A few months back I received a request to review “Share or Die: Voices of the Get Lost Generation in the Age of Crisis.” Originally available online at shareable.net, this series of stories is a critique of the challenges faced by 20-somethings (though many of the struggles were not age-dependent in the Great Recession). While I tried to access the online version, hoping to download it to my phone, I was unable to do so since each chapter is a separate web page. I could’ve printed to PDF and saved them all to my phone. Alas, I received a paperback version to read, which presented its own problems, less to do with the book itself than physical books in general.
Many of the chapters had hopeful messages. The stress of the Great Recession has indeed created an “Age of Crisis” as per the subtitle, but it is also an opportunity for incredible ingenuity and reflection. Do we really need everything we have? As for ingenuity, they say necessity is the mother of invention.
Written by people with real world experience in a difficult economic environment, stories abound of creative solutions to making ends meet and paring down possessions. However, in the end, there was little about sharing and more of overcoming the odds (real or perceived) in the new reality of the Great Recession’s shadow. A number of vignettes reflected the social justice and activist streak that has cycled through society.
I was a bit surprised by the dearth of stories strictly about sharing; examples of how the sharing economy has transformed a generation. There was “The Gen Y Guide to Collaborative Consumption” and the final chapter “10 Ways Our World is Becoming More Shareable”, but otherwise, there was a heavy focus on coming of age in one’s life post-schooling. With lots of advice and anecdotes, Share or Die is easy to read and fast-paced. If you’re looking for information on the nuts and bolts of sharing though, go to the website and check out the most relevant pieces.
In the vein of sharing or dying, I will pass the book along to the next person so they can read it. If you’d like it, just leave a note in the comments and I’ll send it to you.
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