Poverty Fiction

Mildred Pierce had gorgeous legs, a way with a skillet, and a bone-deep core of toughness and determination. She used those attributes to survive a divorce in 1940s America with two children and to claw her way out of poverty, becoming a successful businesswoman. But Mildred also had two weaknesses: a yen for shiftless men and an unreasoning devotion to her monstrous daughter.

Christine Hoflehner is twenty-eight years old, works behind the counter of a provincial Austrian post office, and cares for her invalid mother on wages that barely cover the rent. It is 1926. The war ended eight years ago, but for Christine — and for most of Austria — the ending changed very little. She has no expectations. She endures. Then a telegram arrives from a wealthy American aunt she has never met, inviting her to a luxury resort in the Swiss Alps. For a few extraordinary weeks, Christine lives in a world she did not know existed — fine clothes, beautiful rooms, people who ...

#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...

A young writer wanders the streets of Kristiania with nothing—no money, no food, no prospects. Only pride. And hunger. Published in 1890, Knut Hamsun's Hunger follows an unnamed protagonist through the psychological descent of starvation. As his body weakens, his mind fractures. He talks to himself, lies compulsively, spurns help out of stubborn dignity, and watches helplessly as reality slips away into hallucination and delirium. This is not a conventional story of poverty. There are no dramatic plot turns, no redemptive arcs. Instead, Hamsun takes us inside the consciousness of a man ...

When Orwell went to England in the 30's to find out how industrial workers lived, he not only observed but shared in their experiences. He stayed in cramped, dreary lodgings and subsisted on the scant, cheerless diet of the poor. He went down into the coal mines and walked crouching, as the miners did, through a one- to three-mile passage too low to stand up in. He watched the back-breaking, dangerous labor of men whose net pay then averaged $575 a year.

This children's classic provides a tender and touching tour of 19th-century Holland. Meet the poor but valiant Brinker family, learn from a young boy's skating excursion full of Dutch history and lore, and experience the exciting race for the silver skates.

Dr. CJ Patterson returns to her Alabama hometown when her estranged sister, Shelley, is found murdered in the woods. For CJ it means diving headfirst into a painful life she left behind. CJ reluctantly partners with Detective Kevin Braddock, and the complicated romantic history they share is far from over. They soon zero in on Shelley’s abusive ex-boyfriend and a local crime boss who controls the struggling mill village’s illicit enterprises. But anyone is suspect in a town with so many secrets. Even Shelley died with a few of her own.

One of Dickens' early works, Nicholas Nickleby combines comedy and tragedy in a tale of triumph over adversity that is interspersed with Dickens' moving condemnation of society's mistreatment of children and the cruelty of the educational system. Young Nickleby struggles to seek his fortune in Victorian England, yet succeeds despite social injustice, in a story that mirrors Dickens' own rise from poverty to great success.

Ian Gray isn’t supposed to have a dog, but a lot of things that shouldn’t happen end up happening anyway. And Gather, Ian’s adopted pup, is good company now that Ian has to quit the basketball team, find a job, and take care of his mom as she tries to overcome her opioid addiction. Despite the obstacles thrown their way, Ian is determined to keep his family afloat no matter what it takes. And for a little while, things are looking up: Ian makes friends, and his fondness for the outdoors and for fixing things lands him work helping neighbors.

Con La Buena Tierra la escritora estadounidense Pearl Buck gano el Premio Nobel de 1938, ya que este retrato de un campesino chino, pobrisimo, que a medida que va consiguiendo riquezas se vuelve mas depravado y se llena de vicios, tiene características universales y su hermoso lirismo, ademas de lo fuerte del argumento convirtio la novela en un clasico desde su misma publicacion.

Teenaged Jesse is trapped. Growing up, he had all the potential in the world, but then real life intervened. Now he's got a high school diploma, two perpetually black eyes, and a pill fix he can't shake. By day, when he's not high on pain killers, Jesse is hardening his body; it’s the only thing about his life that he can really control. By night, he’s a god in the makeshift ring under the barnyard flood lights, willing to take on any local tough the Madsen brothers put in front of him.

The Dust Bowl sweeps a handsome stranger into a small Colorado town to dangerous effect "...exhilarating and hard to resist." —The Washington Post on Westering Women 1937. It’s been seven years since the dust storms started in Colorado. Folks can barely remember a time when the clouds were...

First published in monthly parts from March 1852 to September 1853, this novel follows the fortunes of three pedestrian characters; Esther Summerson, Ada Clare, and Richard Carstone. The story they tell embondies Dickens' merciless indictment of the Court of Chancery and its bungling, morally corrupt handling of the endless case of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce, giving the novel its scope and meaning.

Step into the mind of James Allen, a pioneer in personal development. The Complete James Allen Collection: A Modern Translation brings together all his works, adapted for today’s readers.

For nearly a century, Victorian London relied on “climbing boys” - orphans owned by chimney sweeps - to clean flues and protect homes from fire. The work was hard, thankless, and brutally dangerous. Eleven-year-old Nan Sparrow is quite possibly the best climber who ever lived - and a girl. But when Nan gets stuck in a deadly chimney fire, she fears her time has come. Instead, she wakes to find herself in an abandoned attic. And she is not alone. Huddled in the corner is a mysterious creature - a golem - made from ash and coal. This is the creature that saved her from the fire.

Written at the request of Charles Dickens, North and South is a book about rebellion that poses fundamental questions about the nature of social authority and obedience. Gaskell expertly blends individual feeling with social concern and her heroine, Margaret Hale, is one of the most original creations of Victorian literature. When Margaret Hale's father leaves the Church in a crisis of conscience she is forced to leave her comfortable home in the tranquil countryside of Hampshire....

When two sisters, Elinor and Marianne, and their mother are left to the financial mercies of John Dashwood and his wife, they find themselves in drastically reduced circumstances.

Mosca Mye and Eponymous Clent are at it again. Escaping disaster by the skin of their teeth, they find refuge in Toll, a strange gateway town where visitors may neither enter nor leave without paying a price. By day, the city is well-mannered and orderly; by night, it’s host to rogues and villains. Wherever there’s a plot, there’s sure to be treachery, and wherever there’s treachery, there’s sure to be trouble - and where there’s trouble, well, Clent, Mosca, and Saracen can’t be far behind.

Tyrell is a young African-American teen who can't get a break. He's living (for now) with his spaced-out mother and little brother in a homeless shelter. His father's in jail. His girlfriend supports him, but he doesn't feel good enough for her - and seems to be always on the verge of doing the wrong thing around her. There's another girl at the homeless shelter who is also after him, although the desires there are complicated. Tyrell feels he needs to score some money to make things better. Will he end up following in his father's footsteps?

This is the sequel to Freckles - the moving story of a young girl whose kindness and wholesome philosophy brightens the lives of everyone she meets.