English Working Class

Marry me. That’s what my brother’s best friend—Logan Beckett, an ex-Marine—says to me in the cereal aisle. Logan needs a wife to boost his veteran housing benefits . I’m jobless, drowning in medical debt, and one asthma attack away from disaster. I need health insurance and a lifeline. One year. No feelings. Separate beds. What could go wrong? Everything—because Logan Beckett has never felt like a business arrangement. Not when he looks at me like I’m his mission. Not when he tries to protect me. And definitely not when he kisses me after our courthouse vows like he means it. ...

In this acclaimed investigation, Owen Jones explores how the working class has gone from 'salt of the earth' to 'scum of the earth.' Exposing the ignorance and prejudice at the heart of the chav caricature, he portrays a far more complex reality. The chav stereotype, he argues, is used by governments as a convenient fig leaf to avoid genuine engagement with social and economic problems and to justify widening inequality.

Raw, gritty, compassionate, surprising and darkly funny - Australian legend Jimmy Barnes' unforgettable childhood memoir. A household name, an Australian rock icon, the elder statesman of OzPubRock - there isn't an accolade or cliché that doesn't apply to Jimmy Barnes. But long before Cold Chisel and Barnesy, long before the tall tales of success and excess, there was the true story of James Dixon Swan - a working class boy whose family made the journey from Scotland to Australia in search of a better life.

Combining classical Marxism, psychoanalysis, and the new labor history pioneered by E. P. Thompson and Herbert Gutman, David Roediger's widely acclaimed book provides an original study of the formative years of working-class racism in the United States. This, he argues, cannot be explained simply with reference to economic advantage; rather, white working-class racism is underpinned by a complex series of psychological and ideological mechanisms that reinforce racial stereotypes, and thus help to forge the identities of white workers in opposition to Blacks.

Liverpool, 1935: Raised in a strict Catholic family, Viv Byrne knows what’s expected of her: marry a Catholic man from her working-class neighborhood and have his children. However, when she finds herself pregnant after a fling with Joshua Levinson, a Jewish man with dreams of becoming a famous jazz musician, Viv knows that a swift wedding is the only answer. Her only solace is that marrying Joshua will mean escaping her strict mother’s scrutiny. But when Joshua makes a life-changing choice on their wedding day, Viv is forced once again into the arms of her disapproving family.

Jen Dixon is not your typical Kansas City kindergarten class mom - or mom in general. Jen already has two college-age daughters by two different (probably) musicians, and it's her second time around the class mom block with five-year-old Max - this time with a husband and father by her side. Though her best friend and PTA president sees her as the "wisest" candidate for the job (or oldest), not all of the other parents agree.

Luton, Bedfordshire, 1850. Smoke rises from the chimneys of newly built factories, and the streets hum with the clatter of carts and footsteps. In a town famed for its straw hats, fifteen-year-old Eliza Hart trades her schoolbooks for a sewing needle when her father’s carpentry business falters. Drawn into the fast-paced world of hat-making, Eliza becomes apprentice to Mrs. Temperance Blake, a mysterious and exacting milliner with a reputation as sharp as her hatpins. As Eliza learns the craft—stitch by stitch, brim by brim—she also discovers the cost borne by the women who keep the ...

Bernie Sanders: Hero is a gripping political biography that chronicles the remarkable life and enduring legacy of America’s most consistent political outsider. From his early days protesting segregation in Chicago to his transformative presidential campaigns that redefined progressive politics, this definitive biography follows Sanders’ lifelong fight against corporate greed, economic inequality, and political corruption. This book reveals how Sanders built a movement from the margins—eschewing corporate PACs, confronting billionaires, and refusing to sell out. Readers follow his rise...

John Lennon called himself a working class hero. George Harrison was a working class mystic. Born in Liverpool as the son of a bus conductor and a shop assistant, for the first six years of his life he lived in a house with no indoor bathroom. This book gives an honest, in-depth view of his personal journey from his blue-collar childhood to his role as a world-famous spiritual icon.

