The Wage Slave’s Glossary is a tiny, lovely book (Biblioasis), beautifully designed and illustrated by Seth, delightful to pick up and hold in your hand. The text by Joshua Glenn and Mark Kingwell is overwrought in places, and often overstuffed with song lyrics and movie dialogue intended to demonstrate familiarity with pop culture.

The introduction by Mark Kingwell, who refers to himself as “the present writer,” is replete with highbrow references to the usual suspects: Russell, Weber, Hegel, Marx, Debord, Sorel, Fanon, Leary, Kerouac, Kesey, Berlin, Socrates, Plato, Galbraith, et al. The glossary is useful and extensive, and will take you from 99ers to zero drag, via assembly-line hysteria, credentialism, leisure sickness, microboredom and salary-serf—although there is no entry for quit.

The book is a useful conversation starter, even or perhaps especially when you’re talking to yourself in your cubicle at the cube farm.