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Evicted

Poverty and Profit in the American City

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Evicted

By: Matthew Desmond
Narrated by: Dion Graham
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Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable, audiobook edition of Evicted by Mathew Desomond, read by Dion Graham.

Arleen spends nearly all her money on rent but is kicked out with her kids in Milwaukee's coldest winter for years. Doreen's home is so filthy her family call it 'the rat hole'. Lamar, a wheelchair-bound ex-soldier, tries to work his way out of debt for his boys. Scott, a nurse turned addict, lives in a gutted-out trailer. This is their world. And this is the twenty-first century: where fewer and fewer people can afford a simple roof over their head.

From abandoned slums to shelters, eviction courts to ghettoes, Matthew Desmond spent years living with and recording the stories of those struggling to survive - yet who won't give up. A work of love, care and humanity, Evicted reminds us why, without a home, nothing else is possible. It is one of the most necessary books of our time.

 Poverty & Homelessness Racism & Discrimination Social Sciences
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Critics' reviews

This is an extraordinary and crucial piece of work. Read it. Please, read it (Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, author of RANDOM FAMILY)
This sensitive, achingly beautiful ethnography should refocus our understanding of poverty in America on the simple challenge of keeping a roof over your head. (Robert D. Putnam, Professor of Public Policy, Harvard, and author of BOWLING ALONE and OUR KIDS)
Evicted is astonishing-a masterpiece of writing and research that fills a tremendous gap in our understanding of poverty. Taking us into some of America's poorest neighborhoods, Desmond illustrates how eviction leads to a cascade of events, often triggered by something as simple as a child throwing a snowball at a car, that can trap families in a cycle of poverty for years. Beautiful, harrowing, and deeply human, Evicted is a must read for anyone who cares about social justice in this country. I loved it. (Rebecca Skloot, author of THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS)
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Most relevant
I thought I understood, abstractly, how brutal, hard and stressful a life of poverty in a rigged, unforgiving capitalist system must be. But this account is so important as it displays, explains, and confirms the realities and statistics it also found out. This book makes it clear how policy decisions create an extractive private housing market that strips the poor of 70 or 80% of their monthly income.
The book is extremely valuable, important and also crushing. It's brutal to hear how people are ground down in this reality.
I didn't like the style of storytelling: way way too many names of people and places made it confusing, as well as descriptions I often found hard to visualize. The audio-book narrator was also very flat, too fast and didn't differentiate voices in dialogues.

Important

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Perhaps one of the best books I have ever come across. Matthew Desmond has captivated the essence of social problems resting within the US, and has found ways to let us understand its magnitude. A must read book if you want to understand US better.

The scary truth about America

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