English Poverty

Since the Great Recession, most Americans' standard of living has stagnated or declined. Economic inequality is at historic highs. But inequality's impact differs by race; African Americans' net wealth is just a 10th that of White Americans, and over recent decades, White families have accumulated wealth at three times the rate of Black families. In our increasingly diverse nation, sociologist Thomas M. Shapiro argues, wealth disparities must be understood in tandem with racial inequities - a dangerous combination he terms "toxic inequality".

This program is read by the author "Just brilliant."—Kirkus Reviews Heavily autobiographical and infused with magical realism, Black Girl Unlimited fearlessly explores the intersections of poverty, sexual violence, depression, racism, and sexism—all through the arc of a transcendent...

“This book is a treasure—a touching story of friendship, loss, and finding beauty in the everyday, with characters who stay with you long after you’ve turned the final page. I absolutely loved it.”—R. J. Palacio, New York Times bestselling author of Wonder Laurel Snyder, author of...

In Delta Epiphany: Robert F. Kennedy in Mississippi, Ellen B. Meacham tells the story of Kennedy's visit to the Mississippi Delta, while also examining the forces of history, economics, and politics that shaped the lives of the children he met in Mississippi in 1967 and the decades that followed.

Little Jeff Pearce grew up in a postwar Liverpool slum. His father lived the life of an affluent gentleman whilst his mother was forced to steal bread to feed her starving children. Life was tough, and from the moment Jeff could walk he learned to go door to door, begging rags from the rich, which he sold down the markets. Leaving school at the age of 14, he embarked on an extraordinary journey and found himself, before the age of 30, a millionaire. Then, after a cruel twist of fate left him penniless, he, his wife and his children were forced out of their beautiful home.

Eliza was left as a small baby at the workhouse in Whitechapel, wrapped in her mother’s shawl, which is all she has of the mother she never knew. At 11 years old, she has survived sickness, near starvation and harsh beatings. Master Simpkins and his cruel daughter rule the workhouse with a rod of iron, but when Romany boy Joe arrives at the workhouse, his spirit and courage give Eliza hope. When she is sold into service, Eliza is relieved to be out of the workhouse and hopes her fortunes are changing for the better, but cruelty and unkindness are everywhere....

The people of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania voted Democratic for decades, until Donald Trump flipped it in 2016. What happened? Named one of the "juiciest political books to come in 2018" by Entertainment Weekly. In The Forgotten, Ben Bradlee Jr. reports on how voters in Luzerne County, a pivotal...

This uplifting story of a boys' football team shines light on the under-appreciated virtues that can bloom in impoverished neighborhoods, even as nearby communities exclude them from economic progress. Never Ran, Never Will tells the story of the working-class, mostly black neighborhood of...

Twelve-year-old Lowen Grover is still reeling from the shooting death of his best friend, Abe, when he stumbles across an article about a small town giving away homes for just one dollar. It seems like the perfect escape from Flintlock and all of the awful memories associated with the city - and to his surprise, his mum, dad, and older brother are all onboard. Only his sister, Anneth, is reluctant to leave her friends and the familiarity (and amenities!) of Flintlock, but with the rest of the family anxious to do what’s best for grief-stricken Lowen, her protests fall on deaf ears. But is the Dollar Program too good to be true?

St Saviours children’s home in London’s East End has provided a safe refuge for local children for decades, and Sister Beatrice and her team are as busy as ever. New staff member Jinny is glad to escape the lewd advances of her drunken and slovenly mother’s rotten boyfriends, but can she prove she isn’t a chip off the old block? As ever, the staff are tested when orphaned brother and sister Andy and Beth are brought to the home - they are clearly terrified of something, and Andy refuses to be sent home, but can Sister Beatrice get to the bottom of their story before they are returned to their stepfather?

Teeth takes listeners on a disturbing journey into America's silent epidemic of oral disease, exposing the hidden connections between tooth decay and stunted job prospects, low educational achievement, social mobility, and the troubling state of our public health.

In one of the poorest parts of rural New Hampshire, teenage girls have been disappearing, snatched from back country roads, never to be seen alive again. For 17-year-old Marjorie Richards, the fear raised by these abductions is the backdrop to what she lives with in her own home, every day. Marjorie has been raised by parents so intentionally isolated from normal society that they have developed their own dialect, a kind of mountain hybrid of English that displays both their ignorance of and disdain for the wider world.

America is broken. You don't need a fistful of statistics to know this. Visit any city, and evidence of our shattered social compact will present itself. From Appalachia to rural Texas, the gap between the wealthiest and the poorest stretches to unimaginable chasms. In Tales of Two Americas, some of the literary world's most exciting writers look beyond numbers and wages to convey what it feels like to live in this divided nation. Their extraordinarily powerful stories, essays, and poems demonstrate how boundaries break down when experiences are shared.

Born Bright, C. Nicole Mason's powerful memoir, is a story of reconciliation, constrained choices, and life on the other side of the tracks. Born in the 1970s in Los Angeles, California, Mason was raised by a beautiful but volatile 16-year-old single mother. Early on, she learned to navigate between an unpredictable home life and school, where she excelled. By high school, Mason was seamlessly straddling two worlds.

The poor die sooner. Blacks die sooner. And poor urban Blacks die sooner than almost all other Americans. David Ansell has spent nearly four decades as a doctor at hospitals serving some of the poorest communities in Chicago, and has witnessed firsthand the lives behind these devastating statistics. In

The Death Gap, he gives a grim survey of these realities, drawn from observations and stories of his patients.

O. Henry wove several stories together into this highly episodic narrative, taking his title and inspiration from Lewis Carroll's ballad of the walrus and the carpenter in Through the Looking-Glass. The stories are set in the fictional country of Anchuria in Central America, a banana republic where larceny is rampant and revolution lurking in every impoverished back alley. O. Henry offers a cutting satire of contemporary politics and prejudices.

A gritty and compelling family drama from the author of The Street. Perfect for fans of Kitty Neale.

It’s going to be a right old knee’s up…

The residents of the tough streets around Islington are heartbroken at the death of George the VI but...

In the underground tunnels below Grand Central Terminal, Lee Stringer - homeless and drug-addicted for 11 years - found a pencil to run through his crack pipe. One day he used it to write. Soon writing became a habit that won out over drugs, and before long Stringer had created one of the most powerful urban memoirs of our time. With humane wisdom and a biting wit, Stringer chronicles the unraveling of his seemingly secure existence as a marketing executive and his odyssey of survival on the streets of New York.

Four teens across the country have only one thing in common: A girl named Leila. She crashes into their lives in her absurdly red car at the moment they need someone the most. There's Hudson, a small-town mechanic who is willing to throw away his dreams for true love. And Bree, a runaway who seizes every Tuesday - and a few stolen goods along the way. Elliot believes in happy endings…until his own life goes off-script. And Sonia worries that when she lost her boyfriend, she also lost the ability to love.

The unforgettable inspiring memoir of one extraordinary doctor who is saving lives in a most unconventional way, Ask Me Why I Hurt is the touching and revealing first-person account of the remarkable work of Dr. Randy Christensen. Trained as a pediatrician, he works not in a typical hospital setting but, rather, in a 38-foot Winnebago that has been refitted as a doctor's office on wheels. His patients are the city's homeless adolescents and children.