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"An eye-opening memoir of working-class poverty in the American Midwest. During Sarah Smarsh's turbulent childhood in Kansas in the 1980s and 1990s, the forces of cyclical poverty and the country's changing economic policies solidified her family's place among the working poor. By telling the story of her life and the lives of the people she loves, Smarsh challenges us to look more closely at the class divide in our country and examine the myths about...
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"At 28, Stephanie Land's plans of breaking free from the roots of her hometown in the Pacific Northwest to chase her dreams of attending a university and becoming a writer, were cut short when a summer fling turned into an unplanned pregnancy. She turned to housekeeping to make ends meet, and, with a tenacious grip on her dream to provide her daughter the very best life possible, Stephanie worked days and took classes online to earn a college degree,...
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Carli Morris is looking forward to a quiet retirement. Earning billions from the sale of her Madison Avenue ad agency, she dreams of spending her golden years painting and giving back to society. But the heartbreaking discovery of a homeless woman dead in her midtown-Manhattan neighborhood reopens the wounds of Carli's own tragic loss. Realizing her busy career turned her away from the vulnerable, she throws herself onto a mission to get the defenseless...
4) Poor Folk
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Financial difficulties resulting from an extravagant lifestyle and excessive gambling led Fyodor Dostoevsky to pen his first novel "Poor Folk". First published in 1846, "Poor Folk" is the story of impoverished cousins Varvara Dobroselova and Makar Devushkin. The two live in run-down apartments across the street from each other in St. Petersburg. Through a series of letters to each other we learn of the suffering, humiliation, and isolation that results...
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Jane Addams, the co-founder of Hull House, the famous settlement home, writes about her experiences and insights in her autobiography, Twenty Years at Hull House. As a child growing up in Illinois, Addams suffered from Pott's Disease, which was a rare infection in her spine. This disease caused her to contract many other illnesses, then because of these aliments, Addams was self-conscious of her appearance. She explains that she could not play with...
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[The author] takes us into the poorest neighborhoods of Milwaukee to tell the story of eight families on the edge. Arleen is a single mother trying to raise her two sons on the 20 dollars a month she has left after paying for their rundown apartment. Scott is a gentle nurse consumed by a heroin addiction. Lamar, a man with no legs and a neighborhood full of boys to look after, tries to work his way out of debt. Vanetta participates in a botched...
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The People of the Abyss (1903) is a work of nonfiction by American writer Jack London. Written after the author spent three months living in London's poverty-stricken East End, The People of the Abyss bears witness to the difficulties faced by hundreds and thousands of people every day in one of the wealthiest nations on earth. Inspired by Friedrich Engels's The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845) and Jacob Riis's How the Other Half Lives,...
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What does it mean to be poor? For decades, the dominant narrative in the UK and US has been that it is caused by personal flaws or 'bad life decisions'. People are 'lazy', 'dependent' and 'irresponsible'. This 'story' has become embedded in the public consciousness with serious ramifications for how financially vulnerable people are seen, spoken about and treated. Drawing on a two-year story-telling project and her own experience of childhood poverty,...
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A New York Times Notable Book of the Year
The story of a kind of poverty in America so deep that we, as a country, don't even think exists—from a leading national poverty expert who "defies convention." (The New York Times)
Jessica Compton's family of four would have no income if she didn't donate plasma twice a week at her local donation center in Tennessee. Modonna Harris and her teenage daughter,...
The story of a kind of poverty in America so deep that we, as a country, don't even think exists—from a leading national poverty expert who "defies convention." (The New York Times)
Jessica Compton's family of four would have no income if she didn't donate plasma twice a week at her local donation center in Tennessee. Modonna Harris and her teenage daughter,...
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Jacob Riis's classic is an open window into a world unknown to most. Originally published in 1890, this classic inditement of slum life remains an outstanding example of the value of investigative journalism and its potential to change the world for the better.
