A standing-room only audience of readers came out to hear author Erin McHugh read from her beautifully-photographed book, The L Life: Extraordinary Lesbians making a Difference (Stewart, Tabori & Chang) in Sag Harbor Saturday evening.
McHugh's book features 27 lesbians from all walks of life: from Lupe Valdez, the Sheriff of Dallas County, TX to Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum of Greenwich Village's Congregation Beth Simchat Torah. Photographer Jennifer May's portraits radiate the strength her subjects have needed to be women who have inspired change across America.
Among the attendees were two of The L Life's subjects: Sally Susman, currently senior vice president and chief communications officer of Pfizer, and Lisa Sherman, executive vice president and general manager of LOGO TV. Both Susman and Sherman were gracious enough to let McHugh read from their biographies, which include their coming-out stories.
Listeners were so moved by McHugh's reading that requests for an audiobook version and documentary based on the book were made.
Signed copies of The L Life are available at all BookHampton locations.
Every year millions of young Americans go off to work as interns for little or no pay; and each year American corporations reap billions in saved labor costs. This past Saturday, Ross Perlin came to BookHampton to talk about this overlooked distortion of the labor market, which has finally begun to receive critical attention with the debut of his new book Intern Nation (Verso Press).
The intern boom has grown so fast in the past decade that few have been able to unravel the impact this system, which once provided genuine training in the medical field, but now seems mostly to provide cheap labor to large firms in exchange for "experience" of dubious worth. Perlin's own experience, both as a scholar and as former intern to a British NGO, allows him to untangle the paradoxes of a position that connotes low prestige along with a relatively privileged background.
He spoke on some of the abuses interns face, finding themselves often excluded from the usual workplace protections against sexual harassment and discrimination, as well as the system's wider negative impact, from depressed wages in the labor market to delayed transitions from youth to adulthood.
His remarks also generated a lively audience debate about some of the merits of the internship process, and questions about real benefits it can bring to aspiring professionals and career changers. It was a great community discussion, and we wish Ross well on the next leg of his round-the-world book tour!
