Poverty, by America

“Matthew Desmond is an academic and journalist. In this book, he’s trying to understand ‘Why is there so much poverty and why is it so persistent in the US?’ It’s based on his years of research, over his career, and also reporting and just stories of folks. He gets into the meat of it, which is the ways that in the US there are systems in place that keep wealthy people wealthy and poor people poor. He then gets into the details of this really unjust system. It’s a grim book, in a lot of ways. But one of his strengths and one reason why this book is so good is that in addition to being knowledgeable, he’s really passionate and approaches things from a really human angle. There are a lot of stories in the book—he doesn’t treat his subject as something that’s dry or not connected to you, whoever you are, who’s reading the book. It’s really grounded in life experience. And I think that makes it really immediate and urgent and really powerful.” Read more...

The Best Audiobooks of 2023

Laura Sackton, Journalist