Riis was one of the earliest "muck-rakers," which President Theodore Roosevelt defined as, "taking the rake to uncover the most unpleasant conditions in American society." In the case of Riis,...
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The largest UK research study on poverty and social exclusion ever conducted reveals startling levels of deprivation. 18m people are unable to afford adequate housing; 14m can't afford essential household goods; and nearly half the population have some form of financial insecurity. Defining poverty as those whose lack of resources forces them to live below a publicly agreed minimum standard, this text provides unique and detailed insights into the...
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About 1.5 million households filed bankruptcy in the last year, making bankruptcy as common as college graduation and divorce. The recession has pushed more and more families into financial collapse-with unemployment, declines in retirement wealth, and falling house values destabilizing the American middle class. Broke explores the consequences of this unprecedented growth in consumer debt and shows how excessive borrowing undermines the prosperity...
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What matters most in how poverty shapes children's wellbeing and development? How can data inform social policy and practice approaches to improving the outcomes for poorer children? Using life course analysis from the Young Lives study of 12,000 children growing up in Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam over the past 15 years, this book draws on evidence on two cohorts of children, from 1 to 15 and from 8 to 22. It examines how poverty affects children's...
14) Street Images II
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In this work Street Images, we are struck by the passion of the persons who speak through a variety of their lived experiences. One poet, who titles his or her poem, Anonymous, says: So do not ask Why we pass unknown... It is enough that we blaze.... These work are from many who have been "On the Street" and "Behind Closed Doors." There's real pain, real joy, real triumph and real defeat in these writings....
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People of the streets... you become aware of them, and wonder who and what they are... what kind of lives they have, and what living them means...' First published in 1968, People of the Streets was Tony Parker's sixth book, for which he spent a year approaching and interviewing people in London who were living their daily lives on street corners, along gutters or in subways. With his usual skill he coaxed them out of their natural reticence, born...
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For fifteen years, Jerome Gold worked as a rehabilitation counselor in a prison for juveniles in Washington state. Throughout his time there, he kept a journal of his experiences with youths who had been incarcerated for murder, kidnap, assault, rape and other sex offenses, auto theft, burglary, and selling drugs. What started as a journal designed to relieve stress turned into the evocation of one man's nuanced perspective on a unique group of young...
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Are our strategies working to ensure all New Zealand children have the chance to thrive? Or are we wasting time, effort, and children's lives on solutions that make us feel good, yet fail to achieve lasting benefits for our most disadvantaged families? In Pennies from Heaven we seek to uncover the most potent ways to give all children in Aotearoa a "fair go". Why in New Zealand, a country in which concepts of fairness and equality are deeply embedded...
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Summary of Evicted by Matthew Desmond | Includes Analysis Preview: Matthew Desmond's Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City is a sociological study of evictions, housing, and homelessness in Milwaukee. The book follows the lives of a number of tenants and landlords in order to examine how access to housing affects the poor. Desmond also includes historical background, statistics, and research findings to provide context for his narratives....
19) Color hollín
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No sabemos exactamente a qué tono corresponde el "color de la miseria" como se llama en las primeras páginas de esta novela al color hollín. Solemos asociar el hollín a la suciedad, a la pobreza, a algo gastado, a una tonalidad que se aleja de aquello digno de contemplación, como el paisaje natural de un campo, una playa, o un jardín con flores. Este colorido, el del hollín, será uno que guíe la descripción del entorno de esta novela, en...
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Pourquoi certains jeunes vivant dans la rue parviennent-ils à s'en sortir alors que, pour d'autres, la rue constitue une voie sans issue ? Comment faire, après s'être approprié une identité en marge, pour se reconnaître et être reconnu comme parent, employé, étudiant, citoyen comme les autres ? Quel rle jouent les manifestations de (non-)reconnaissance de la famille de ces jeunes, de leurs amis de rue, de leurs voisins, d'un sugar daddy,...
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