In academia, the voices of ‘ordinary’ people are usually only marginally represented, if at all. Even in anthropology, the discipline that grounds its theories on ethnographic data such as interviews, first-hand stories are only told to the extent that they support the theoretical argument of the text. Thus, this new book edited by Gerard Sasges is an equally rare and important contribution to Vietnamese studies. It's a Living: Work and Life in Vietnam Today merely consists of people's personal stories. Those stories – as the title suggests – all evolve around the same topic: what does it mean to make a living in a system of market socialism? In about 300 pages, over 60 Vietnamese tell us about their everyday lives and experiences, the changes in their income patterns and the importance of family. The book is the result of over 150 interviews that Gerard Sasges and his students collected between 2010 and 2012 as part of the project Kiếm ăn. Kiếm ăn was initiated by Gerard Sasges as part of the University of California's Education Abroad in Vietnam Program where both American and Vietnamese students participated in classes. Kiếm ăn means “looking for food” and is also a colloquial term for “working” which was the core theme of the project.

After a short introduction on Vietnam's socio-political and economic transition process in the last few decades, the interviews are presented without commentary. All transcriptions have been converted into coherent texts in colloquial English and are told from a first-person perspective. This way, the book creates an intimate atmosphere as the reader gets the impression that the stories are directly told to her/him. Among others, there are first-hand accounts of strategies of the survival of rural-urban migrants, the story of a proud bonsai grower who loves his job, a wedding planner who faces new challenges in his work every day. There are complaints about rising prices that tell us how the country's high inflation rate impacts people's everyday life. A street vendor's fear of getting caught by the police shows us how the political system works. This is the strength of the book: it gives us a glimpse into the complexity of earning a living in contemporary Vietnam. There is a young man whose dream was to become a car mechanic but who has to help his family sell pho in Hanoi; a garment factory worker who has just bought company shares; and a promotion girl who tries to establish business contacts while promoting cars.

Thus the book is a window into how people's lives have changed during the last decades – for better and worse. Through the interviews the reader not only gains a deeper understanding of Vietnam's history and culture, but also learns that the impact of economic reform is not as straightforward as often suggested. By presenting a variety of stories that are both complex and sometimes contradictory, a more realistic picture of contemporary Vietnam is drawn. This book does not tell a single story, but multiple stories from the whole range of the economic strata. In this respect, Gerard Sasges has published a necessary book.

It is difficult to criticise this highly interesting read. As the introduction is quite short, one could criticise the lack of contextual information provided and reference could have been made to works dealing with labour in Vietnam (Chan Reference Chan2011), Vietnamese history (Elliott Reference Elliott2012), and Vietnam's socio-economic developments and their impacts on society (Bill 2001; Templer Reference Templer1999). At the same time the short introduction makes way for the real protagonists of the book to stand out: the people who give us insights into their everyday life through the lens of their occupations.

I recommend this book for anyone interested in Vietnam – from professionals across all fields working in or on Vietnam to second generation overseas Vietnamese and students of Vietnam studies. I would also recommend it to scholars who have been working on Vietnam for a long period of time as the book reminds us of the value of the insider's perspective which can never be fully grasped or replaced by macro-economic data.