Here are 44 books that When Crack Was King fans have personally recommended if you like
When Crack Was King.
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I’ve been putting my passport to good use for the last thirty years or so. Few things make me happier than showing up in an unfamiliar place – whether a village in Ecuador, a town in Ireland, or a city in Ghana – and trying to become familiar with the people, the customs, the food, all of it. But I suppose what I love most is a good story. During those three decades, I’ve also become a Professor of English at Arizona State University, where my research has increasingly focused on how artists and ideas move across geographical and cultural boundaries. In my latest book, License to Travel, these various interests come together.
Relayed in the voice of his nine-year-old self, Solito tracks Zamora’s harrowing three-thousand-mile trek from his home in El Salvador to join his mother and father in California.
To reunite with his parents, he must leave behind everything else he has ever known: his village, his friends, his grandparents, and his beloved Tia Mali. What is supposed to be a two-week journey turns into a two-month odyssey, as he makes his way north by bus, boat, and foot, accompanied by a group of strangers who, in time, close ranks to nurture and protect him like a second family.
This affecting story, told with such innocence and immediacy, makes evident the individual, human costs that are too easily overlooked by reporting on US immigration and the staggering statistics that it invariably emphasizes.
New York Times Bestseller • Read With Jenna Book Club Pick as seen on Today • Winner of the Los Angeles Times Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiography • Winner of the American Library Association Alex Award
A young poet tells the inspiring story of his migration from El Salvador to the United States at the age of nine in this “gripping memoir” (NPR) of bravery, hope, and finding family.
Finalist for the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction • One of the New York Public Library’s Ten Best Books of the Year
Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence…
All my life, I’ve struggled with accepting who I am. It’s no secret that the Vietnam War was unpopular in America; as such, I spent my adolescence hiding who I was. Literature like this didn’t exist when I was a kid. If it had, I think I would’ve seen myself differently. As a writer, I explore similar themes in my work and highlight the importance of discussing how our childhood experiences (good and bad) shape us. Uniformity is a destroyer of identity; my mission is to show how loving what makes us different allows us to love the differences we see in others.
April is the kind of character everyone roots for. She’s sixteen and fending for herself after her crappy father abandoned her in a motor home with no engine.
Teens who grow up like April have grit built into their DNA, and when she takes off for a new life, she soars. The problem is, our past has a way of dragging us backward, and seeing April fight to keep the life and friends she’s built is what makes you keep turning the pages. Oh, and also, she has a beautiful skill. April can sing.
Reading this book is akin to watching a flower bloom; you can’t help but be in awe.
Little River, New York, 1994: April Sawicki is living in a motorless motorhome that her father won in a poker game. Failing out of school, picking up shifts at Margo's diner, she's left fending for herself in a town where she's never quite felt at home. When she "borrows" her neighbor's car to perform at an open mic night, she realizes her life could be much bigger than where she came from. After a fight with her dad, April packs her stuff and leaves for good, setting off on a journey to find a life that's all hers.
I'm a trauma psychologist and intergenerational trauma expert who’s listened to countless client stories of generational pain and healing. I also write a weekly newsletter, called Break the Cycle, where I offer coping skills to cycle breakers and have the opportunity to read about the multitude of ways in which they are breaking away from trauma and creating legacies of abundance. It is in these stories, I believe, that we're able to see all the possibilities of how we may heal. I hope you enjoy these multilayered stories as much as I did!
Our bodies tell stories of remnants of the past and in this memoir, Stephanie Foo proved to us that the body will indeed keep traces of unmetabolized pain that runs through our families.
This book reflects the spirit of intergenerational trauma, but also of intergenerational healing and the ways in which cycle breakers, and particularly those who are immigrants, have to build from the ashes of burned-down dreams and broken hearts. It is a reflection of how generational resilience comes to life, even in the darkest of moments.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A searing memoir of reckoning and healing by acclaimed journalist Stephanie Foo, investigating the little-understood science behind complex PTSD and how it has shaped her life
“Achingly exquisite . . . providing real hope for those who long to heal.”—Lori Gottlieb, New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, Cosmopolitan, NPR, Mashable, She Reads, Publishers Weekly
By age thirty, Stephanie Foo was successful on paper: She had her dream job as an award-winning radio producer at This American Life and…
I've always had a passion for reading deep personal stories that provide me with a better understanding of the world and equip me with the tools and life lessons I need to continue growing as a person. I believe that storytelling's vulnerability is one of the most powerful instruments for self-reflection, self-healing, and ultimately, for us to evolve into better versions of ourselves through introspection.
ET is a formidable force, and this book unequivocally proves it.
