People Who Lunch

“Anyone who saw me reading People Who Lunch in the park would have found me at turns furrowing my brow, nodding ruefully, and cackling aloud. Olds’ writing is that rare combination of unsparing and enjoyable, a much needed departure from the formulaic.”—Jenny Odell, author of How to Do Nothing and Saving Time

“Illuminating essays on the nature of work and relationships.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Olds’s idiosyncratic perspective consistently surprises, and she elegantly blends cultural, historical, and class analysis into an easy to digest whole. This is a pleasure.”—Publishers Weekly

“One could compare Olds to established voices like Jia Tolentino and Maggie Nelson, but People Who Lunch is the rare collection that heralds itself as something entirely original.”—Booklist

“I can’t stop thinking about People Who Lunch. The book interrupts my sleep, and I desperately want to discuss it with everybody.”—Sydney Review of Books

"A remarkable debut… written in a register many great authors write in: one that does not worry about the industry, about the audience, about the bullshit; one that cares only about the book itself. The result is miraculous."—ABC News (Australia)

“Every piece in the collection…asks you to think harder about the ways we earn money, party, and look out for each other… Driven by sharp intellect and a radiant, unaffected interest in the world around her.” —Imogen Dewey, The Guardian (Australia)

“It’s rare to find new writing this bold and exciting.”—Books+Publishing

“An utterly riveting and original collection of essays—hard-thinking, formally innovative, dazzling intellectually, and sentence by sentence out-of-this-world good.”—Maria Tumarkin