Showing titles in Poverty & Homelessness

London Labour and the London Poor is a rare and fascinating insight into the lives and struggles of the 19th-century poor. Written by journalist and reformer Henry Mayhew, a founder and editor of the satirical magazine Punch, it collects hundreds of testimonials from the lower strata of Victorian society. We encounter street entertainers, 'pure finders', cabinetmakers, gingerbread sellers, 'screeve-fakers', swindlers, and burglars. We hear accounts from toshers finding items in sewers, people attempting to train pigs to dance, and witness the sale of everything from gilt watches and chickweed to needles, dog collars, and eel soup.

Brought to you by Penguin. 'We love a rags-to-riches story, and we love to see someone triumph through sheer determination. But the story is rarely that simple. My story isn't, anyway.' As the middle of five kids growing up in dire poverty, the odds were low on Katriona O'Sullivan making...

Brought to you by Penguin. FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE SALT PATH AND THE WILD SILENCE The latest memoir from global bestselling author Raynor Winn Some people live to walk. Raynor and Moth walk to live . . . Raynor Winn knows that her husband Moth's health is declining...

Brought to you by Penguin. The incredible, Sunday Times bestselling follow-up to one of the most talked about books of the decade, The Salt Path. Nature holds the answers for Raynor and her husband Moth. After walking 630 miles homeless along The Salt Path, the windswept and wild English...

Skint Estate is the hard-hitting, blunt, dignified and brutally revealing debut memoir about impoverishment, loneliness and violence in austerity Britain - set against a grim landscape of sink estates, police cells, refuges and peepshows - skilfully woven into a manifesto for change. Alone, pregnant and living in a women’s refuge, Cash Carraway couldn’t vote in the 2010 general election that ushered austerity into Britain. Her voice had been silenced. Years later, she watched Grenfell burn from a women’s refuge around the corner. 

Mama say: "Your schooling is your voice, child. It will be speaking for you even if you didn't open your mouth to talk. It will be speaking till the day God is calling you come." That day, I tell myself that even if I am not getting anything in this life, I will go to school and become Teacher...

Brought to you by Penguin. The uplifting true story of the couple who lost everything and embarked on a journey of salvation across the South West coastline. OVER 2 MILLION COPIES SOLD WORLDWIDE THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER INCLUDED IN THE SUNDAY TIMES 2024 LIST OF 'THE TOP 100 BOOKS OF THE PAST...

Read by the author, Frank Cottrell-Boyce. A British Childhood is at once a searing account of our failure to look after the nation’s most vulnerable citizens, and a call to arms to all of us to protect the innocence of childhood. During his time as Children’s Laureate Frank Cottrell-Boyce...

· The richest eight people control more wealth than the poorest half of the world combined. · Today, 60 per cent of the world's population lives on less than $5 a day. · Though global real GDP has nearly tripled since 1980, 1.1 billion more people are now living in poverty. For decades we...

A graphic and biting polemic that still holds a fierce political relevance and impact despite being written over half a century ago. First published in 1937 it charts George Orwell's observations of working-class life during the 1930s in the industrial heartlands of Yorkshire and Lancashire. His depictions of social injustice and rising unemployment, the dangerous working conditions in the mines amid general squalor and hunger also bring together many of the ideas explored in his later works and novels.

A warmly funny, intensely moving and startlingly personal account of the lives of an urban parish priest and his parishioners. Father Alex Frost was not always a man of the cloth. He found his calling while running an Argos store in his native Burnley, moonlighting as a stand-up comedian and...

The Sunday Times bestseller, Making It is an inspirational memoir about beating the odds and turning things around even when it all seems hopeless, by Jay Blades, the beloved star of hit BBC One show The Repair Shop. We had our hardships, and there were times that we didn’t have a lot of food...

Brutally honest and fearless, Poverty Safari is an unforgettable insight into modern Britain, and will change how you think about poverty. The Sunday Times Top Ten bestseller Winner of the Orwell Prize. Named the most 'Rebellious Read of the 21st Century' in a Scottish Book Trust poll Darren...

‘A sensitive exposé that illustrates the complexities of modern homelessness. Moving, poetic and as rousing as Orwell’ – Cash Carraway, author of Skint Estate ‘Urgent, gripping and devastating’ – The Secret Barrister This book will finally give a face and a voice to those we so...

THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER 'A raw, intimate story of trust and betrayal' - A. L. Kennedy, The Observer 'It's heartbreaking. It's scary. It's beautiful' – Fredrik Backman, author of A Man Called Ove Will You Care If I Die? is a disarmingly direct memoir about social class, race, friendship...

The crime-infested intersection of West Fayette and Monroe Streets is well-known--and cautiously avoided--by most of Baltimore. But this notorious corner's 24-hour open-air drug market provides the economic fuel for a dying neighborhood. David Simon, an award-winning author and crime reporter...

Read by the author, Dragged Up Proppa is the story of growing up working class in a forgotten England. 'Very compelling, beautifully written memoir of a time and England that no longer exists but remains just as important today as ever' – Sebastian Payne, author of Broken Heartlands Pip Fallow...

‘An incredible read. I laughed, I cried and my heart was truly touched by this beautifully written true story of hope and humanity at its best.’ Rosemary Conley CBE 'An extraordinary story. Truly Inspirational' Tim Vine An astonishing story of kindness, self-learning, pain, unbelievable hope...

Brought to you by Penguin. George Orwell's vivid memoir of his time living among the desperately poor and destitute, Down and Out in Paris and London is a moving tour of the underworld of society. 'You have talked so often of going to the dogs - and well, here are the dogs, and you have reached...

An autobiographical study, Down and Out in Paris and London follows Orwell as he tramps around both Paris and London. Pawning his belongings to buy food, unemployment, drinking heavily and jostling for a place in homeless hostels are but a few of the experiences related with candour and insight in this unabridged exclusive audiobook. Orwell was arguably one of the first 'gonzo' journalists.