Eric Klinenberg
Psychology
I like being by myself. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the company of my family and friends, but most of the time, I have no problem being alone. So when I heard about this book, I was very interested. Ironically, the subtitle is The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone. Why is this ironic? Well, because I currently live with my parents. I thought this book would be more about singledom, and parts of it were. But mostly it was about people living alone. By the end, I was really, really longing for my own apartment. Probably not what Klinenberg intended, but there you go.
This book took awhile to get going. Lots and lots of stats. But, of course, that is the curse of most non-fiction. Klinenberg did a lot of research and I commend him for that. I just wish there had been more personal accounts. Not that there weren’t, don’t get me wrong. I just wanted more. I definitely connect better when there’s a person with a name involved. Also, I skimmed a bit through the last few chapters about elderly folks living alone. Sorry, dude, I’m only twenty-eight. I don’t want to even think about when that’ll happen for me yet. Or my parents. I was most interested in the chapters on single people being happy alone and the stats on which countries this is most prevalent (Norway is number one, apparently. Those Norwegians love to be alone).
A lot of people have lived alone at some point in their lives, so I think most of us would enjoy this book. And if you’re not living alone, Going Solo will make you want to. Badly.
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