Disappointing. This book tries to do a lot and stretch the motivating idea far beyond its useful range. As a result, the book goes on aimlessly about the changes that have been brought about by automation, digitization, globalization, and a host of other economic and technological buzzwords of various sorts.

Five years after publication and read amid a global pandemic which has changed the term "essential worker" and has most sheltering-(and occasionally working)-in-place at home, has our relationship to Shadow Work changed? Yes. Unfortunately, Lambert's book is not a field guide that impartially explains the rise of this phenomenon nor does it provide ideas for managing the extra work it requires. He begins with explanations as to how things have changed (specifically in America) and shows how innovations along with the industrial age caused changes and the burden of work to shift. However, Lambert spends most of the book penning a nostalgic memoir that waxes poetic about how much better things used to be.