As much as I complain about actually working, I am intrigued by what people do to earn a living. From movies to TV shows to books, I am drawn to storylines that portray people's workplaces, be they coal mines, classrooms, taxicab companies or corporate offices.

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I can trace my attraction to work-related tales to a short story I read long before I entered the workforce: "The Catbird Seat" by James Thurber, a simple but suspenseful story of office politics, with a thoroughly satisfying ending.

From then on, I was hooked on what some people would define as working-class literature: novels and stories that center on the lives of people and the jobs they perform.

Over the years I've found myself drawn to stories about lost jobs — the jobs people no longer do. What was a workday like in the life of a switchboard operator, or a cotton mill worker, or a lector — a person who read to factory workers while they toiled away on their machines? (I know of two excellent stories about lectors that take place in a cigar-factory Florida: the juvenile fiction novel El Lector, by William Durbin, and Anna in the Tropics, a play by Nilo Cruz.)

I also enjoy reading about the jobs people do differently now than they did 10 or 20 or 50 years ago. Take, for instance, Death of a Salesman and Glengarry Glen Ross, two working-class plays that occur almost 35 years apart. It's fascinating to see the similarities and shared themes in a profession that seems to have changed little over time.

So this Labor Day Weekend, as most of us take a break from our jobs, consider settling into a good book about working and the workplace.

Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street by Herman Melville (1853) — A lawyer hires a new clerk who is a hard worker, until one day, when asked to do something, he maddeningly replies: "I would prefer not to." More than 160 years old, and it's still a wonderful read.

Photograph of an etching of Herman Melville after a portrait by Joseph O. Eaton. (Library of Congress)

Anyone Got A Match? by Max Shulman (1964) — This is a humorous novel about a man selling his creative soul to the corporate devil. It spotlights the tobacco and processed-food industries and TV reporting.

Up the Down Staircase, by Bel Kaufman (1964) — Sylvia Barrett is a young, idealistic English teacher at an inner-city high school. The novel is written as a series of office memos, lesson plans and letters.

Player Piano, by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (1965) — This story takes place in a future where most factory workers have been replaced by machines.

Microserfs, by Douglas Coupland (1995) — Another epistolary novel (like Up the Down Staircase). Coupland presents a picture of working at Microsoft in the early '90s.

Up the Down Staircase, by Bel Kaufman (HarpPeren)

Lloyd: What Happened, by Stanley Bing (1998) — A comic picture of corporate middle management that, depressingly, hasn't changed much in 20 years.

Syrup, by Maxx Barry (1999) — A satirical send-up of marketing departments and movie making.

Lightning Rods, by Helen Dewitt (2011) — Joe the salesman figures out how to end sexual harassment in the office in this ribald novel that would make Jonathan Swift proud.

David LaBounty runs Blue Cubicle Press in Plano, which publishes the literary journal Workers Write!