NIGHTLY READING THREAD: Welcome to Edition #86 of #GMGReads. Every night through this (increasingly) weird (and sad) time, I'm tweeting out a list of my five favorite books around a general theme—and a link to an indie bookstore where you can order them online....
Inequality and systemic injustices has been a key part of the protests of recent weeks, and while I'm not going to pretend that I've read Thomas Piketty's book (my wager is most people who bought it never did!) here are other good reads on inequality:
1) Robert Putnam's best known for his BOWLING ALONE, but his tour of how we've left a generation of children adrift, OUR KIDS, is a bracing tale of lost potential: bookshop.org/books/our-kids…
2) David Shipler's book THE WORKING POOR makes clear the systemic injustices that lead to the most common experience of poverty—people who are actually working quite hard, but can't get ahead: bookshop.org/books/the-work…
PS: I've previously mentioned EVICTED, which is excellent and relevant too:
https://twitter.com/vermontgmg/status/1240805714198540288
3) Deirdre Mask's (@Deirdre_Mask) new THE ADDRESS BOOK examines how where we live shapes so much of our lives, access to services and government, & prosperity; her chapter on US streets named after Martin Luther King Jr. is one you won't soon forget: bookshop.org/books/the-addr…
4) Richard Rothstein's THE COLOR OF LAW shows how segregated communities weren't an accident so much as the result of clear government policy: bookshop.org/books/the-colo…
PS: I've not yet read the RACE FOR PROFIT, by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor (@KeeangaYamahtta), which was a finalist this year for this year's Pulitzer, but it traces how banks and the real estate industry robbed blacks of the promise of home ownership: bookshop.org/books/race-for…
5) If you want a lighter look that will still make you mad, the talented Chrystia Freeland (@cafreeland)—now the deputy prime minister of Canada—wrote a 2012 book PLUTOCRATS about the rise of the super-rich and, as she says, "the fall of everyone else": bookshop.org/books/plutocra…
Those are tonight's #GMGReads. What are your favorite reads on inequality or injustice? Share! #avidreadersunite
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