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› Find signed collectible books: 'Amazing Grace'
The children in this book defy the stereotypes of urban youth too frequently presented by the media. Tender, generous and often religiously devout, they speak with eloquence and honesty about the poverty and racial isolation that have wounded but not hardened them.
The book does not romanticize or soften the effects of violence and sickness. One fourth of the child-bearing women in the neighborhoods where these children live test positive for HIV. Pediatric AIDs, life-consuming fires and gang rivalries take a high toll. Several children die during the year in which this narrative takes place.
A gently written work, Amazing Grace asks questions that are at once political and theological. What is the value of a child's life? What exactly do we plan to do with those whom we appear to have defined as economically and humanly superfluous? How cold -- how cruel, how tough -- do we dare be? [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Amazing Grace : The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation'
The author of Savage Inequalities, a New York Times best-seller, and Rachel and Her Children, winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, tells the stories of a handful of children who have--through the love and support of their families and dedicated community leaders--not yet lost their battle with the perils of life in America's most hopeless, helpless, and dangerous neighborhoods. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Angela's Ashes'
"When I look back on my childhood, I wonder how I survived at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood. People everywhere brag or whimper about the woes of their early years, but nothing can compare with the Irish version: the poverty; the shiftless loquacious father; the pious defeated mother moaning by the fire; pompous priests; bullying shcoolmasters; the English and the terrible things they did to us for eight hundred long years. Above all we were wet!" So begins Frank McCourt's stunning memoir of his childhood in Ireland and America, a recollection of unvarnished truth and no self pity, of grinding poverty and indomitable spirit that will live in the memory long after the tape has ended. Now a major film directed by Alan Parker and starring Robert Carlyle and Emily Watson. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Bastard Out of Carolina'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Crime and Punishment'
The talented Alex Jennings creates an atmosphere of gripping psychological tension and brings a variety of characters to life in this new audio edition of a crime classic. When the student Raskolnikov puts his philosophical theory to the ultimate test of murder, a tragic tale of suffering and redemption unfolds in the dismal setting of the slums of czarist, prerevolutionary St. Petersburg. While Jennings's adept repertoire of British accents works to demonstrate the varying classes of characters, it occasionally distracts the listener from the Russian setting. However, Dostoyevsky's rendering of 18th-century Russia emerges unscathed, bringing the dark pathos (such as wretched poverty and rampant suffering) to life. (Running time: 315 minutes; 4 cassettes) [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Crimen Y Castigo / Crime and Punishment'
Una visita de Balzac a San Petersburgo le sugirio al joven alferez ingeniero Fiodor Dostoievski la idea de traducir «Eugenie Grandet». La traduccion hizo mucho mas que sacarle de un apuro economico; desperto su fiebre creativa y su vocacion. Entonces, decidio solicitar la excedencia y dedicarse a la literatura.Obra realmente genial, «Crimen y castigo» es una de las mas grandes creaciones de la literatura mundial. Todo el dolor humano palpita y nos contempla desde los estremecedores cuadros de miseria, de vejacion personal, de soledad y de asfixia moral propios de una gran ciudad. Contradiciendo su propia teoria de que no existen motivos sociales para justificar el crimen, se diria que Dostoievski ha puesto en esta novela todo su afan de acumular y sacar a la luz precisamente las circunstancias sociales que, a cada paso, empujan a la persona a llegar al crimen, aunque sea para afirmar su yo y probarse a si mismo que es un hombre. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Down and Out in Paris and London'
What was a nice Eton boy like Eric Blair doing in scummy slums instead of being upwardly mobile at Oxford or Cambridge? Living Down and Out in Paris and London, repudiating respectable imperialist society, and reinventing himself as George Orwell. His 1933 debut book (ostensibly a novel, but overwhelmingly autobiographical) was rejected by that elitist publisher T.S. Eliot, perhaps because its close-up portrait of lowlife was too pungent for comfort.
In Paris, Orwell lived in verminous rooms and washed dishes at the overpriced "Hotel X," in a remarkably filthy, 110-degree kitchen. He met "eccentric people--people who have fallen into solitary, half-mad grooves of life and given up trying to be normal or decent." Though Orwell's tone is that of an outraged reformer, it's surprising how entertaining many of his adventures are: gnawing poverty only enlivens the imagination, and the wild characters he met often swindled each other and themselves. The wackiest tale involves a miser who ate cats, wore newspapers for underwear, invested 6,000 francs in cocaine, and hid it in a face-powder tin when the cops raided. They had to free him, because the apparently controlled substance turned out to be face powder instead of cocaine.
In London, Orwell studied begging with a crippled expert named Bozo, a great storyteller and philosopher. Orwell devotes a chapter to the fine points of London guttersnipe slang. Years later, he would put his lexical bent to work by inventing Newspeak, and draw on his down-and-out experience to evoke the plight of the Proles in 1984. Though marred by hints of unexamined anti-Semitism, Orwell's debut remains, as The Nation put it, "the most lucid portrait of poverty in the English language." --Tim Appelo [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time'
Celebrated economist Jeffrey Sachs has a plan to eliminate extreme poverty around the world by 2025. If you think that is too ambitious or wildly unrealistic, you need to read this book. His focus is on the one billion poorest individuals around the world who are caught in a poverty trap of disease, physical isolation, environmental stress, political instability, and lack of access to capital, technology, medicine, and education. The goal is to help these people reach the first rung on the "ladder of economic development" so they can rise above mere subsistence level and achieve some control over their economic futures and their lives. To do this, Sachs proposes nine specific steps, which he explains in great detail in The End of Poverty. Though his plan certainly requires the help of rich nations, the financial assistance Sachs calls for is surprisingly modest--more than is now provided, but within the bounds of what has been promised in the past. For the U.S., for instance, it would mean raising foreign aid from just 0.14 percent of GNP to 0.7 percent. Sachs does not view such help as a handout but rather an investment in global economic growth that will add to the security of all nations. In presenting his argument, he offers a comprehensive education on global economics, including why globalization should be embraced rather than fought, why international institutions such as the United Nations, International Monetary Fund, and World Bank need to play a strong role in this effort, and the reasons why extreme poverty exists in the midst of great wealth. He also shatters some persistent myths about poor people and shows how developing nations can do more to help themselves.
Despite some crushing statistics, The End of Poverty is a hopeful book. Based on a tremendous amount of data and his own experiences working as an economic advisor to the UN and several individual nations, Sachs makes a strong moral, economic, and political case for why countries and individuals should battle poverty with the same commitment and focus normally reserved for waging war. This important book not only makes the end of poverty seem realistic, but in the best interest of everyone on the planet, rich and poor alike. --Shawn Carkonen [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid'
The world's most exciting, fastest-growing new market is where you least expect it: at the bottom of the pyramid. Collectively, the world's billions of poor people have immense untapped buying power. They represent an enormous opportunity for companies who learn how to serve them. Not only can it be done, it is being done--very profitably. What's more, companies aren't just making money: by serving these markets, they're helping millions of the world's poorest people escape poverty. C.K. Prahalad's global bestseller The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, now available in paperback, shows why you can't afford to ignore "Bottom of the Pyramid" (BOP) markets. Now available in paperback, it offers a blueprint for driving the radical innovation you'll need to profit in emerging markets--and using those innovations to become more competitive everywhere. This new paperback edition includes eleven concise, fast-paced success stories from India, Peru, Mexico, Brazil, and Venezuela--ranging from salt to soap, banking to cellphones, healthcare to housing. These stories are backed by more detailed case studies and 10 hours of digital videos on whartonsp.com. Simply put, this book is about making a revolution: building profitable "bottom of the pyramid" markets, reducing poverty, and creating an inclusive capitalism that works for everyone. Preface xi About the Author xix Part I: The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid 1 Chapter 1: The Market at the Bottom of the Pyramid 3 Chapter 2: Products and Services for the BOP 23 Chapter 3: BOP: A Global Opportunity? 47 Chapter 4: The Ecosystem for Wealth Creation 63 Chapter 5: Reducing Corruption: Transaction Governance Capacity 77 Chapter 6: Development as Social Transformation 99 Part II: Business Success Stories from the Bottom of the Pyramid 113 Financing the Poor 115 Aravind Eye Care--The Most Precious Gift 131 Energy for Everyone 137 Agricultural Advances for the Poor--The EID Parry Story 149 Retail for the Poor 159 Information Technology to the Poor 169 The Jaipur Foot Story 187 Health Alerts for All 191 Transparent Government 201 The Annapurna Salt Story 213 Homes for the Poor--The CEMEX Story 221 From Hand to Mouth--The HHL Soap Story 235 Part III: On the Web at Whartonsp.com Video Success Stories Casas Bahia CEMEX Annapurna Salt Hindustan Lever Jaipur Foot Aravind Eye Care ICICI Bank ITC e-Choupal EID Parry Voxiva E+Co/Tecnosol Andhra Pradesh Full Success Case Stories in pdf format The Market at the Bottom of the Pyramid Known Problems and Known Solutions: What Is the Missing Link? Known Problems and Unique Solutions Known Problems and Systemwide Reform Scaling Innovations Creating Enabling Conditions for the Development of the Private Sector The EID Parry Story Biographies of the Researchers/Writers of the Success Case Stories from The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid 247 About the Video Success Stories 255 Index 257 [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Glass Castle: A Memoir'
Jeannette Walls grew up with parents whose ideals and stubborn nonconformity were both their curse and their salvation. Rex and Rose Mary Walls had four children. In the beginning, they lived like nomads, moving among Southwest desert towns, camping in the mountains. Rex was a charismatic, brilliant man who, when sober, captured his children's imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and above all, how to embrace life fearlessly. Rose Mary, who painted and wrote and couldn't stand the responsibility of providing for her family, called herself an "excitement addict." Cooking a meal that would be consumed in fifteen minutes had no appeal when she could make a painting that might last forever.
Later, when the money ran out, or the romance of the wandering life faded, the Walls retreated to the dismal West Virginia mining town -- and the family -- Rex Walls had done everything he could to escape. He drank. He stole the grocery money and disappeared for days. As the dysfunction of the family escalated, Jeannette and her brother and sisters had to fend for themselves, supporting one another as they weathered their parents' betrayals and, finally, found the resources and will to leave home.
What is so astonishing about Jeannette Walls is not just that she had the guts and tenacity and intelligence to get out, but that she describes her parents with such deep affection and generosity. Hers is a story of triumph against all odds, but also a tender, moving tale of unconditional love in a family that despite its profound flaws gave her the fiery determination to carve out a successful life on her own terms.
For two decades, Jeannette Walls hid her roots. Now she tells her own story. A regular contributor to MSNBC.com, she lives in New York and Long Island and is married to the writer John Taylor. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Grapes of Wrath'
When The Grapes of Wrath was published in 1939, America, still recovering from the Great Depression, came face to face with itself in a startling, lyrical way. John Steinbeck gathered the country's recent shames and devastations--the Hoovervilles, the desperate, dirty children, the dissolution of kin, the oppressive labor conditions--in the Joad family. Then he set them down on a westward-running road, local dialect and all, for the world to acknowledge. For this marvel of observation and perception, he won the Pulitzer in 1940.
The prize must have come, at least in part, because alongside the poverty and dispossession, Steinbeck chronicled the Joads' refusal, even inability, to let go of their faltering but unmistakable hold on human dignity. Witnessing their degeneration from Oklahoma farmers to a diminished band of migrant workers is nothing short of crushing. The Joads lose family members to death and cowardice as they go, and are challenged by everything from weather to the authorities to the California locals themselves. As Tom Joad puts it: "They're a-workin' away at our spirits. They're a tryin' to make us cringe an' crawl like a whipped bitch. They tryin' to break us. Why, Jesus Christ, Ma, they comes a time when the on'y way a fella can keep his decency is by takin' a sock at a cop. They're workin' on our decency."
