Behind the Beautiful Forevers

You never know how good you have it, until you see someone who doesn’t have it as good. 

This book takes you inside a Mumbai slum, where you get to experience life as a young boy who earns a living as a trash picker. Humbling and heartbreaking, Abdul’s experience will make you feel grateful for any little bit of everything you have, and it may end up even leaving you transformed.

I absolutely adore this brilliant work of nonfiction by the journalist Katherine Boo. Not only is she a writer’s writer, her powers of observation are only matched by the depth of her compassion for her characters. By spending time with the rag pickers, junk collectors, and other residents who live in a slum located in the shadows of the gleaming new Bombay airport, Boo tells a story about poverty, inequality, police, and political corruption, and the corrosive effects of globalization. The book’s sweep is breathtaking as is its unforgettable portrait of the individual residents and their heartbreaking stories.