100 books like Hard Work

By Polly Toynbee,

Here are 100 books that Hard Work fans have personally recommended if you like Hard Work. Shepherd is a community of 11,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of The Good Soldier Svejk and His Fortunes in the World War

Luke Hildyard Author Of Enough: Why It's Time to Abolish the Super-Rich

From my list on wanting to eat the rich.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am the Director of the High Pay Centre, a London-based think tank researching the causes and consequences of economic inequality. In most major economies, the richest 1% of the population now take up to a fifth of all income and something like a quarter to a third of all wealth. These rich jerks aren’t necessarily bad people, at least not in all cases, and we don’t literally need to eat them all. However, such extreme concentration of income and wealth is undeserved and unnecessary, and it should definitely be an overriding priority to share it in a fairer and more even way.

Luke's book list on wanting to eat the rich

Luke Hildyard Why did Luke love this book?

There are loads of good novels warning of the dangers of inequality and wealthy megalomaniacs, typically set against the backdrop of one of the many monstrous things that the super-rich have done to the rest of us throughout history.

In my view, the First World War was the worst of the lot. Society has moved on a bit since then, but I don’t doubt that the billionaire class that runs the modern world would have us all marching into the machine guns if they thought they could get away with it. Hasek’s good-humored but poignant tale of a Czech soldier serving in the army of the Habsburg Empire acts as a reminder of the need for vigilance.

By Jaroslav Hasek, Josef Lada (illustrator), Cecil Parrott (translator)

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked The Good Soldier Svejk and His Fortunes in the World War as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The inspiration for such works as Joseph Heller's Catch-22, Jaroslav Hasek's black satire The Good Soldier Svejk is translated with an introduction by Cecil Parrott in Penguin Classics.

Good-natured and garrulous, Svejk becomes the Austro-Hungarian army's most loyal Czech soldier when he is called up on the outbreak of the First World War - although his bumbling attempts to get to the front serve only to prevent him from reaching it. Playing cards, getting drunk and becoming a general nuisance, the resourceful Svejk uses all his natural cunning and genial subterfuge to deal with the doctors, police, clergy and officers…


Book cover of Capital in the Twenty-First Century

Luke Hildyard Author Of Enough: Why It's Time to Abolish the Super-Rich

From my list on wanting to eat the rich.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am the Director of the High Pay Centre, a London-based think tank researching the causes and consequences of economic inequality. In most major economies, the richest 1% of the population now take up to a fifth of all income and something like a quarter to a third of all wealth. These rich jerks aren’t necessarily bad people, at least not in all cases, and we don’t literally need to eat them all. However, such extreme concentration of income and wealth is undeserved and unnecessary, and it should definitely be an overriding priority to share it in a fairer and more even way.

Luke's book list on wanting to eat the rich

Luke Hildyard Why did Luke love this book?

This is an obvious choice, but it’s obvious for a reason–it sets out clearly and rigorously the extent to which the super-rich across multiple different countries suck up an ever-increasing share of aggregate income and wealth.

There’s doubtless some satisfaction from being one of the small proportion of purchasers to get through all 700+ pages, but it’s actually quite readable and peppered with literary references to writers like Jane Austen and Honore Balzac.

By Thomas Piketty, Arthur Goldhammer (translator),

Why should I read it?

6 authors picked Capital in the Twenty-First Century as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A New York Times #1 Bestseller
An Amazon #1 Bestseller
A Wall Street Journal #1 Bestseller
A USA Today Bestseller
A Sunday Times Bestseller
A Guardian Best Book of the 21st Century
Winner of the Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award
Winner of the British Academy Medal
Finalist, National Book Critics Circle Award

What are the grand dynamics that drive the accumulation and distribution of capital? Questions about the long-term evolution of inequality, the concentration of wealth, and the prospects for economic growth lie at the heart of political economy. But satisfactory answers have been hard…


Book cover of Tower of Strength: The Story of Tyrone O'Sullivan and Tower Colliery

Luke Hildyard Author Of Enough: Why It's Time to Abolish the Super-Rich

From my list on wanting to eat the rich.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am the Director of the High Pay Centre, a London-based think tank researching the causes and consequences of economic inequality. In most major economies, the richest 1% of the population now take up to a fifth of all income and something like a quarter to a third of all wealth. These rich jerks aren’t necessarily bad people, at least not in all cases, and we don’t literally need to eat them all. However, such extreme concentration of income and wealth is undeserved and unnecessary, and it should definitely be an overriding priority to share it in a fairer and more even way.

