an office and wondered: “Where does the time go? Where does the life go? And whose banana is in the fridge?”<br/><br/><u>Praise for PERSONAL DAYS</u><br/>&quot;Witty and appealing...Anyone who has ever groaned to hear 'impact' used as a verb will cheer as Park skewers the avatars of corporate speak, hellbent on debasing the language....Park has written what one of his characters calls 'a layoff narrative' for our times. As the economy continues its free fall, Park's book may serve as a handy guide for navigating unemployment and uncertainty. Does anyone who isn't a journalist think there can't be two books on the same subject at the same time? We need as many as we can get right now.&quot;                                                                    —<strong><em>The New York Times Book Review <br/></em></strong><br/>&quot;Never have the minutiae of office life been so lovingly cataloged and collated.&quot;                                                                   —&quot;Three First Novels that Just Might Last,&quot; —<strong><em>Time<br/></em></strong><br/>A &quot;comic and creepy début...Park transforms the banal into the eerie, rendering ominous the familiar request &quot;Does anyone want anything from the outside world?&quot; <strong>—<em>The New Yorker</em> <br/><em><br/></em></strong>&quot;The modern corporate office is to Ed Park's debut novel <em>Personal Days</em> what World War II was to Joseph Heller's <em>Catch-22</em>—a theater of absurdity and injustice so profound as to defy all reason....Park may be in line to fill the shoes left by Kurt Vonnegut and other satirists par excellence.&quot;<strong>—Samantha Dunn,</strong> <em>Los Angeles Times<br/></em><br/>&quot;In <em>Personal Days</em> Ed Park has crafted a sometimes funny, sometimes heartbreaking, but always adroit novel about office life...Sharp and lovely language.&quot; <strong>—<em>Newsweek</em> <br/></strong><br/>&quot;A warm and winning fiction debut.&quot; <strong>— <em>Publishers Weekly </em></strong><em><br/><br/></em>&quot;I laughed until they put me in a mental hospital. But <em>Personal Days</em> is so much more than satire. Underneath Park's masterly portrait of wasted workaday lives is a pulsating heart, and an odd, buoyant hope.&quot; <strong>— Gary Shteyngart, author of <em>Absurdistan <br/></em></strong><br/>&quot;The funniest book I've read about the way we work now.&quot; <strong>–William Poundstone, author of <em>Fortune's Formula</em> <br/></strong><br/>&quot;Ed Park joins Andy Warhol and Don DeLillo as a master of the deadpan vernacular.&quot; <strong>—Helen DeWitt, author of <em>The Last Samurai</em></strong><em><br/><br/><br/><br/></em>]]>
  </description>
  <published>2008</published>
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    <rating>4</rating>
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  <read_at>Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009</read_at>
  <date_added>Fri Jul 24 11:19:52 -0700 2009</date_added>
  <date_updated>Fri Jul 24 11:20:15 -0700 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[I kept thinking, Is the author of Then We Came to the End suing Park?  Personal Days, like TWCE, is told in plural first person. Personal Days, like TWCE, takes place in an office. Personal Days, like TWCE, is inhabited by characters who have no grounding in reality, who are deeply neurotic, sometim...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/64802461">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/64802461]]></url>
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      <review>
  <id>55672558</id>
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    <name><![CDATA[Alan]]></name>
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  <isbn13>9780812978575</isbn13>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[Personal Days: A Novel]]>
  </title>
  <image_url>http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1199552036m/2026701.jpg</image_url>
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  <average_rating>3.20</average_rating>
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  <description>
    <![CDATA[In an unnamed New York-based company, the employees are getting restless as everything around them unravels. There’s Pru, the former grad student turned spreadsheet drone; Laars, the hysteric whose work anxiety stalks him in his tooth-grinding dreams; and Jack II, who distributes unwanted backrubs–aka “jackrubs”–to his co-workers.<br/><br/>On a Sunday, one of them is called at home. And the Firings begin.<br/>Rich with Orwellian doublespeak, filled with sabotage and romance, this astonishing literary debut is at once a comic delight and a narrative tour de force. It’s a novel for anyone who has ever worked in an office and wondered: “Where does the time go? Where does the life go? And whose banana is in the fridge?”<br/><br/><u>Praise for PERSONAL DAYS</u><br/>&quot;Witty and appealing...Anyone who has ever groaned to hear 'impact' used as a verb will cheer as Park skewers the avatars of corporate speak, hellbent on debasing the language....Park has written what one of his characters calls 'a layoff narrative' for our times. As the economy continues its free fall, Park's book may serve as a handy guide for navigating unemployment and uncertainty. Does anyone who isn't a journalist think there can't be two books on the same subject at the same time? We need as many as we can get right now.&quot;                                                                    —<strong><em>The New York Times Book Review <br/></em></strong><br/>&quot;Never have the minutiae of office life been so lovingly cataloged and collated.&quot;                                                                   —&quot;Three First Novels that Just Might Last,&quot; —<strong><em>Time<br/></em></strong><br/>A &quot;comic and creepy début...Park transforms the banal into the eerie, rendering ominous the familiar request &quot;Does anyone want anything from the outside world?&quot; <strong>—<em>The New Yorker</em> <br/><em><br/></em></strong>&quot;The modern corporate office is to Ed Park's debut novel <em>Personal Days</em> what World War II was to Joseph Heller's <em>Catch-22</em>—a theater of absurdity and injustice so profound as to defy all reason....Park may be in line to fill the shoes left by Kurt Vonnegut and other satirists par excellence.