Sarah Smarsh brings her graceful storytelling and incisive critique to the challenges that define our times—class division, political fissures, gender inequality, environmental crisis, media bias, the rural-urban gulf. Smarsh, a journalist who grew up on a wheat farm in Kansas and was the first in her family to graduate from college, has long focused on cultural dissonance that many in her industry neglected until recently.

Heiress Leah Sinclair is finally out from under the watch of her overprotective parents, and she’s ready to let loose and enter a new era — one filled with travel, exploration, adventure, and most of all… men. And what better options are there than charity auction where she can win a date with a sexy alien? Aano and Yahn is working a complex operation when things go sideways, and when they stumble upon a charity date auction, they figure it’s the perfect place to hide. And when Leah, a willing, slightly ditzy heiress offers them a tour of her ship, they see the perfect opportunity ...

In this galvanizing audiobook for all educators, Kristin Souers and Pete Hall explore an urgent and growing issue - childhood trauma - and its profound effect on learning and teaching.

Nobody who works hard should be poor in America, writes Pulitzer Prize-winner David Shipler. Clear-headed, rigorous, and compassionate, he journeys deeply into the lives of individual store clerks and factory workers, farm laborers and sweat-shop seamstresses, illegal immigrants in menial jobs and Americans saddled with immense student loans and paltry wages. They are known as the working poor.

For all the attempts to understand the state of American politics and the blue/red divide, we've ignored what economic and cultural loss can do to pride. What happens, Arlie Russell Hochschild asks, when a proud people in a hard-hit region suffer the deep loss of pride and are confronted with a powerful political appeal that makes it feel "stolen"? Hochschild's research drew her to Pikeville, Kentucky, in the heart of Appalachia, within the whitest and second-poorest congressional district in the nation.

How far can you go to protect your livelihood in the face of rampant profit driven progress? Follow the dramatic story of George Mellor and the frame-breakers of Yorkshire as they battle to preserve their way of life. Will they succeed in halting the ruthless forces opposing them? Justice, rebellion, and the quest for truth Dive into the tumultuous world of 1812 Yorkshire in "Enoch's Hammer". Experience the drama, the courage, and the heartbreak of the Luddite uprising. Follow the Luddites' struggle, their personal lives, and the relentless pursuit by authorities. Set in 1812,`Enoch`s ...

Long before Cold Chisel and Barnesy, long before the success and excess, there was the true story of James Dixon Swan - a working-class boy whose family made the journey from Scotland to Australia in search of a better life. Working Class Boy is a powerful reflection on a traumatic and violent childhood, which fuelled the excess and recklessness that would define, but almost destroy, the rock’n’roll legend. This is the story of how James Swan became Jimmy Barnes.

In the heyday of American labor, the influence of local unions extended far beyond the workplace. Unions were embedded in tight-knit communities, touching nearly every aspect of the lives of members and their families and neighbors. Lainey Newman and Theda Skocpol provide timely insight into the relationship between the decline of unions and the shift of working-class voters away from Democrats.

Drawing from careful examinations of their personal narratives, Jamie L. Bronstein investigates the ways in which working people thought about the good life as seen through their experiences with family and friends, rewarding work, interaction with the natural world, science and creativity, political causes and religious commitments, and physical and economic struggles. Informed by the history of emotions and the philosophical and social-scientific literature on happiness, this book reflects broadly on the industrial-era working-class experience in an era of immense social and economic change.

There's a college affordability crisis happening in the US right now. Tuition rates have soared, while increases in blue collar wages have slowed to a crawl. This adds up to a painful realization for lower-income young people desperately hoping to go to college: there's no way to pay for it. Bobbi Dempsey shares her brutally honest first-person account of the struggle to pay for her children's and her own education on a working-class salary.

"Bridges We Build" takes readers into the heart of Watertown, New York, during the darkest days of the Great Depression. Through the eyes of Maggie O'Connor, a resilient housewife, the novel explores the intertwining lives of working-class families, small business owners, and local leaders as they struggle to survive—and ultimately rebuild—amidst economic collapse. From factory layoffs to neighborhood food drives, Maggie becomes the emotional anchor of her community, finding strength in resourcefulness and solidarity. As her husband Jim grapples with the shame of losing his job and ...