Luke's book list on wanting to eat the rich

Luke Hildyard Why did Luke love this book?

After the UK Miners’ Strike was defeated in 1984, the coal mining industry across the country gradually shut down. At the Tower Colliery in South Wales, however, Miners led by Union official Tyrone O’Sullivan used their redundancy cheques to buy the mine and run it as a co-operative until the coal ran out.

It’s an incredible tale of the spirit and ingenuity that exist but are too rarely nurtured in post-industrial communities and of how badly so many mining towns in Britain were let down by so-called free market economics.

By Tyrone O'Sullivan, John Eve, Ann Edworthy

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Tower of Strength as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Tyronne O'Sullivan is the chairman of Tower Colliery, Hirwaun, South Wales. He led the team of miners that fought to buy the pit from British Coal in 1995. He and 238 miners each paid 8,000 from their own redundancy settlement to become shareholders and borrowed a further GBP2 million. This was, and still is, a unique achievement - no other mine, in the history of British Coal, has been bought by the workforce. For over 20 years Tyronne was the National Union of mineworkers branch secretary, leading a radical group of men in what had to be a militant colliery.…


Book cover of Post-Democracy After the Crises

Luke Hildyard Author Of Enough: Why It's Time to Abolish the Super-Rich

From my list on wanting to eat the rich.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am the Director of the High Pay Centre, a London-based think tank researching the causes and consequences of economic inequality. In most major economies, the richest 1% of the population now take up to a fifth of all income and something like a quarter to a third of all wealth. These rich jerks aren’t necessarily bad people, at least not in all cases, and we don’t literally need to eat them all. However, such extreme concentration of income and wealth is undeserved and unnecessary, and it should definitely be an overriding priority to share it in a fairer and more even way.

Luke's book list on wanting to eat the rich

Luke Hildyard Why did Luke love this book?

This thought-provoking academic text outlines how corporate power and the super-rich have almost become governing institutes in their own right through funding of political parties, control of the media, and the platforms they enjoy as outsized economic actors.

It perhaps lends itself to undue pessimism about the possibility of change but is certainly powerful evidence of the need for a rebalancing of the distribution of wealth and power.

By Colin Crouch,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Post-Democracy After the Crises as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In Post-Democracy (Polity, 2004) Colin Crouch argued that behind the facade of strong institutions, democracy in many advanced societies was being hollowed out, its big events becoming empty rituals as power passed increasingly to circles of wealthy business elites and an ever-more isolated political class.

Crouch's provocative argument has in many ways been vindicated by recent events, but these have also highlighted some weaknesses of the original thesis and shown that the situation today is even worse. The global financial deregulation that was the jewel in the crown of wealthy elite lobbying brought us the financial crisis and helped stimulate…


Book cover of Lowborn

Ruth Badley Author Of Where are the grown-ups?

From my list on troubled families and the secrets they keep.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a journalist with a background in performing arts and have spent much of my work life as a storyteller, fascinated by the process of knocking a narrative into shape, either for print or stage performance. My mother’s death prompted me to use those same skills to tell my own stories and the process has been the most satisfying of my professional life. As a memoirist of two books, my dreams have come true. My work has been shortlisted for awards, featured in national newspapers, special interest magazines, and by the BBC. I regularly speak to family history societies, book clubs, writer’s groups, and at literature festivals.   

Ruth's book list on troubled families and the secrets they keep

Ruth Badley Why did Ruth love this book?

The author’s account of grinding, unrelentless poverty and neglect, set against her eventual, miraculous escape to a different life made me cheer.

Bravely, Kerry Hudson returns to the scenes of many crimes committed against her to really understand why the past refuses to let her go and whether anything has changed for deprived families in those rundown British towns she grew up in.

In an early chapter the author recalls being pushed between two adults across a table. She thought it was a game, but her parents were in fact arguing over who should keep her. Neither was willing.

This is an important and shameful piece of British social history and an unflinching examination of a dysfunctional family with different recollections of the past. 

By Kerry Hudson,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Lowborn as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'Totally engrossing and deliciously feisty' Bernardine Evaristo

A powerful, personal agenda-changing exploration of poverty in today's Britain.

'When every day of your life you have been told you have nothing of value to offer, that you are worth nothing to society, can you ever escape that sense of being 'lowborn' no matter how far you've come?'

Kerry Hudson is proudly working class but she was never proudly poor. The poverty she grew up in was all-encompassing, grinding and often dehumanising. Always on the move with her single mother, Kerry attended nine primary schools and five secondaries, living in B&Bs and…


Book cover of Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America

Sephe Haven Author Of My Whorizontal Life: An Escort's Tale

From my list on authentic voices for a glimpse into secret worlds.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am an award-winning author of two five-star rated memoirs, and the creator/performer of the 90-minute solo show My Whorizontal Life: The Show!. I'm co-host of the podcast My Index to Sex, and I am a Juilliard Drama Graduate and the former #1 escort in the country. My desire in writing about the secret work of love and pleasure is first to create unexpected delight by leading the reader or audience into the surprisingly fascinating, funny, wild, misunderstood, and imagined life underground where so many women secretly work. Through my writing, I hope to give an authentic voice, knowledgeable, true, and uncynical to this experience. 

Sephe's book list on authentic voices for a glimpse into secret worlds

Sephe Haven Why did Sephe love this book?

I read this book when it was first published when working low-wage ‘regular’ jobs was something I feared. I had been poor for so long and worked low-wage regular jobs before and through 9 years of college and after until I became an escort. As much as being an escort was shamed, it was nothing compared to the shame of not being able to survive with two low-wage jobs that eat up all your time, your choices, and your health. Then here was this powerful, insightful book.

The author is a journalist who goes underground, takes these jobs, and tries to survive. What is revealed are the lives of so much of the population in America that are working this way. I read this book in one day. Once you see it and have felt it, it’s impossible not to see it and want better for all of us.

By Barbara Ehrenreich,

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked Nickel and Dimed as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Beautifully repackaged as part of the Picador Modern Classics Series, this special edition is small enough to fit in your pocket and bold enough to stand out on your bookshelf.

A publishing phenomenon when first published, Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed is a revelatory undercover investigation into life and survival in low-wage America, an increasingly urgent topic that continues to resonate.

Millions of Americans work full time, year round, for poverty-level wages. In 1998, Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them. She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that a job―any job―can be the ticket…


Book cover of Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System

Jean-Martin Bauer Author Of The New Breadline: Hunger and Hope in the Twenty-First Century

From my list on fixing our broken global food system.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a teenager, I visited my uncle, who farmed rice in southern Haiti. I met a community that helped me understand that food is not just about dollars and cents—it’s about belonging, it’s about identity. This experience inspired me to become an aid worker. For the last 20+ years, I have worked to mend broken food systems all over the world. If we don’t get food right, hunger will threaten the social fabric.

Jean-Martin's book list on fixing our broken global food system

Jean-Martin Bauer Why did Jean-Martin love this book?

I found that this book offers a great overview of the issues. I appreciate how the author breaks down the complex myriad forces shaping our agri-food systems into relatable anecdotes.

The author never gets lost in the numbers and stays focused on guiding the reader through the inequalities and power relations that define our food system. I found Patel’s writing always enjoyable.

By Raj Patel,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Stuffed and Starved as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Revised and Expanded Edition

"For anyone attempting to make sense of the world food crisis, or understand the links between U.S. farm policy and the ability of the world's poor to feed themselves, Stuffed and Starved is indispensable."
—Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma

It’s a perverse fact of modern life: There are more starving people in the world than ever before, while there are also more people who are overweight.

To find out how we got to this point and what we can do about it, Raj Patel launched a comprehensive investigation into the global food network. It…


Book cover of Demon Copperhead

Catherine Astl Author Of Oliver's Crossing: A Novel of Cades Cove

From my list on Smoky Mountain history.

Why am I passionate about this?

My father’s side of our family is from North Carolina, and I’ve always felt the magic of these mountains, especially within the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. I yearned to understand how the people lived and raised children, created an entire community, lived off the land, and handled sickness, despair, and celebrations. I wanted to bring their stories to life and honor and preserve their unique history. We can all learn something from these brave men and women who staked out the land, built, grew, and hunted everything they needed, and created a community full of family, resilience, and perseverance. I proudly honor their stories within my historical fiction novels.

Catherine's book list on Smoky Mountain history

Catherine Astl Why did Catherine love this book?

I wanted a totally different perspective of Appalachia, and this book delivers on that completely. I love the heartwarming and sometimes tragic stories of pioneering people who settled in these mountains in the 1800s. But this tale shoved me right into modern-day Appalachia, with its poverty, drug abuse, and violence.

