English Class

With unequaled insight and brio, David Brooks, the New York Times columnist and bestselling author of Bobos in Paradise, has long explored and explained the way we live. Now, with the intellectual curiosity and emotional wisdom that make his columns among the most read in the nation, Brooks turns to the building blocks of human flourishing in a multilayered, profoundly illuminating work grounded in everyday life.

Over the first two-thirds of the twentieth century, as many as eight million whites left the economically depressed southern countryside and migrated to the booming factory towns and cities of the industrial Midwest in search of work. The "hillbilly highway" was one of the largest internal relocations of poor and working people in American history, yet it has largely escaped close study by historians.

Haunted by the freak accident that killed their father when they were children, Jim and Bob Burgess escaped from their Maine hometown of Shirley Falls for New York City as soon as they possibly could. Jim, a sleek, successful corporate lawyer, has belittled his bighearted brother their whole lives, and Bob, a Legal Aid attorney who idolizes Jim, has always taken it in stride. But their long-standing dynamic is upended when their sister, Susan - the Burgess sibling who stayed behind - urgently calls them home.

In this revolutionary book, renowned MIT economists Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo take on this challenge, building on cutting-edge research in economics explained with lucidity and grace. Original, provocative, and urgent, Good Economics for Hard Times makes a persuasive case for an intelligent interventionism and a society built on compassion and respect. It is an extraordinary achievement, one that shines a light to help us appreciate and understand our precariously balanced world.

Have you ever had compost that would not break down? Or compost that turned into a smelly mess? You are not alone. Millions of people struggle with making compost at home. Composting is such an integral part of gardening that learning to get it right allows you to become a master of your special place. This audiobook will take you on a journey of how the microbial life in your soil and compost play vital roles in your garden. You will learn why specific things happen when making compost and how to solve common problems.

Although much has changed in schools in recent years, the power of differentiated instruction remains the same, and the need for it has only increased. Today’s classroom is more diverse, more inclusive, and more plugged into technology than ever before. And it’s led by teachers under enormous pressure to help decidedly unstandardized students meet an expanding set of rigorous, standardized learning targets. In second edition, Carol Ann Tomlinson offers these teachers a powerful and practical way to meet a challenge that is both very modern and completely timeless

Chris Hedges examines the failure of the liberal class to confront the rise of the corporate state and the consequences of a liberalism that has become profoundly bankrupted. Hedges argues that there are five pillars of the liberal establishment and that each of these institutions has sold out the constituents it represented. In doing so, the liberal class has become irrelevant to society at large and ultimately the corporate power elite they once served.

One of the masterpieces of English fiction, Daniel Deronda tells the intertwined stories of two characters as they each come to discover the truth of their natures. Gwendolen Harleth is the beautiful, high-spirited daughter of an impoverished upper-class family. Daniel Deronda, the adopted son of an aristocratic Englishman, is searching for his path in life.

The book is a twenty-first century reworking of the approach to unionism. The United States has a dramatic history of workers organizing on the job. In the last seventy odd years, labor organizations have made peace with owners, and wages, various protections, and safety has diminished. All during an era that, despite its ups and downs, has been extremely profitable for the ownership class. Tom Wetzel provides a solution to that failure by showing how a democratic outcome can be built into the method of struggle for social change.

Harry Clifton is more successful than ever as a novelist, and has just been elected president of PEN Britain. He learns of a writer in Russia whose memoir of life inside Stalin's palace has landed the writer in prison for life, his book taken off shelves and destroyed. Harry becomes obsessed with freeing the writer and telling his story. His wife Emma, meanwhile is the chair of Barringtons Shipping, having escaped a plot to destroy their company by bombing one of their luxury liners, and now the company is thriving.

The national best seller that defines a new economic class and shows how it is key to the future of our cities. The Rise of the Creative Class gives us a provocative new way to think about why we live as we do today - and where we might be headed. Weaving storytelling with masses of new and updated research, Richard Florida traces the fundamental theme that runs through a host of seemingly unrelated changes in American society: the growing role of creativity in our economy.

The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop is a call to create healthy, sustainable, and empowering classroom communities. Award-winning educator Felicia Rose Chavez exposes the invisible politics of power and privilege that have silenced writers of color for far too long. It's more urgent than ever that we consciously work against traditions of dominance in the classroom, but what specific actions can we take to achieve authentically inclusive communities? The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop is a clear, compelling guidebook on a necessary step forward.

The year 1898: Edward turned 29 years old on the ship. Looking out over the gray water back toward America, his heart ached for both the country he had adopted and loved and for the woman he had lost there. He was returning to England without having "made good". Without any fortune. When Edward meets Gertrude and is captivated by her youth and beauty, his hope for the future is transformed. But this is an era when the rich and poor of England each have their own firmly defined limits. More than any social boundary is a far greater problem - he's already married.

Yanis Varoufakis has appeared before heads of nations, assemblies of experts, and countless students around the world. Now, he faces his most important - and difficult - audience yet. Using clear language and vivid examples, Varoufakis offers a series of letters to his young daughter about the economy: how it operates, where it came from, how it benefits some while impoverishing others. Taking bankers and politicians to task, he explains the historical origins of inequality among and within nations, questions the pervasive notion that everything has its price, and shows why economic instability is a chronic risk.

The leisure class has been replaced by a new elite. Highly educated and defined by cultural capital rather than income bracket, these individuals earnestly buy organic, carry NPR tote bags, and breast-feed their babies. They care about discreet, inconspicuous consumption. In The Sum of Small Things, Elizabeth Currid-Halkett dubs this segment of society "the aspirational class" and discusses how, through deft decisions about education, health, parenting, and retirement, the aspirational class deepens the ever-wider class divide.

Shaw loves to sing—just not in front of people. But when Mr. Grizley's class is asked to perform a song for the mayor, Shaw would like to find the confidence to share his gift. Will Shaw be brave enough to share his talent with the whole school?

Mordecai is the newest student in Mr. Grizley's class. Before he even gets a chance to introduce himself, it is time for the school assembly. The class barely gets settled to watch a magic show when they get some bad news—the magician had to cancel. Can Mordecai work some of his own magic to save the school show?

Nicole's latest robot creation is not working right and threw a ball right through a window. No one knows how the window got broken, and Nicole decides to keep the accident to herself. But as she learns how the broken window has upset her classmates, she has second thoughts.

When Bobby learns more about homelessness, he wants to tell his classmates and help make a difference. But everyone is busy and distracted by their own activities. Can he find a way to tell this important story?

Rahma's special gift is she's good at helping her classmates make up when then have arguments. But when one of her friends gets mad at her, she isn't sure why her friend is upset or what to do about it. Can Mr. Grizley help Rahma figure out how to repair her friendship?