As a child of the 90s, I found this book to be a perceptive look back at how much has changed. It easy to lose sight of how different life is now from then. It comments on a wide range of developments from music to politics to technology.
From the bestselling author of But What if We’re Wrong, a wise and funny reckoning with the decade that gave us slacker/grunge irony about the sin of trying too hard, during the greatest shift in human consciousness of any decade in American history.
It was long ago, but not as long as it seems: The Berlin Wall fell and the Twin Towers collapsed. In between, one presidential election was allegedly decided by Ross Perot while another was plausibly decided by Ralph Nader. In the beginning, almost every name and address was listed in a…
This beautiful novel looks at the bleak and remorseless nature of the Vietnam War, as seen from the perspective of a young man who fights for the North. It is not so much a political novel as an attempt to grapple with the deeply corrosive nature of warfare and social dislocation. I've read plenty of heavy novels before, but this one stayed with me.
This is the semi-autobiographical account of a soldier's experiences. The hero of the story, Kien, is a captain. After 10 years of war and months as a MIA body-collector, Kien suffers a nervous breakdown in Hanoi as he tries to re-establish a relationship with his former sweetheart.
I picked this book up by chance and found its ability to put a human face on the struggle to get by, especially in the wake of the 2008 market crash, compelling. Before reading it I knew nothing about the migratory workforce, much of it composed of older Americans, who move around the country to work in warehouses and other kinds of seasonal employment.
From the beet fields of North Dakota to the campgrounds of California to Amazon's CamperForce programme in Texas, American employers have discovered a new, low-cost labour pool, made up largely of transient older adults. These invisible casualties of the Great Recession have taken to the road by the tens of thousands in RVs and modified vans, forming a growing community of nomads.
Nomadland tells a revelatory tale of the dark underbelly of the American economy-one which foreshadows the precarious future that may await many more of us. At the same time, it celebrates the exceptional resilience and creativity of these…
Between Freedom and Progress examines the energies unleashed by the ending of the Civil War. Northerners, especially Republicans, held that victories over slavery and the Confederacy represented a turning point in world history. Holding the North up as a model, they argued that the expansion of their own institutions and values would make the world freer and happier. White supremacists, including former Confederates, embittered by the postwar spread of civil rights, prognosticated that northern Republicans would destroy the world’s greatest republican experiment by leading it into racial anarchy. African Americans in the North and South fought against discrimination, distance, and a dearth of resources to forge alliances, although a tide of racist violence and economic depression rolled back their efforts for over a generation.
