My Life and Hard Times by James Thurber

Published by

Sarah Ann

on

May 1, 2010

James Thurber is a celebrated author and artist who spent the majority of his career writing for The New Yorker, which was well over 50 years ago. I think this “classic” is way too old to be fun and enjoyable for anyone these days.

My Life and Hard Times is a short little book comprised of funny little stories from James Thurber’s childhood and young adulthood. I’ve already heard stories like these a billion times growing up (“…when I was young, we walked 20 miles up the hill to school in snow…”), so nothing in this book was new to me.

It’s not like this book is terrible or poorly written of course. It’s just too old and boring. I don’t think it’s timeless.

My favorite chapter is “University Days.” Thurber talks about how frustrated he was in science class trying to get his microscope to work. He rants about seeing only dust particles or his own eyeball when he looks through the scope. Haha, that happened to me in science class, too.

My Life and Hard Times is only 106 pages long, but still not worth your time, unless you are studying Thurber or writing your thesis about him.

Here are the names of a few novels by James Thurber:

What did you think about this little book, would you like to say anything about it?

Last Updated on February 18, 2026 by Sarah Ann

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