Poverty Safari

By: Darren McGarvey

Narrated by: Darren McGarvey

Length: 8 hrs and 22 mins

Publisher's summary

Brutally honest and fearless, Poverty Safari is an unforgettable insight into modern Britain, and will change how you think about poverty.

The Sunday Times Top Ten bestseller
Winner of the Orwell Prize.
Named the most 'Rebellious Read of the 21st Century' in a Scottish Book Trust poll

Darren McGarvey, award-winning author and presenter of BBC series The State We're In has experienced poverty and its devastating effects first-hand. He knows why people from deprived communities all around Britain feel angry . . .

So he invites you to come on a safari of sorts. But not the kind where the wildlife is surveyed from a safe distance. This book takes you inside the experience of poverty to show how the pressures really feel and how hard their legacy is to overcome.

Arguing that both the political left and right misunderstand poverty as it is actually lived, McGarvey sets out what everybody – including himself – could do to change things.

'Another cry of anger from a working class that feels the pain of a rotten, failing system. Its value lies in the strength it will add to the movement for change.' - Ken Loach, director of Kes

©2017 Darren McGarvey (P)2018 Macmillan Digital Audio

Critic reviews

Nothing less than an intellectual and spiritual rehab manual for the progressive left. (Irvine Welsh)

Poverty Safari is an important and powerful book. (Nicola Sturgeon)

Poverty Safari documents in vivid, piercing and frequently funny prose, the reality of growing up in Pollok and the consequences of a chaotic family life (Stephen McGinty)

Poverty Safari is one of the best accounts of working-class life I have read. McGarvey is a rarity: a working-class writer who has fought to make the middle-class world hear what he has to say. (Nick Cohen)

If The Road to Wigan Pier had been written by a Wigan miner and not an Etonian rebel, this is what might have been achieved. McGarvey’s book takes you to the heart of what is wrong with the society free market capitalism has created. (Paul Mason)

Raw, powerful and challenging. (Kezia Dugdale)

A blistering analysis of the issues facing the voiceless and the social mechanisms that hobble progress, all wrapped up in an unput-downable memoir. (Denise Mina)

Utterly compelling. (Ian Rankin)

mneah

the book is read by the author himself so brace yourself for a strong Scottish accent - colourful, interesting and hard to understand at times.
he starts the book by telling you why people like him do not write books and the proceed to show why people like him should absolutely write books.
on the other hand I myself originate in Eastern Europe - so his story brings nothing new on my horizon and the fact that he glorifies people who came out of the poverty in some way and makes them sound like heroes of the 21st century is a bit ... over the top. I know many others who did, many others who didn't, and it's nothing new, nothing amazing with it. but it might be new for you, so go ahead and listen to it - it's not a complete waste of time.
the book is not about poverty, it is about him with some powerful images and well chosen words, in poverty.