"Young Philip Pirrip, nicknamed Pip, is meant to become an apprentice for his brother-in-law, a poor blacksmith. But his destiny changes upon meeting three unusual people: an escaped convict, a tragic woman, and a captivating young girl. Pip's life is altered in an instant when a secret benefactor gives him a large sum of money. Pip has "great expectations" for his new life as successful and wealthy life as a young gentleman. Has his life actually...

During Smarsh's turbulent childhood in Kansas in the '80s and '90s, the forces of cyclical poverty and the country's changing economic policies solidified her family's place among the working poor. Her personal history affirms the corrosive impact intergenerational poverty can have on individuals, families, and communities. Combining memoir with powerful analysis and cultural commentary, this is an uncompromising look at class, identity, and the particular...

"A history of the class system in America from the colonial era to the present illuminates the crucial legacy of the underprivileged white demographic, citing the pivotal contributions of lower-class white workers in wartime, social policy, and the rise of the Republican Party,"--NoveList.

"The Ice Cream Man and Other Stories is a collection about dishwashers, veterans, people who sleep outside, people who look through dumpsters, sandwich-makers, people who drive ice cream trucks, people who work in factories that manufacture pieces of metal, people who clean up after weddings, and other people who are not often the subject of books. It is very funny, tender-hearted, vivid, briefly and beautifully surreal at times"--

"An autobiographical novel about growing up gay in a working-class town in Picardy. "Every morning in the bathroom I would repeat the same phrase to myself over and over again. Today I'm really gonna be a tough guy." Growing up in a poor village in northern France, all Eddy Bellegueule wanted was to be a man in the eyes of his family and neighbors. But from childhood, he was different -- "girlish," intellectually precocious, and attracted to other...

Trash, Allison's landmark collection, laid the groundwork for her critically acclaimed Bastard Out of Carolina, the National Book Award finalist that was hailed by The New York Times Book Review as "simply stunning...a wonderful work of fiction by a major talent." In addition to Allison's classic stories, this new edition of Trash features "Stubborn Girls and Mean Stories," an introduction in which Allison discusses the...

"Today, a minimum-wage earner can afford a one-bedroom apartment in only 28 out of 3,140 counties in America. The single worst place in the United States to look for affordable housing is Osceola County, Florida. Once the main approach to Disney World, where vacationers found lodging on their way to the Magic Kingdom, the fifteen-mile Route 192 corridor in Osceola has become a site of shocking contrasts. At one end, absentee investors snatch up foreclosed...

In this landmark living history series, a Victorian tenement in the heart of London's East End has been painstakingly brought back to life. Host Michael Mosley joins a group of 21st century families as they move in and experience the tough living and working conditions of the Victorian poor.

"A vivid investigation into the seamy underside of nineteenth and twentieth century Paris"-- "A trip through Paris as it will never be again--dark and dank and poor and slapdash and truly bohemian Paris, the City of Light. The city of the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre, of soft cheese and fresh baguettes. Or so tourist brochures would have you believe. In The Other Paris, Luc Sante reveals the city's hidden past, its seamy underside--one populated by...