Nonfiction Poverty

Davie Martindale was never supposed to succeed. Born into poverty and raised in the schemes of West Lothian, Martindale went from a prison cell to managing Scottish Premiership side Livingston FC, along the way undertaking a journey that few could have imagined. Raw, unflinching, and impossible...

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Evicted reimagines the debate on poverty, making a “provocative and compelling” (NPR) argument about why it persists in America: because the rest of us benefit from it. A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, The New...

In a moving example of unconditional love in dif­ficult times, Gregory Boyle, the Jesuit priest and New York Times bestselling author of Tattoos on the Heart and Cherished Belonging, shares what working with gang members in Los Angeles has taught him about faith, compassion, and the enduring...

This 10th anniversary edition of the beloved #1 New York Times bestseller includes a new introduction and afterword by the author. Chronicling the lifelong friendship between a busy sales executive and a disadvantaged young boy that began with one small act of kindness, this is a “ray of hope...

One of the most pernicious and persistent myths in the United States is the association of Black skin with poverty. Though there are forty million more poor white people than Black people, most Americans, both Republicans and Democrats, continue to think of poverty—along with issues like welfare, unemployment, and food stamps—as solely a Black problem. Why is this so? What are the historical causes? And what are the political consequences that result?

The New York Times bestselling true story of an all-American girl and a boy from Zimbabwe and the letter that changed both of their lives forever. It started as an assignment. Everyone in Caitlin's class wrote to an unknown student somewhere in a distant place. Martin was lucky to even receive a...

A deeply personal nine-year account of the lives of the “anchor-outs”—an unhoused community living off the California coast on abandoned boats—that explores the struggles and resilience of those surviving on the fringes of society. In the wake of the financial crisis, the number of...

Piven and Cloward have updated their classic work on the history and function of welfare to cover the American welfare state's massive erosion during the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton years. The authors present a boldly comprehensive, brilliant new theory to explain the comparative underdevelopment of the US welfare state among advanced industrial nations. Their conceptual framework promises to shape the debate within current and future administrations as they attempt to rethink the welfare system and its role in American society.

Everyone knows the Ripper as a phantom in a top hat. What the Whitechapel workhouse ledgers actually reveal is that the real killer was poverty — Jack just signed the death certificates. If you've read every Ripper book that promises to finally reveal his identity, this is not that book. In this book, you'll read the inquest transcripts, the workhouse admission ledgers, and the police case files that four hundred "true suspect" books skip past on their way to another theory — and you'll come away understanding the case better than any of them. You are about to read a documentary history...

This program is read by the author "Think of it as a Texas version of Hillbilly Elegy." — Bryan Burrough, New York Times bestselling author of The Big Reach and Barbarians at the Gate A brilliant audiobook saga of family, fortune, faith in Texas, where blood is bond and oil is king… In 1892...

The Pharmaceutical State: How Governments and Corporations Turned Human Beings into Raw Material When a military veteran walked into the VA seeking help, he was offered a prescription instead of a conversation. That moment sparked a year-long investigation into a question most people never think to ask: How did we get here? The Pharmaceutical State traces a documented, unbroken line of medical exploitation from the plantation laboratories of the antebellum South to the strip-mall plasma centers of modern America. Drawing on declassified government records, congressional testimony, Nuremberg...

A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR An award-winning journalist’s powerful portrait of his native Baghdad, the people of Iraq, and twenty years of war. “An essential insider account of the unravelling of Iraq…Driven by his intimate knowledge and deep personal stakes, Abdul-Ahad…offers...

Winner of the California Book Award Named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker In the tradition of Evicted and Invisible Child, a “remarkably vivid...deeply empathetic” (Los Angeles Times) work of immersive journalism that follows a single mother of six in Los Angeles courageously...

One world. Unequal lives. The truth behind the wealth gap. What if everything you were told about poverty and progress was a lie? Explore the hidden truths behind the world’s wealth divide. In The Divide: Tales of Wealth and Struggle Across the Nations, author Jason Hickel takes you on a gripping journey into the heart of global inequality. Blending compelling storytelling with razor-sharp analysis, this book uncovers why some nations thrive while others are left behind — and how the current system keeps it that way. From the slums of the Global South to the boardrooms of financial ...

What was it really like to live in the Middle Ages? Forget the polished myths of knights in shining armor and fairy-tale castles. The reality was far grittier, harsher, and endlessly more fascinating. Beneath the Crown: The Untold Stories of Medieval Life and Power takes you on an unflinching journey into the everyday struggles of medieval Europe. From waking in bug-ridden straw beds to eating week-old pottage and trudging barefoot through mud-soaked streets, this book reveals the raw truth of survival in a world defined by disease, superstition, and unrelenting toil. Life was brutal, but ...

What if the real question isn't “Why are people poor?” but “Why do we still pretend it’s that simple?” In To Be Rich or Poor: Is It a Choice? Felix Edison delivers a courageous, thought-provoking journey into the truth behind economic disparity. With insight, empathy, and piercing honesty, this book explores the hidden forces that shape our financial outcomes: mindset, trauma, systems, privilege, resilience, and access. Through thirty powerful chapters, Edison dismantles harmful myths and reveals how poverty and wealth are never the result of a single choice, but rather the ...

"De Ocampo's performance is admirable. It is well paced, and he employs voices and strategic pauses to good effect. In sum, both the writing and narration are first-class." - AudioFile Magazine An eye-opening investigation of America’s rural and suburban housing crisis, told through a searing...

Paul Polak, whose organization International Development Enterprises (IDE) has directly helped over 17 million people get out of poverty permanently, exposes the top 3 things we are doing wrong in our efforts to end the root causes of poverty. He then, through the story of a Nepali farmer, goes on to detail solutions for what actually works when it comes to ending poverty.

'Soars with compassion, intelligence and hard-won wisdom ... a standout book' LOUISE KENNEDY From the Number One bestselling author of Poor 'Utterly compelling' EDEL COFFEY 'Raw and profound' LIZ NUGENT 'I couldn't put it down' ELAINE FEENEY Katriona O'Sullivan has come a long way from the...

On the morning of 31 August 1888, a carman named Charles Cross found a woman lying in Buck's Row. He thought she was a bundle of rags. Her name was Mary Ann Nichols. She was forty-three years old. She had five children, a failed marriage, a pair of cracked boots, and a new black bonnet she was enormously proud of. The night before she died, she laughed at the lodging-house deputy and told him she'd soon have her doss money. She never came back. Mary Ann Nichols sold her bonnet to pay for a bed. Annie Chapman made paper flowers with arthritic hands when her lungs allowed it. Elizabeth Stride...