The Library’s Recommended Reading theme for November 2018 is Hunger and Homelessness.
Here are ways you can explore this topic and learn more:
- Recommended Reading Display on the second floor of the library (Building 25) by the circulation desk
- Recommended Reading LibGuide
- Highline Reference Librarians Facebook
- Highline Library Twitter or @HighlineLibrary
Sample reading list:
Breaking Night by
Call Number: 362.74092 M982b 2010
ISBN: 9780786868919
Publication Date: 2010-09-07
This is a stunning memoir of a young woman who at age fifteen was living on the streets, and who eventually made it into Harvard. Liz Murray was born to loving but drug-addicted parents in the Bronx. In school she was taunted for her dirty clothing and lice-infested hair, eventually skipping so many classes that she was put into a girls’ home. At age fifteen, Liz found herself on the streets when her family finally unraveled. When Liz’s mother died of AIDS, she decided to take control of her own destiny and go back to high school, often completing her assignments in the hallways and subway stations where she slept. Liz squeezed four years of high school into two, while homeless; won a New York Times scholarship; and made it into the Ivy League.
Dear America by
ISBN: 9780062851352
Publication Date: 2018-09-18
This book–at its core–is not about immigration at all. This book is about homelessness, not in a traditional sense, but in the unsettled, unmoored psychological state that undocumented immigrants like myself find ourselves in. This book is about lying and being forced to lie to get by; about passing as an American and as a contributing citizen; about families, keeping them together, and having to make new ones when you can’t. This book is about constantly hiding from the government and, in the process, hiding from ourselves. This book is about what it means to not have a home.
The Divide by
Call Number: 339.2 T129d 2014
ISBN: 9780812983630
Publication Date: 2014-10-21
Over the last two decades, America has been falling deeper and deeper into a statistical mystery: Poverty goes up. Crime goes down. The prison population doubles. Fraud by the rich wipes out 40 percent of the world’s wealth. The rich get massively richer. No one goes to jail. In search of a solution, journalist Matt Taibbi discovered the Divide, the seam in American life where our two most troubling trends–growing wealth inequality and mass incarceration–come together, driven by a dramatic shift in American citizenship: Our basic rights are now determined by our wealth or poverty.
Nickel and Dimed by
ISBN: 9780805088380
Publication Date: 2008-06-24
The bestselling, landmark work of undercover reportage. Funny, poignant, and passionate, this firsthand account of life in low-wage America–the story of Barbara Ehrenreich’s attempts to eke out a living while working as a waitress, hotel maid, house cleaner, nursing-home aide, and Wal-Mart associate–has become an essential part of the nation’s political discourse.
No Room of Her Own by
Call Number: 362.5092 H477n 2011
ISBN: 9780230116573
Publication Date: 2011-10-20
This oral history collection brings together extended interviews with fifteen women, illuminating the part that gender roles play in ensnaring women in cycles of domestic abuse and homelessness and highlighting the physical stresses. It also challenges liberal myths about homeless people, and homeless women in particular.
One Billion Hungry by
Call Number: 338.19 C767o 2012
ISBN: 9780801451331
Publication Date: 2012-10-16
This book explains the many interrelated issues critical to our global food supply from the science of agricultural advances to the politics of food security, emphasizing the essential combination of increased food production, environmental stability, and poverty reduction necessary to end endemic hunger on our planet. Conway addresses a series of urgent questions about global hunger, and succeeds in sharing his informed optimism about our collective ability to address these fundamental challenges if we use technology paired with sustainable practices and strategic planning.
The Open Door by
Call Number: 362.20973 C366o 2017
ISBN: 9780190463380
Publication Date: 2017-04-25
This book explains how and why homelessness among the mentally ill has persisted over the past 35 years, despite policy and program initiatives to end it. This ten-chapter book chronicles the unintended rise of homelessness in the wake of far-reaching post-World War II mental health care reforms, and highlights the key role of advocacy in spurring a governmental response to homelessness.
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