Evicted, Matthew Desmond
Evicted, Matthew Desmond
52 Rating(s)
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Evicted
Poverty and Profit in the American City

Bestseller

Author: Matthew Desmond

Narrator: Dion Graham

Unabridged: 11 hr 32 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 03/01/2016

Synopsis

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE • ONE OF TIME’S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE • ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES’S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY • A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST NONFICTION BOOK OF THE CENTURY

One of the most acclaimed books of our time, this modern classic “has set a new standard for reporting on poverty” (Barbara Ehrenreich, The New York Times Book Review).

In Evicted, Princeton sociologist and MacArthur “Genius” Matthew Desmond follows eight families in Milwaukee as they each struggle to keep a roof over their heads. Hailed as “wrenching and revelatory” (The Nation), “vivid and unsettling” (New York Review of Books), Evicted transforms our understanding of poverty and economic exploitation while providing fresh ideas for solving one of twenty-first-century America’s most devastating problems. Its unforgettable scenes of hope and loss remind us of the centrality of home, without which nothing else is possible.

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: President Barack Obama, The New York Times Book Review, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, NPR, Entertainment Weekly, The New Yorker, Bloomberg, Esquire, BuzzFeed, Fortune, San Francisco Chronicle, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Politico, The Week, Chicago Public Library, BookPage, Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, Shelf Awareness

WINNER OF: The National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction • The PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction • The Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction • The Hillman Prize for Book Journalism • The PEN/New England Award • The Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize

FINALIST FOR THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE AND THE KIRKUS PRIZE

“Evicted stands among the very best of the social justice books.”—Ann Patchett, author of Bel Canto and Commonwealth

“Gripping and moving—tragic, too.”—Jesmyn Ward, author of Salvage the Bones

“Evicted is that rare work that has something genuinely new to say about poverty.”—San Francisco Chronicle

About The Author

Matthew Desmond is the John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard University and codirector of the Justice and Poverty Project. A former member of the Harvard Society of Fellows, he is the author of the award-winning book On the Fireline, coauthor of two books on race, and editor of a collection of studies on severe deprivation in America. His work has been supported by the Ford, Russell Sage, and National Science Foundations, and his writing has appeared in the New York Times and Chicago Tribune. In 2015, Desmond was awarded a MacArthur “Genius” grant.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Roxane on December 03, 2016

The brutal truth of poverty in America is far more devastating than any fiction ever could be. In evicted, Matthew Desmond brings rigorous sociological research and ethnography to Milwaukee's inner city. This book is painful and necessary and eye opening. I am ashamed of how little I knew about pove......more

Goodreads review by Jennifer on April 10, 2017

This just won The Pulitzer! Yay! "Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City" is probably the most important book that I have ever read!!! If you are to read one non-fiction book this year it should probably be this book!!! This should be required reading in high school! I learned about povert......more

Goodreads review by Always on February 23, 2020

I finished this book a few days ago and it really made me feel devastated. It's always hard to see and think about who has value in our society and the way laws and institutions play such a huge role in continuing to destabilize the lives of those who are already marginalized in other ways. One thin......more

Goodreads review by Christy on February 10, 2018

I recalled that last year that author Roxane Gay was asked what was "the last book that made you furious?" She said: "'Evicted,' by Matthew Desmond. My God, what that book lays bare about American poverty. It is devastating and infuriating and a necessary read." So true. (I continue to think this bo......more

Goodreads review by Felice on February 12, 2020

Matthew Desmond’s research-driven prose is a dazzling work of examination and insight. Within these pages, the business and culture of evictions is dissected down to the very dollars and cents that uphold this thriving industry. The judicial system and the role it plays is scrutinized, and the lives......more

Quotes

“Astonishing... Desmond has set a new standard for reporting on poverty.”—Barbara Ehrenreich, New York Times Book Review

“After reading Evicted, you’ll realize you cannot have a serious conversation about poverty without talking about housing. . . . The book is that good, and it’s that unignorable.”—Jennifer Senior, New York Times

“This book gave me a better sense of what it is like to be very poor in this country than anything else I have read. . . . It is beautifully written, thought-provoking, and unforgettable.”—Bill Gates

“Inside my copy of his book, Mr. Desmond scribbled a note: ‘home = life.’ Too many in Washington don’t understand that. We need a government that will partner with communities, from Appalachia to the suburbs to downtown Cleveland, to make hard work pay off for all these overlooked Americans.”—Senator Sherrod Brown, Wall Street Journal

“My God, what [Evicted] lays bare about American poverty. It is devastating and infuriating and a necessary read.”—Roxane Gay, author of Bad Feminist and Difficult Women

“Written with the vividness of a novel, [Evicted] offers a dark mirror of middle-class America’s obsession with real estate, laying bare the workings of the low end of the market, where evictions have become just another part of an often lucrative business model.”—Jennifer Schuessler, New York Times

“In spare and penetrating prose . . . Desmond has made it impossible to consider poverty without grappling with the role of housing. This pick [as best book of 2016] was not close.”—Carlos Lozada, Washington Post

“An essential piece of reportage about poverty and profit in urban America.”—Geoff Dyer, The Guardian

“It doesn't happen every week (or every month, or even year), but every once in a while a book comes along that changes the national conversation. . . . Evicted looks to be one of those books.”—Pamela Paul, editor of the New York Times Book Review

“Should be required reading in an election year, or any other.”—Entertainment Weekly

“Powerful, monstrously effective . . . The power of this book abides in the indelible impression left by its stories.”—Jill Leovy, The American Scholar

“Gripping and important . . . [Desmond's] portraits are vivid and unsettling.”—Jason DeParle, New York Review of Books

“An exquisitely crafted, meticulously researched exploration of life on the margins, providing a voice to people who have been shamefully ignored—or, worse, demonized—by opinion makers over the course of decades.”—The Boston Globe

“[An] impressive work of scholarship . . . As Mr. Desmond points out, eviction has been neglected by urban sociologists, so his account fills a gap. His methodology is scrupulous.”—Wall Street Journal

Awards

  • 800-CEO-READ Business Book Award
  • American Bar Association Silver Gavel Award
  • Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction
  • Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers Award
  • Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize
  • Eastern Sociological Society, Komarovsky Book Award
  • Kirkus Prize for Non-Fiction
  • Los Angeles Times Book Prize
  • National Book Critics Circle Awards
  • Order of the Coif Biennial Book Award
  • PEN New England Award
  • PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction
  • Pulitzer Prize (Non-Fiction)
  • Robert F. Kennedy Book Award
  • Sidney Hillman Prize
  • Society for the Study of Social Problems, C. Wright Mills Award
  • Stowe Prize
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