Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis -- that of white working-class Americans. The decline of this group, a demographic of our country that has been slowly disintegrating over forty years, has been reported on with growing frequency and alarm, but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside.

"When Colin Barrett's debut Young Skins was published, it swept up several major literary awards, and, in both its linguistic originality and sharply drawn portraits of working-class Ireland, earned Barrett comparisons to Faulkner, Hardy, and Musil. Now, in a blistering follow-up collection, Barrett brings together eight character-driven stories, each showcasing his inimitably observant eye and darkly funny style. A quiet night in a local pub is shattered...

Through the lives of real Americans, Kristof and WuDunn address the crisis in working-class America, while focusing on solutions to mend a half century of governmental failure. Rural Yamhill, Oregon, prospered for much of the twentieth century but has been devastated in the last few decades as blue-collar jobs disappeared. About one-quarter of the children on Kristof's old school bus died in adulthood from drugs, alcohol, suicide, or reckless accidents....

"After sixteen novels, Jacqueline Winspear has taken the bold step of turning to memoir, revealing the hardships and joys of her family history. Both shockingly frank and deftly restrained, her memoir tackles such difficult, poignant, and fascinating family memories as her paternal grandfather's shellshock, her mother's evacuation from London during the Blitz; her soft-spoken animal-loving father's torturous assignment to an explosives team during...

"Mike Muñoz is a young Mexican American not too many years out of high school--and just fired from his latest gig as a lawn boy on a landscaping crew. Though he tries time and again to get his foot on the first rung of that ladder to success, he can't seem to get a break. But then things start to change for Mike, and after a raucous, jarring, and challenging trip, he finds he can finally see the future and his place in it"--

Two flawed families, each scarred by catastrophe, find a home for their hearts in an acclaimed Australian miniseries. Adapted by Tim Winton from his award-winning novel, set around Perth from 1943-63, it's gripping, poignant, and gorgeous. The Lambs are hardworking and God-fearing, the Pickles are luckless and derelict, yet they find common ground beneath the same roof. Exquisitely filmed with an outstanding ensemble cast led by Kerry Fox.

"Is America in a state of irrevocable decline? In this provocative and disturbing examination of our country, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges argues that the United States shows unmistakable signs of a dying culture. Across the country Americans are suffering from chronic unemployment, declining wages, and a morbid despair that expresses itself through compulsive gambling, sadistic pornography, and a deadly opioid epidemic. Xenophobia...