Keep the Aspidistra Flying

Last week on NPR's Morning Edition, Nancy Pearl (America's Librarian) recommended a fantasy called "Kings of Infinite Space" :

http://www.tppl.org/books/nancypearl/0507.cfm
(Scroll down)

It's about a guy whose life is such a mess that he's forced to take a job as a tech writer for the state government - his circumstances are so dire that he's been reduced to driving a 14--year-old Dodge Colt.

Of course, I heard her review while driving to my tech writing job in state government, at the wheel of my 16-year-old Honda Civic.

Later that week, I ran across the book at the APL sale. So I bought it, and of course I'm reading it.

(Somewhat similarly, the American version of Hornby's "Fever Pitch" portrayed the protagonist as a loser who was deliberately avoiding a serious career that would render him worthy of the heroine: he was a lowly schoolteacher.)

So much for 'ordinary' careers as portrayed in the arts... this, in a country where only a quarter of adults have a college degree.