It underscores the importance of taking control of your life and embarking on the journey to become the best version of yourself – something we all aspire to. ET breaks down this journey and shares the secrets to waking up, taking action, and uncovering your "why."
I highly recommend this book to anyone in search of motivation and a roadmap for achieving their full potential. It serves as a vital first step that we all must take, which in return will lead us to build a support network of village members on our path towards greatness.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “You Owe You is full of insight and guidance for those seeking their inner selves.”—MICHAEL B. JORDAN
No matter your story or your struggle, Eric Thomas—celebrated motivational guru, educator, and problem-solver to many of the top athletes and business leaders—will “help you work harder, discover your real motivation, and crack the code of enduring success” (Ed Mylett, #1 bestselling author of The Power of One More)
If you feel like success is for others, that only certain people get to have their dreams fulfilled, Eric Thomas’s You Owe You is your wake-up call. His urgent…
Over my two decades as a scholar of American foreign policy and international politics, I had multiple opportunities to serve as a Latin America foreign policy aide. Given that Latin America plays a central role in the U.S.-hatched modern war on drugs, much of my policymaking was directly or indirectly tied to drug policy. I thus wrote Drugs and Thugs above all to make sure that I had a good sense of the history of this seemingly eternal conflict, one that is “fought” as much at home as abroad.
Decades before Netflix’s hit series Narcos, Gugliotta and Leen turned their prize-winning series of articles in The Miami Heraldinto a highly original book, Kings of Cocaine. What astounds me is how well the author’s uncovering the psychopathic violence, unimaginable profits, and political and social corruption of the Colombian cocaine trade. And this rot and bloodshed were not just occurring in the less developed Colombia but right inside Ronald Reagan’s America.
This is the story of the most successful cocaine dealers in the world: Pablo Escobar Gaviria, Jorge Luis Ochoa Vasquez, Carlos Lehder Rivas and Jose Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha. In the 1980s they controlled more than fifty percent of the cocaine flowing into the United States. The cocaine trade is capitalism on overdrive -- supply meeting demand on exponential levels. Here you'll find the story of how the modern cocaine business started and how it turned a rag tag group of hippies and sociopaths into regal kings as they stumbled from small-time suitcase smuggling to levels of unimaginable sophistication and daring.…
I learned from a young age to question everything. The law always interested me, but I was an impatient high school graduate who instead completed a journalism cadetship in Sydney, Australia. I always loved police reporting and the ability to get inside the ‘real’ story where few others could. There is a certain pleasure observing the lives of (witting or unwitting) criminals and an element of “there by the grace…” too! I’ve always empathised with the underdog and the Drug Grannies were indeed just that. I believed there was more to their story. Earning their trust was important. I threw myself into their fight – more an activist than a journalist!
This is an outstanding inside look that goes well, well beyond the typical “whistleblower”-type tomes.
Keith Banks was a copper for 20 years in one of Australia’s most corrupt police organisations – the Queensland Police Force. During the 1980s, he let his hair grow, then down, and went undercover as a drug cop. As Banks says: “Undercover was like guerrilla warfare; to understand your enemy, you had to walk amongst them, to become them.”
Some of the decisions he had to make about allowing drugs – including heroin – get onto the street, and into the arms of kids barely into their teens in order to track down the major suppliers, are heartbreaking. This has to be one of the best Australian true crime/memoirs in many decades.
'Banks has told his story in a raw and honest autobiography. It is the best true crime book published in Australia in a decade.' -John Silvester, Crime Reporter for The Age
Undercover was like guerrilla warfare; to understand your enemy, you had to walk amongst them, to become them. The trick was to keep an eye on that important line between who you were and who you were pretending to be.
This is the true story of Keith Banks, one of Queensland's most decorated police officers, and his journey into the world of drugs as an undercover operative in the…
I study people-plant relationships from perspectives including ecology, history, cultural studies, and biogeography. Cannabis is certainly the most famous plant I’ve studied. A decade ago I was researching how Africans used an obscure tree in historical Central America, and came across accounts of cannabis use that surprised me. As I dug into cannabis history, I was continually amazed at how little the topic has been researched. It’s a great time to start learning about the plant’s past, because it’s a fresh, new field for professional academics. Cannabis has been portrayed so simplistically for decades, but in reality it’s a complex plant with a complicated history.
The association between Colombia and cocaine is strong in popular culture, but the cocaine economy rose upon the country’s experience with marijuana production and trafficking starting in the 1970s. Britto completed remarkable research, on the ground with people who were involved in marijuana trading. This is one of a few books that offer such a window into the illegal world of cannabis.
Before Colombia became one of the world's largest producers of cocaine in the 1980s, traffickers from the Caribbean coast partnered with American buyers in the 1970s to make the South American country the main supplier of marijuana for a booming US drug market, fueled by the US hippie counterculture. How did Colombia become central to the creation of an international drug trafficking circuit? Marijuana Boom is the story of this forgotten history. Combining deep archival research with unprecedented oral history, Lina Britto deciphers a puzzle: Why did the Colombian coffee republic, a model of Latin American representative democracy and economic…
By Akwasi Owusu-Bempah and Tahira Rehmatullah
Author
Why are we passionate about this?
As a duo, we’re a mix of things. For Akwasi, I’m a changemaker, professor, and academic. My work examines the intersections of race, crime, and criminal justice, and my current research spans criminal justice institutions and various aspects of drug legalization in Canada and beyond. For Tahira, my career has been less than linear, with experiences spanning the investment, cannabis, and consumer sectors as an investor and entrepreneur. I realized my forte lies in sitting in the middle, streamlining complexity, and remaining dedicated to the people who need help most. Together, we’re committed to shaping the future of business and policy by integrating diverse perspectives and lived experiences.
We’re drawn to books that tell real stories to help personify topics, and Dan’s book does just that. We thought it was gripping and intense, with great lines that we returned to highlight.
Although it was written in the 90s, the message still resonates, as well as the realization that the fights are long and hard but worth it.
For sheer government absurdity, the War on Drugs is hard to beat. After three decades of increasingly punitive policies, illicit drugs are more easily available, drug potencies are greater, drug killings are more common, and drug barons are richer than ever. The War on Drugs costs Washington more than the Commerce, Interior, and State departments combined - and it's the one budget item whose growth is never questioned. A strangled court system, exploding prisons, and wasted lives push the cost beyond measure. What began as a flourish of campaign rhetoric in 1968 has grown into a monster. And while nobody…
Phil Halton has worked in conflict zones around the world as an officer in the Canadian Army and as a security consultant and has extensive experience in Afghanistan. He is the author of two novels and a history.He holds a Master's Degree in Defence Studies from Royal Military College of Canada, and a Graduate Certificate in Creative Writing from Humber College.
Drug trafficking has become entwined with Afghanistan in the minds of many, though the true situation is often misunderstood. Bradford’s meticulous research not only clearly explains the present situation, it places it in the broader historical context that is almost always missing. The legal trade in opium has deep roots in Afghanistan, and even in the present day, there are as many senior government officials benefiting from it as there are insurgent leaders. He also explores the growing problem with addiction that plagues Afghanistan, humanizing a complex problem.
Historians have long neglected Afghanistan's broader history when portraying the opium industry. But in Poppies, Politics, and Power, James Tharin Bradford rebalances the discourse, showing that it is not the past forty years of lawlessness that makes the opium industry what it is, but the sheer breadth of the twentieth-century Afghanistan experience. Rather than byproducts of a failed contemporary system, argues Bradford, drugs, especially opium, were critical components in the formation and failure of the Afghan state.
In this history of drugs and drug control in Afghanistan, Bradford shows us how the country moved from licit supply of the global…
I became deeply interested in democracy and authoritarianism at an early age because of my experiences living under military dictatorships in Argentina in 1971-72 and in Brazil from 1980- 82, and also my experience as an undergraduate living in a democracy that failed in profound ways (Argentina, 1975). I saw first-hand that authoritarianism can affect daily life in hugely negative ways but also that democracy can fail in dismal ways. Reading and producing scholarship about democracy and authoritarianism, and teaching these subjects, became central to my immensely satisfying life’s work.
Trejo and Ley’s Votes, Drugs, and Violence highlights the devastating impact of Mexico’s drug wars has had on democracy and society. The death toll from Mexico’s drug wars far exceeds the one from the dirty wars waged by South American dictators from the 1960s through the 1980s and the death toll from El Salvador’s and Peru’s civil wars of the 1980s. Paradoxically, subnational alternations in power that removed the long-standing ruling authoritarian party of 1929-2000 from power helped to fuel the drug wars, which in turn have undermined democracy and unleashed horrific human rights abuses. Votes, Drugs, and Violence gave me new insights into the origins of the dramatic escalation of criminal wars in Mexico, and it also powerfully illuminates how profoundly drug wars have undermined democracy.
One of the most surprising developments in Mexico's transition to democracy is the outbreak of criminal wars and large-scale criminal violence. Why did Mexican drug cartels go to war as the country transitioned away from one-party rule? And why have criminal wars proliferated as democracy has consolidated and elections have become more competitive subnationally? In Votes, Drugs, and Violence, Guillermo Trejo and Sandra Ley develop a political theory of criminal violence in weak democracies that elucidates how democratic politics and the fragmentation of power fundamentally shape cartels' incentives for war and peace. Drawing on in-depth case studies and statistical analysis…