&quot;<strong>—Samantha Dunn,</strong> <em>Los Angeles Times<br/></em><br/>&quot;In <em>Personal Days</em> Ed Park has crafted a sometimes funny, sometimes heartbreaking, but always adroit novel about office life...Sharp and lovely language.&quot; <strong>—<em>Newsweek</em> <br/></strong><br/>&quot;A warm and winning fiction debut.&quot; <strong>— <em>Publishers Weekly </em></strong><em><br/><br/></em>&quot;I laughed until they put me in a mental hospital. But <em>Personal Days</em> is so much more than satire. Underneath Park's masterly portrait of wasted workaday lives is a pulsating heart, and an odd, buoyant hope.&quot; <strong>— Gary Shteyngart, author of <em>Absurdistan <br/></em></strong><br/>&quot;The funniest book I've read about the way we work now.&quot; <strong>–William Poundstone, author of <em>Fortune's Formula</em> <br/></strong><br/>&quot;Ed Park joins Andy Warhol and Don DeLillo as a master of the deadpan vernacular.&quot; <strong>—Helen DeWitt, author of <em>The Last Samurai</em></strong><em><br/><br/><br/><br/></em>]]>
  </description>
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    <rating>2</rating>
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  <read_at>Mon May 11 00:00:00 -0700 2009</read_at>
  <date_added>Mon May 11 09:30:35 -0700 2009</date_added>
  <date_updated>Mon May 11 09:30:43 -0700 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[This novel about the alienation and pointlessness of office life which satirizes the existence of the corporate drone invites comparison with &quot;Then We Came to the End&quot; by Joshua Ferris which explores the same territory. The Ferris novel is far superior. <br/>Park's book is occasionally mi...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/55672558">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/55672558]]></url>
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</review>
      <review>
  <id>30324970</id>
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    <id>4216</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Katherine]]></name>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[Personal Days: A Novel]]>
  </title>
  <image_url>http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1199552036m/2026701.jpg</image_url>
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  <average_rating>3.20</average_rating>
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    <![CDATA[In an unnamed New York-based company, the employees are getting restless as everything around them unravels. There’s Pru, the former grad student turned spreadsheet drone; Laars, the hysteric whose work anxiety stalks him in his tooth-grinding dreams; and Jack II, who distributes unwanted backrubs–aka “jackrubs”–to his co-workers.<br/><br/>On a Sunday, one of them is called at home. And the Firings begin.<br/>Rich with Orwellian doublespeak, filled with sabotage and romance, this astonishing literary debut is at once a comic delight and a narrative tour de force. It’s a novel for anyone who has ever worked in an office and wondered: “Where does the time go? Where does the life go? And whose banana is in the fridge?”<br/><br/><u>Praise for PERSONAL DAYS</u><br/>&quot;Witty and appealing...Anyone who has ever groaned to hear 'impact' used as a verb will cheer as Park skewers the avatars of corporate speak, hellbent on debasing the language....Park has written what one of his characters calls 'a layoff narrative' for our times. As the economy continues its free fall, Park's book may serve as a handy guide for navigating unemployment and uncertainty. Does anyone who isn't a journalist think there can't be two books on the same subject at the same time? We need as many as we can get right now.&quot;                                                                    —<strong><em>The New York Times Book Review <br/></em></strong><br/>&quot;Never have the minutiae of office life been so lovingly cataloged and collated.&quot;                                                                   —&quot;Three First Novels that Just Might Last,&quot; —<strong><em>Time<br/></em></strong><br/>A &quot;comic and creepy début...Park transforms the banal into the eerie, rendering ominous the familiar request &quot;Does anyone want anything from the outside world?&quot; <strong>—<em>The New Yorker</em> <br/><em><br/></em></strong>&quot;The modern corporate office is to Ed Park's debut novel <em>Personal Days</em> what World War II was to Joseph Heller's <em>Catch-22</em>—a theater of absurdity and injustice so profound as to defy all reason....Park may be in line to fill the shoes left by Kurt Vonnegut and other satirists par excellence.&quot;<strong>—Samantha Dunn,</strong> <em>Los Angeles Times<br/></em><br/>&quot;In <em>Personal Days</em> Ed Park has crafted a sometimes funny, sometimes heartbreaking, but always adroit novel about office life...Sharp and lovely language.&quot; <strong>—<em>Newsweek</em> <br/></strong><br/>&quot;A warm and winning fiction debut.&quot; <strong>— <em>Publishers Weekly </em></strong><em><br/><br/></em>&quot;I laughed until they put me in a mental hospital. But <em>Personal Days</em> is so much more than satire. Underneath Park's masterly portrait of wasted workaday lives is a pulsating heart, and an odd, buoyant hope.&quot; <strong>— Gary Shteyngart, author of <em>Absurdistan <br/></em></strong><br/>&quot;The funniest book I've read about the way we work now.&quot; <strong>–William Poundstone, author of <em>Fortune's Formula</em> <br/></strong><br/>&quot;Ed Park joins Andy Warhol and Don DeLillo as a master of the deadpan vernacular.&quot; <strong>—Helen DeWitt, author of <em>The Last Samurai</em></strong><em><br/><br/><br/><br/></em>]]>
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    <rating>4</rating>
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  <read_at>Fri Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008</read_at>
  <date_added>Sat Aug 16 14:39:45 -0700 2008</date_added>
  <date_updated>Sat Aug 16 14:41:33 -0700 2008</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[I liked this book as much for its with and cleverness as I did for anything else.  At the end of the day, it's not brilliantly written or incredibly exciting, but it's dead on as a portrait of the workplace, and the vague outlines of the characters, the fire about &quot;the firings,&quot; the obsess...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/30324970">more...</a>]]></body>
    
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