This book definitely made me think about life’s choices; how would I have handled such obstacles as the characters faced? What options did they really have, and did they truly make the best choices? Whether I agreed, disagreed, yelled at these characters, or cried with them, it was a very well-written and immersive reading experience.

Afterward, I closed the book and thought about my own life’s decisions.

By Barbara Kingsolver,

Why should I read it?

69 authors picked Demon Copperhead as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Demon's story begins with his traumatic birth to a single mother in a single-wide trailer, looking 'like a little blue prizefighter.' For the life ahead of him he would need all of that fighting spirit, along with buckets of charm, a quick wit, and some unexpected talents, legal and otherwise.

In the southern Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, poverty isn't an idea, it's as natural as the grass grows. For a generation growing up in this world, at the heart of the modern opioid crisis, addiction isn't an abstraction, it's neighbours, parents, and friends. 'Family' could mean love, or reluctant foster…


Book cover of Sun Don't Shine

Kerri Schlottman Author Of Tell Me One Thing

From my list on fierce female protagonists.

Why am I passionate about this?

My sister and I were raised by our single mother in Southeast Detroit, who worked hard to put herself through law school when we were kids. We had a lot of financial struggles growing up, and I had to overcome many obstacles to get where I am today. Because of that, I am drawn to fierce female protagonists who overcome challenges and don’t shy away from struggle. In my own creative writing, I tend to feature strong female characters who have faced some type of instability and have worked hard to better their circumstances. I love an underdog and think there’s a lot of unsung narratives to tell.

Kerri's book list on fierce female protagonists

Kerri Schlottman Why did Kerri love this book?

This book hooked me from page one. It’s technically a Young Adult novel but is so literary that it appealed to me as an adult reader, too.

The protagonist, Reece, is a fierce sixteen-year-old at that pivotal moment between being a teen and a young adult that so many of us females can identify with. The story itself is very plot-driven–Reece is living in a motel with her dad, and we get the impression they’ve been on the run.

As the story unfolds, we get a close-up look at the circumstances Reece and her dad find themselves in and the things he’s done to protect her (or is it himself…). These are characters that will stay with me for a long time!

By Crissa-Jean Chappell,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Sun Don't Shine as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 13, 14, 15, and 16.

What is this book about?

Sixteen-year-old Reece is an expert at keeping secrets. She has to be, since her father abducted her ten years ago. For as long as she can remember, she's been on the run, sneaking food out of the dumpster and sleeping in the woods. Every time she moves, the same rules apply-cut your hair, change your name, and, above all, don't let anybody get too close. Reece has no choice except to obey Dad's orders. When Reece meets her first real friend, a boy named Shawn, she begins to realize that everyone else has secrets too. And the deadliest secret of…


Book cover of The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World

Dale Hanson Bourke Author Of Strong Girls, Strong World: A Practical Guide to Helping Them Soar--and Creating a Better Future for Us All

From my list on helping you make the world a better place.

Why am I passionate about this?

When I lost a baby late in my pregnancy, I was overwhelmed by grief. And then I learned that tens of thousands of babies died every day from preventable causes. I couldn’t save my own baby, but I wanted to know how to help others. I joined the board of World Vision and then other groups, including Opportunity International, MAP International, and International Justice Mission. I took numerous trips to developing countries and eventually headed a foundation dedicated to maternal health. I listened to the stories of women and tried to tell them to the world through a variety of international publications. I'm forever grateful to those who changed the way I see the world.

Dale's book list on helping you make the world a better place

Dale Hanson Bourke Why did Dale love this book?

Jacqueline Novogratz was a successful young woman with a promising career in banking who wanted to truly understand global poverty and find ways to tackle it.

This book tells not only the remarkable story of a favorite hand-knit blue sweater she donated in Virginia and saw again in Rwanda, but her own sometimes fumbling ways to connect her experiences to women living in poverty.

I love this book for its honesty and how the author shares her own mistakes as well as understandings.

By Jacqueline Novogratz,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Blue Sweater as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “A book of hope written by a practical idealist who won’t take ‘no’ for an answer when it comes to building a better world.”—Former U.S. senator Bill Bradley
 
Jacqueline Novogratz left a career in international banking to spend her life on a quest to understand global poverty and find powerful new ways of tackling it. From her first stumbling efforts as a young idealist venturing forth in Africa to the creation of the trailblazing organization she runs today, Novogratz tells gripping stories with unforgettable characters. She shows how traditional charity often fails, but how a…


5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in poverty, London, and murder?

Poverty 97 books
London 860 books
Murder 1,060 books