The point, though, is that decency remains intact, if somewhat battle-scarred, and this, as much as the depression and the plight of the "Okies," is a part of American history. When the California of their dreams proves to be less than edenic, Ma tells Tom: "You got to have patience. Why, Tom--us people will go on livin' when all them people is gone. Why, Tom, we're the people that live. They ain't gonna wipe us out. Why, we're the people--we go on." It's almost as if she's talking about the very novel she inhabits, for Steinbeck's characters, more than most literary creations, do go on. They continue, now as much as ever, to illuminate and humanize an era for generations of readers who, thankfully, have no experiential point of reference for understanding the depression. The book's final, haunting image of Rose of Sharon--Rosasharn, as they call her--the eldest Joad daughter, forcing the milk intended for her stillborn baby onto a starving stranger, is a lesson on the grandest scale. "'You got to,'" she says, simply. And so do we all. --Melanie Rehak [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'How the Other Half Lives'
› Find signed collectible books: 'How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'John Steinbeck'
5 stories in one the grapes of wrath the moon is down cannery row east of eden of mice and men [via]

› Find signed collectible books: 'John Steinbeck's the Grapes of Wrath'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath'
Harold Bloom writes, "The Grapes of Wrath is a flawed but permanent American book." John Steinbeck's novel, still popular a half-century after its original publication, is the focus of this edition of Bloom's Notes. Along with a collection of some of the best criticism available on his work, this text includes a brief biography of the author, structural and thematic analysis, an index of themes and ideas, and more. This series is edited by Harold Bloom, Sterling Professor of the Humanities, Yale University; Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Professor of English, New York University Graduate School. These texts are the ideal aid for all students of literature, presenting concise, easy-to-understand biographical, critical, and bibliographical information on a specific literary work. Also provided are multiple sources for book reports and term papers with a wealth of information on literary works, authors, and major characters. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'John Steinbeck's the Grapes of Wrath'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Las Cenizas De Angela: Una Memoria/Angela's Ashes a Memoir'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: Three Tenant Families'
Just what kind of book is Let Us Now Praise Famous Men? It contains many things: poems; confessional reveries; disquisitions on the proper way to listen to Beethoven; snippets of dialogue, both real and imagined; a lengthy response to a survey from the Partisan Review; exhaustive catalogs of furniture, clothing, objects, and smells. And then there are Walker Evans's famously stark portraits of depression-era sharecroppers--photographs that both stand apart from and reinforce James Agee's words.
Assigned to do a story for Fortune magazine about sharecroppers in the Deep South, Agee and Evans spent four weeks living with a poor white tenant family, winning the Burroughs's trust and immersing themselves in a sharecropper's daily existence. Given a first draft of the resulting article, the editors at Fortune quite understandably threw up their hands--as did several other editors who subsequently worked with a later book-length manuscript. The writing was contrary. It refused to accommodate itself to the reader, and at times it positively bristled with hostility. (What other book could take Marx as the epigraph and then announce: "These words are quoted here to mislead those who will be misled by them"?) Response to the book was puzzled or unfriendly, and Let Us Now Praise Famous Men sputtered out of print only a few short years after its publication. It took the 1960s, and a vogue for social justice, to bring Agee's masterwork the audience it deserved.
Yet the book is far more interesting--aesthetically and morally--than the sort of guilty-liberal tract for which it is often mistaken. On an existential level, Agee's text is a deeply felt examination of what it means to suffer, to struggle to live in spite of suffering. On a personal level, it is the painful, beautifully written portrait of one man's obsession. In its collaboration with Evans's photographs, the book is also a groundbreaking experiment in form. In the end, however, it is more than merely the sum of its parts. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men is, quite simply, a book unlike any other, simmering with anger and beauty and mystery. --Mary Park [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America'
Essayist and cultural critic Barbara Ehrenreich has always specialized in turning received wisdom on its head with intelligence, clarity, and verve. With some 12 million women being pushed into the labor market by welfare reform, she decided to do some good old-fashioned journalism and find out just how they were going to survive on the wages of the unskilled--at $6 to $7 an hour, only half of what is considered a living wage. So she did what millions of Americans do, she looked for a job and a place to live, worked that job, and tried to make ends meet.
As a waitress in Florida, where her name is suddenly transposed to "girl," trailer trash becomes a demographic category to aspire to with rent at $675 per month. In Maine, where she ends up working as both a cleaning woman and a nursing home assistant, she must first fill out endless pre-employment tests with trick questions such as "Some people work better when they're a little bit high." In Minnesota, she works at Wal-Mart under the repressive surveillance of men and women whose job it is to monitor her behavior for signs of sloth, theft, drug abuse, or worse. She even gets to experience the humiliation of the urine test.
