Blog Action Day | Poverty Reading Roundup

Poverty
Noun

1. The quality or state of being poor or indigent; want or scarcity of means of subsistence; indigence; need.
2. Any deficiency of elements or resources that are needed or desired, or that constitute richness; as, poverty of soil; poverty of the blood; poverty of ideas.(courtesy of Wiktionary)

A keyword search of our inventory reveals a list made up almost entirely of books about money, with Muhammad Yunus’s books headlining. In these crazy economic times, that makes a lot of sense. But really, there are all kinds of poverty, not to mention all kinds of portrayals of it. Spiritual poverty and physical poverty; poverty of choice, compassion, finances, opportunity, hope; we could go on and on. And do — I polled the staff for this, and was reminded that that’s part of the job description for bookseller. So, in honor of Blog Action Day, the economy, and curious readers everywhere, here is our Poverty Reading Roundup:

Must Reads You May Not Know: Tobacco Road, Erskine Caldwell; Nickel & Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich; A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini; Born into Brothels, Zana Briski

Children’s Lit: Out of the Dust, Karen Hesse; Breadwinner, Deborah Ellis; Esperanza Rising & Becoming Naomi Leon, Pam Munoz Ryan; What the World Eats & Material World, Peter Menzel

Classics:A Christmas Carol & Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens; Tess of the D’urbervilles, Thomas Hardy; Mansfield Park, Jane Austen; Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck