ON YOUR OWN: 99 Alternatives to a 9-5 Job

A potentially useful idea that fizzles because author Matthews has fallen in love with the creativity of her list of alternatives, forgetting that people would pick up her book not because she's such a clever girl, but because they really need the help she promises (and ultimately fails) to provide. Of the 99 ways that Matthews details, most either require talents too specific to be of general use as alternatives--sketching storefronts, writing crossword puzzles, taxidermy, photography, piano-tuning--or too impractical to implement: the growing of earthworms, riverboat work, treasure hunting. Many of her ideas are simply not profitable enough to be worth the trouble, like fingernail farming or selling mistletoe. There are a few suggestions that might be practical--catering, monitoring ads for television, birthday cakes on campus--but, in the main, if the price of the book were put in the bank and allowed to accrue interest over the space of a year. . . . . . . .