So, do the poor have survival strategies unknown to the middle class? And did Ehrenreich feel the "bracing psychological effects of getting out of the house, as promised by the wonks who brought us welfare reform?" Nah. Even in her best-case scenario, with all the advantages of education, health, a car, and money for first month's rent, she has to work two jobs, seven days a week, and still almost winds up in a shelter. As Ehrenreich points out with her potent combination of humor and outrage, the laws of supply and demand have been reversed. Rental prices skyrocket, but wages never rise. Rather, jobs are so cheap as measured by the pay that workers are encouraged to take as many as they can. Behind those trademark Wal-Mart vests, it turns out, are the borderline homeless. With her characteristic wry wit and her unabashedly liberal bent, Ehrenreich brings the invisible poor out of hiding and, in the process, the world they inhabit--where civil liberties are often ignored and hard work fails to live up to its reputation as the ticket out of poverty. --Lesley Reed [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Other America: Poverty in the United States'
This powerful account draws on research by sociologists and economists to reveal the depth of the poverty crisis, analyzing why such "invisible" citizens as the elderly, children, and minorities are not given adequate opportunities. Originally published in 1962, Harrington's classic work on the plight of the poor in the midst of plenty remains all too relevant today. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx'
"Random Family" tells the American outlaw saga lurking behind the headlines of gangsta glamour, gold-drenched drug dealers, and street-corner society. With an immediacy made possible only after ten years of reporting, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc immerses the reader in the mind-boggling intricacies of the little-known ghetto world. She charts the tumultuous cycle of the generations, as girls become mothers, mothers become grandmothers, boys become criminals, and hope struggles against deprivation.
Two romances thread through "Random Family: " the sexually charismatic nineteen-year-old Jessica's dizzying infatuation with a hugely successful young heroin dealer, Boy George, and fourteen-year-old Coco's first love with Jessica's little brother, Cesar, an aspiring thug. Fleeing from family problems, the young couples try to outrun their destinies. Chauffeurs whisk them to getaways in the Poconos and to nightclubs. They cruise the streets in Lamborghinis and customized James Bond cars. Jessica and Boy George ride the wild adventure between riches and ruin, while Coco and Cesar stick closer to the street, all four caught in a precarious dance between life and death. Friends get murdered; the DEA and FBI investigate Boy George's business activities; Cesar becomes a fugitive; Jessica and Coco endure homelessness, betrayal, the heartbreaking separation of prison, and throughout it all, the insidious damage of poverty. Together, then apart, the teenagers make family where they find it. Girls look for excitement and find trouble; boys, searching for adventure, join crews and prison gangs. Coco moves upstate to dodge the hazards of the Bronx; Jessica seeks solace in romance. Both find that love is the only place to go.
A gifted prose stylist and a profoundly compassionate observer, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc has slipped behind the cold statistics and sensationalism surrounding inner-city life and come back with a riveting, haunting, and true urban soap opera that reveals the clenched grip of the streets. Random Family is a compulsive read and an important journalistic achievement, sure to take its place beside the classics of the genre. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger'
This revised edition explains to a new generation - in a much changed culture - what can be done about the imbalances of poverty and wealth in our world at the turn of the millennium. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger: A Biblical Study'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Rich Christians In An Age Of Hunger: Moving From Affluence To Generosity'
In the 20th anniversary revision of his groundbreaking book Rich Christians In An Age of Hunger, Ronald Sider examines the complex causes of poverty and offers concrete, practical proposals for social and individual change. The most thorough, biblical case against poverty-20 years ago or today.
[via]More editions of Rich Christians In An Age Of Hunger: Moving From Affluence To Generosity:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Road to Wigan Pier'
Although George Orwell grew up in the relative comfort of the English middle class, his socialist convictions and general sense of fairness led him to hate his country's deeply ingrained class structure. That perspective permeates this book, but the most striking elements are the quotidian details of life that Orwell observes in his first-person account of the lives of coal miners and others in the poor north of England. Wigan Pier is almost too realistic at times, as Orwell brings his unparalleled powers of observation to portray the wretched conditions of the working class. That Orwell may have slanted his reporting to make things look worse than they were is a question that does not lessen the book's interest. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools'
A searing, eye-opening exposé of the inequality built into America's public education system, written by Jonathan Kozol, the National Book Award-winning author of Death at an Early Age. Traveling the most blighted neighborhoods of our country, Kozol discovers a separate and unequal school system for America's less fortunate. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'There Are No Children Here'
There Are No Children Here, the true story of brothers Lafeyette and Pharoah Rivers, ages 11 and 9 at the start, brings home the horror of trying to make it in a violence-ridden public housing project. The boys live in a gang-plagued war zone on Chicago's West Side, literally learning how to dodge bullets the way kids in the suburbs learn to chase baseballs. "If I grow up, I'd like to be a bus driver," says Lafeyette at one point. That's if, not when--spoken with the complete innocence of a child. The book's title comes from a comment made by the brothers' mother as she and author Alex Kotlowitz contemplate the challenges of living in such a hostile environment: "There are no children here," she says. "They've seen too much to be children." This book humanizes the problem of inner-city pathology, makes readers care about Lafeyette and Pharoah more than they may expect to, and offers a sliver of hope buried deep within a world of chaos. [via]
› Find signed collectible books: 'A Tree Grows in Brooklyn'
Francie Nolan, avid reader, penny-candy connoisseur, and adroit observer of human nature, has much to ponder in colorful, turn-of-the-century Brooklyn. She grows up with a sweet, tragic father, a severely realistic mother, and an aunt who gives her love too freely--to men, and to a brother who will always be the favored child. Francie learns early the meaning of hunger and the value of a penny. She is her father's child--romantic and hungry for beauty. But she is her mother's child, too--deeply practical and in constant need of truth. Like the Tree of Heaven that grows out of cement or through cellar gratings, resourceful Francie struggles against all odds to survive and thrive. Betty Smith's poignant, honest novel created a big stir when it was first published over 50 years ago. Her frank writing about life's squalor was alarming to some of the more genteel society, but the book's humor and pathos ensured its place in the realm of classics--and in the hearts of readers, young and old. (Ages 10 and older) --Emilie Coulter [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor'
An unofficial adviser to President Bill Clinton, Wilson has become a celebrity of sorts. A former University of Chicago professor, Wilson--currently on staff at Harvard--has been profiled in The New Yorker and dubbed one of America's most influential people by Time magazine. A respected thinker on issues of race and poverty, the author of The Declining Significance of Race and The Truly Disadvantaged offers his take on welfare and inner-city joblessness in When Work Disappears. Racism, Wilson argues, plays increasingly less of a role in urban problems. More significant, he claims, are changes in the global economy and the disappearance of unskilled but decent-paying jobs near cities; according to Wilson, these factors have deprived the urban working class of steady jobs, destroyed inner-city businesses, and caused younger, upwardly mobile residents to flee for the suburbs. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Working Poor: Invisible In America'
Most of the people I write about in this book do not have the luxury of rage. They are caught in exhausting struggles. Their wages do not lift them far enough from poverty to improve their lives, and their lives, in turn, hold them back. The term by which they are usually described, working poor, should be an oxymoron. Nobody who works hard should be poor in America. from the Introduction
From the author of the Pulitzer Prizewinning Arab and Jew, a new book that presents a searing, intimate portrait of working American families struggling against insurmountable odds to escape poverty.
As David K. Shipler makes clear in this powerful, humane study, the invisible poor are engaged in the activity most respected in American ideologyhard, honest work. But their version of the American Dream is a nightmare: low-paying, dead-end jobs; the profound failure of government to improve upon decaying housing, health care, and education; the failure of families to break the patterns of child abuse and substance abuse. Shipler exposes the interlocking problems by taking us into the sorrowful, infuriating, courageous lives of the poorwhite and black, Asian and Latino, citizens and immigrants. We encounter them every day, for they do jobs essential to the American economy.
We meet drifting farmworkers in North Carolina, exploited garment workers in New Hampshire, illegal immigrants trapped in the steaming kitchens of Los Angeles restaurants, addicts who struggle into productive work from the cruel streets of the nations capitaleach life another aspect of a confounding, far-reaching urgent national crisis. And unlike most works on poverty, this one delves into the calculations of some employers as welltheir razor-thin profits, their anxieties about competition from abroad, their frustrations in finding qualified workers.
This impassioned book not only dissects the problems, but makes pointed, informed recommendations for change. It is a book that stands to make a difference. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Cenizas de Angela /Angela's Ashes'
More editions of Cenizas de Angela /Angela's Ashes:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Las Cenizas De Angela: Una Memoria/Angela's Ashes a Memoir'
En cada pagina abunda el incomparable sentido del humor y la compasion de Frank McCourt. Con todas las cualidades de una obra clasica, "Las cenizas de Angela" esta ahora disponible en edicion rustica en espanol. Esta autobiografia ganadora del Premio Pulitzer y de gran exito de ventas internatcional trasciende las fronteras culturales y linguisticas con su narracion sobre la infancia, la pobreza y las relaciones familiares. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Crimen y Castigo/ Crime and Punishment'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Fiodor Dostoievski / Fyodor Dostoevsky: Crimen Y Castigo Los Hermanos Karamazov / Crime and Punishment, The Brothers of Karamazov'
The classic works of literature contained in each of these volumes represent each author's best and most famous writings. A wonderful introduction to world literature, this finely crafted and affordable series offers the works of these world-renowned authors to a wider audience. Includes The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment.
Las obras clásicas de literatura en cada volumen son una representación de los mejores y más famosos escritos de los autores. Una introducción maravillosa a la literatura universal, esta serie hermosamente diseñada pone las obras de los autores mundialmente conocidos al alcance de todos. [via]
More editions of Fiodor Dostoievski / Fyodor Dostoevsky: Crimen Y Castigo Los Hermanos Karamazov / Crime and Punishment, The Brothers of Karamazov:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Las Uvas De LA Ira'
Las uvas de la ira es un hito en la literatura norteamericana que explora el conflicto entre ricos y pobres, analiza la reacción feroz de un hombre contra la injusticia y el estoicismo de una mujer igualmente heróica, y refleja los horrores de la Gran Depresión. Aunque sigue la migración de miles personas del Dust Bowl, Las uvas de la ira se enfoca en la historia de una familia de Oklahoma, los Joads, echados de su hogar y forzados a viajar rumbo a esa Tierra Prometida que era por ese entoncesy que de algun modo sigue siendoCalifornia. De sus desventurasen un país dividido surge un drama sobre la dignidad humana, a un tiempo trágico y majestuoso en su grandeza su valentía moral.
Publicada por primera vez en 1939, la novela reflejó su época como Uncle Tom's Cabin reflejó los años antes de la Guerra Civil norteamericana. John Steinbeck, un escritor que simpatizaba con la crítica fascista y comunista, insistió en que la versión integral del "Himno de batalla de la República" fuese impresa en la primera edición del libro, que adopta en su título unas palabras del primer verso: "Está pisoteando la vendimia donde se conservan las uvas de la ira." La crónica de Steinbeck sobre el avergonzante maltrato de las clases sociales de los años treinta es tal vez el más "americano" de todos los clásicos norteamericanos.
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Las Uvas De La Ira/ the Grapes of Wrath'
Las uvas de la ira es un hito en la literatura norteamericana que explora el conflicto entre ricos y pobres, analiza la reacción feroz de un hombre contra la injusticia y el estoicismo de una mujer igualmente heróica, y refleja los horrores de la Gran Depresión. Aunque sigue la migración de miles personas del Dust Bowl, Las uvas de la ira se enfoca en la historia de una familia de Oklahoma, los Joads, echados de su hogar y forzados a viajar rumbo a esa Tierra Prometida que era por ese entoncesy que de algun modo sigue siendoCalifornia. De sus desventurasen un país dividido surge un drama sobre la dignidad humana, a un tiempo trágico y majestuoso en su grandeza su valentía moral.
Publicada por primera vez en 1939, la novela reflejó su época como Uncle Tom's Cabin reflejó los años antes de la Guerra Civil norteamericana. John Steinbeck, un escritor que simpatizaba con la crítica fascista y comunista, insistió en que la versión integral del "Himno de batalla de la República" fuese impresa en la primera edición del libro, que adopta en su título unas palabras del primer verso: "Está pisoteando la vendimia donde se conservan las uvas de la ira." La crónica de Steinbeck sobre el avergonzante maltrato de las clases sociales de los años treinta es tal vez el más "americano" de todos los clásicos norteamericanos.
More editions of Las Uvas De La Ira/ the Grapes of Wrath:
