The Money Mustache Community
Mustachian Community => Mustachian Book Club => Topic started by: lifejoy on January 15, 2017, 11:22:10 AM
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I like reading fiction where the main character has very little and often appreciates the little they have because it is all they have!
It reminds me to be grateful for all that I have. Got any recommendations for me?
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I recommend the "Little House" series by Laura Ingalls Wilder, which is about her pioneer family's life and many moves further and further West as the Territories were being settled (in the US). The series follows a somewhat fictionalized version of Laura's life from age 6-ish to the early years of her marriage. The series is more aimed at older children than adults, but it's still very enjoyable. The first book is Little House in the Big Woods.
There are other families they know that are "rich," but I don't remember Laura ever considering her family poor.
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Would Charles Dickens count? Christmas Carol, Oliver Twist come to mind, maybe there are a couple more.
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-My Antonia by Willa Cather
-Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
It's been a while since I read either, but I seem to recall them having those themes.
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Of Human Bondage - Somerset Maugham
Les Miserables Victor Hugo
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Would Charles Dickens count? Christmas Carol, Oliver Twist come to mind, maybe there are a couple more.
Little Dorrit (Dickens). The first half of the novel is literally subtitled "Poverty."
Also Nicholas Nickelby
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Hunger by Knut Hamsun (It's free on the ereaders)
Factotum by Bukowski
They're not novels, but I really enjoyed Orwell 's Down and Out in Paris and London and Jack London's The Road
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-My Antonia by Willa Cather
-Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
It's been a while since I read either, but I seem to recall them having those themes.
Hesse is excellent, in particular Siddhartha.
Apropos for this forum as well would be "The Good Earth"
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-My Antonia by Willa Cather
-Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
It's been a while since I read either, but I seem to recall them having those themes.
Hesse is excellent, in particular Siddhartha.
Apropos for this forum as well would be "The Good Earth"
Oh GOD YES to "The Good Earth". That is one of the books that fundamentally shaped my world view, and I think of it often. (Particularly as it comes to family wealth, and what truly brings us happiness, etc).
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Grapes of Wrath is... epic.
Not a novel, but I did just read Hillbilly Elegy. It's interesting, if not that well written in parts.
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These are great. Thanks everyone!
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Job by Heinlein
The Richest Man In Babylon by Clason
Fight Club by Palahniuk
All Quiet On The Western Front by Remarque
For Whom The Bell Tolls by Hemingway
Robinson Crusoe by Defoe
Confederacy Of Dunces by Toole
Station 11 by Mandel
Ready Player One by Cline
The Water Knife by Bacigalupi
Star's Reach by Greer
How I Became Stupid by Page
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Job by Heinlein
The Richest Man In Babylon by Clason
Fight Club by Palahniuk
All Quiet On The Western Front by Remarque
For Whom The Bell Tolls by Hemingway
Robinson Crusoe by Defoe
Confederacy Of Dunces by Toole
Station 11 by Mandel
Ready Player One by Cline
The Water Knife by Bacigalupi
Star's Reach by Greer
How I Became Stupid by Page
+1 on Fight Club
And hey, I've only read half of "Ready Player One" (had to return it to the library). You're motivating me to read the rest! Thanks
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Um... Harry Potter? Just kidding he gets piles and piles of inherited gold before the first book is even halfway over.
I love Ready Player One. Main character lives in a dystopian futuristic trailer park which is basically boxes and boxes piled on top of each other precariously. The book really isn't about poverty though, it's just a device used to make the protagonist sympathetic and give him a higher mountain to climb.
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For those who like manga and read french, I would suggest "une sacrée mamie". It seems not translated in english.
The original version is "Gabai - Saga no Gabai Baachan".
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Gone With The Wind by Mitchell
I don't know how I forgot to list that one.
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The Water Knife by Bacigalupi
Almost anything by Bacigalupi set in a near and dystopian future (novels or short stories) will scare the shit out of people into (a) saving money for old age so that they have enough to pay for calories to keep going and (b) stop wasting so much water and other resources or else.
Great writer, grim future(s).
+1
I read The Windup Girl a couple years back and was immediately a big fan. Great writer.
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Came in here to post The Good Earth.
One of my top 5 fiction books of all time.
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Came in here to post The Good Earth.
One of my top 5 fiction books of all time.
Love Buck. I didn't even think of this novel. Very powerful story.
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Would Charles Dickens count? Christmas Carol, Oliver Twist come to mind, maybe there are a couple more.
I was going to say the same thing. Add "David Copperfield" to the list of Dickens' books about an impoverished main character.
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Job by Heinlein
The Richest Man In Babylon by Clason
Fight Club by Palahniuk
All Quiet On The Western Front by Remarque
For Whom The Bell Tolls by Hemingway
Robinson Crusoe by Defoe
Confederacy Of Dunces by Toole
Station 11 by Mandel
Ready Player One by Cline
The Water Knife by Bacigalupi
Star's Reach by Greer
How I Became Stupid by Page
"The Water Knife" was great. Not my usual read but damn, very affecting.
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Um... Harry Potter? Just kidding he gets piles and piles of inherited gold before the first book is even halfway over.
What about the Weasleys, though? They live in relative poverty (compared to how wealthy most Hogwarts students seem to be). I'm not sure if theirs is a cautionary tale about not making choices you can't afford (too many kids, single income, etc), or an inspiring tale about how when you have family and love and warmth, money is less relevant.
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Any World War Historical novel should have a good amount of poverty. (e.g., Diary of Anne Frank as a classic, and more recent novels such as The Nightingale, and All the light we cannot see)
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Speaking of world war literature, If This Is a Man/Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi is excellent, though extremely depressing, so maybe the follow up The Truce/The Reawakening (why do the US versions always have to have a different name with Levi books?!) would be more uplifting. The latter describes Levi's circuitous route back to Italy from Auschwitz via the USSR. While it depicts the festering open wounds of post-war Europe, the tone of the book is upbeat and there are numerous hilarious and absurd vignettes.
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After the glowing recs for The Good Earth I read it yesterday. It was difficult to get through, really didn't enjoy it. The main character was so shallow and difficult to relate to, for me that makes it hard to get into.
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"The Beans of Egypt, Maine" by Carolyn Chute
"The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner - formerly aristocratic family now down on their luck
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After the glowing recs for The Good Earth I read it yesterday. It was difficult to get through, really didn't enjoy it. The main character was so shallow and difficult to relate to, for me that makes it hard to get into.
It's Olan you're supposed to relate to.
Seems like not liking Of Mice and Men because you couldn't relate to the "main character" George, when Lennie is actually the secret star.
/shrug
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After the glowing recs for The Good Earth I read it yesterday. It was difficult to get through, really didn't enjoy it. The main character was so shallow and difficult to relate to, for me that makes it hard to get into.
It's Olan you're supposed to relate to.
Seems like not liking Of Mice and Men because you couldn't relate to the "main character" George, when Lennie is actually the secret star.
/shrug
Olan was even more shallow in character, like a manual labor automaton who goes about with wordless chores and hard labor as she is kicked and degraded. Not everyone is like me though, else shows like Inspector Gadget wouldn't have been popular.
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I guess I wouldn't want to hear your opinion of Lennie, then.
We'll have to agree to disagree. :)
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I want to recommend the First Law Series by Joe Abercrombie. Mainly because of the North but especially one of the main characters called Logen Ninefingers. In the first chapter if I recall correctly he kills an enemy with a cooking pan and thinks something like "damn this pan is so useful". He just really appreciates his cooking pan. Most of his friends are killers who ambush enemies in the freezing rain and mud. The stalk their enemies and try to make the most out of the terrain and such to overcome greater numbers. It's a band of dirt poor killers trying to survive with what they have. The first time Logen goes to a "big" medieval city he is just in awe, never seen so many people and is like "what is this "fountain" thing? How does it work? What magic is this?"
Highly recommend it. Often funny as hell.
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Angela's Ashes.
Poignant and funny. Things may be bad, but there's always someone who's worse off.
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Came here to post, but everyone else has already mentioned the books that came immediately to mind (The Good Earth, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Nicholas Nickleby, etc.) so now I'm posting to get more book recommendations!
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Angela's Ashes.
Poignant and funny. Things may be bad, but there's always someone who's worse off.
I absolutely second this! It's not fiction but a biography that reads as fiction. ....Man, I really want to talk about a spoiler here, but I'll keep it zipped.
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Angela's Ashes.
Poignant and funny. Things may be bad, but there's always someone who's worse off.
I absolutely second this! It's not fiction but a biography that reads as fiction. ....Man, I really want to talk about a spoiler here, but I'll keep it zipped.
So what's awkward is that I picked that book up second-hand and thought it was fiction. It really does read as fiction! I didn't finish it. But I think I would it 10x more engaging to know it was a true story! HAHA! Got to pick it up again.
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In the first chapter if I recall correctly he kills an enemy with a cooking pan and thinks something like "damn this pan is so useful".
Same thing happens in the movie Tangled. Wonder if they borrowed the idea from that.
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The Glass Castle
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I guess I wouldn't want to hear your opinion of Lennie, then.
We'll have to agree to disagree. :)
Honestly, been purposefully avoiding reading it because I know it will be sad and difficult (emotionally) to get through in the same way that I try to avoid pure horror movies/novels. From what I recall though, knowing the general storyline I think I'd probably feel deeply for Lennie Small, perhaps because it is clear that he is disabled and thus I can sympathize with what he has to go through, I suppose looking at Olan as disabled would give her more sympathy in my eyes, but it felt more like her character was not thoroughly developed/described (perhaps because she was not a main character) so seemed more like a flaw/feature in the choice of how to develop the character by the author rather than Olan's actual particular mental capacity/disability (if that makes sense)... Anyway, yes some books are quite polarizing, everyone is definitely open to carry and voice their opinions/disagreements, it has been food for thought to hear that Olan could be considered the main/pivotal character. :)
I guess, a followup question to you arebelspy, is wouldn't the good earth have been a "better"/more powerful book if Olan was more fully developed? If she were a more major character and we had some idea what she was dealing with or could have followed her story more? I just feel that there if she were more developed and less time was spent on the bumbling main character the book would have been more interesting, perhaps I am in the minority here, perhaps I am used to the main character being more "relatable" or having more redeeming qualities so that I can root of them. Perhaps that is what makes the book regarded by others.
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After the glowing recs for The Good Earth I read it yesterday. It was difficult to get through, really didn't enjoy it. The main character was so shallow and difficult to relate to, for me that makes it hard to get into.
I'm sorry to hear that! Next time I read it I'll have to look at it through a different lens; for some reason, for me, the simplicity is what is so powerful.
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I guess I wouldn't want to hear your opinion of Lennie, then.
We'll have to agree to disagree. :)
Honestly, been purposefully avoiding reading it because I know it will be sad and difficult (emotionally) to get through in the same way that I try to avoid pure horror movies/novels. From what I recall though, knowing the general storyline I think I'd probably feel deeply for Lennie Small, perhaps because it is clear that he is disabled and thus I can sympathize with what he has to go through, I suppose looking at Olan as disabled would give her more sympathy in my eyes, but it felt more like her character was not thoroughly developed/described (perhaps because she was not a main character) so seemed more like a flaw/feature in the choice of how to develop the character by the author rather than Olan's actual particular mental capacity/disability (if that makes sense)... Anyway, yes some books are quite polarizing, everyone is definitely open to carry and voice their opinions/disagreements, it has been food for thought to hear that Olan could be considered the main/pivotal character. :)
I guess, a followup question to you arebelspy, is wouldn't the good earth have been a "better"/more powerful book if Olan was more fully developed? If she were a more major character and we had some idea what she was dealing with or could have followed her story more? I just feel that there if she were more developed and less time was spent on the bumbling main character the book would have been more interesting, perhaps I am in the minority here, perhaps I am used to the main character being more "relatable" or having more redeeming qualities so that I can root of them. Perhaps that is what makes the book regarded by others.
I thought she was developed. Her looking at him with "dull eyes" is a powerful image, to me.
It's all good; not everyone has to like the same stuff. It's a good thing we don't. :)
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I always thought the bleak & direct nature of The Good Earth was an asset. Compare this anecdote (https://books.google.com/books?id=A6JPn5zAR1AC&lpg=PA384&ots=IvJv4wyPjM&dq=%22we%20have%20the%20personal%20story%20of%20one%20such%20workhorse%2C%20an%20orphan%22&pg=PA384#v=onepage&q=%22we%20have%20the%20personal%20story%20of%20one%20such%20workhorse,%20an%20orphan%22&f=falsel) (hope that works!).
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I always thought the bleak & direct nature of The Good Earth was an asset. Compare this anecdote (https://books.google.com/books?id=A6JPn5zAR1AC&lpg=PA384&ots=IvJv4wyPjM&dq=%22we%20have%20the%20personal%20story%20of%20one%20such%20workhorse%2C%20an%20orphan%22&pg=PA384#v=onepage&q=%22we%20have%20the%20personal%20story%20of%20one%20such%20workhorse,%20an%20orphan%22&f=falsel) (hope that works!).
That linked me to a book, not an anecdote. Is it short enough to quote here?
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Yes, it's an anecdote in a book beginning with "We have the personal story of one such workhorse, an orphan". I see though it omits a page for some reason, too bad! I don't have the text elsewhere accessible that I know of.
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Yes, it's an anecdote in a book beginning with "We have the personal story of one such workhorse, an orphan". I see though it omits a page for some reason, too bad! I don't have the text elsewhere accessible that I know of.
Worked for me. Except for the missing page.
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Angela's Ashes.
Poignant and funny. Things may be bad, but there's always someone who's worse off.
I absolutely second this! It's not fiction but a biography that reads as fiction. ....Man, I really want to talk about a spoiler here, but I'll keep it zipped.
Yup, I third this- the poor Irish was a trait in many Australian novels for most of the 19th & 20th century, the country being a recipient of so many who fled Ireland; the real Ned Kelly was the embodiment of the poor Irish when fate, circumstance and political climate conspired to keep his family poor and downtrodden.
My contributions:
Harp in the South by Ruth Park (what a slum Surry Hills in Sydney was before the inner city trendies with $3m terraces today)
Down and out in Paris and London by George Orwell (vivid scene of him as a dish pig in a hotel)
Emma by Jane Austen (poor Harriet)
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I recommend the "Little House" series by Laura Ingalls Wilder, which is about her pioneer family's life and many moves further and further West as the Territories were being settled (in the US). The series follows a somewhat fictionalized version of Laura's life from age 6-ish to the early years of her marriage. The series is more aimed at older children than adults, but it's still very enjoyable. The first book is Little House in the Big Woods.
There are other families they know that are "rich," but I don't remember Laura ever considering her family poor.
I loved the Little House books, to the point that when the TV series started I was horrified that Michael Landon was playing Pa--"he doesn't even have a beard!" (give me a break, I was seven)I was surprised in my adulthood to learn that two events on the show that were not in the books--the birth and death of the baby brother and the Ingallses running a hotel--actually happened. Pioneer Girl, Laura Ingalls Wilder's first manuscript on which the Little House books were based, was published a couple of years ago--heavily annotated, I might add--and boy, were those books cleaned up. The Ingalls family was extremely poor.
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I recommend the "Little House" series by Laura Ingalls Wilder, which is about her pioneer family's life and many moves further and further West as the Territories were being settled (in the US). The series follows a somewhat fictionalized version of Laura's life from age 6-ish to the early years of her marriage. The series is more aimed at older children than adults, but it's still very enjoyable. The first book is Little House in the Big Woods.
There are other families they know that are "rich," but I don't remember Laura ever considering her family poor.
I loved the Little House books, to the point that when the TV series started I was horrified that Michael Landon was playing Pa--"he doesn't even have a beard!" (give me a break, I was seven)I was surprised in my adulthood to learn that two events on the show that were not in the books--the birth and death of the baby brother and the Ingallses running a hotel--actually happened. Pioneer Girl, Laura Ingalls Wilder's first manuscript on which the Little House books were based, was published a couple of years ago--heavily annotated, I might add--and boy, were those books cleaned up. The Ingalls family was extremely poor.
Oh that is interesting! I knew there had been a brother somewhere in there who didn't appear in the books, but the hotel is a surprise to me. (I have not see the TV series.) With the brother, it looks like he was born sometime between Big Woods and Prairie, when Carrie and Grace "mysteriously" appear.
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I recommend the "Little House" series by Laura Ingalls Wilder, which is about her pioneer family's life and many moves further and further West as the Territories were being settled (in the US). The series follows a somewhat fictionalized version of Laura's life from age 6-ish to the early years of her marriage. The series is more aimed at older children than adults, but it's still very enjoyable. The first book is Little House in the Big Woods.
There are other families they know that are "rich," but I don't remember Laura ever considering her family poor.
I loved the Little House books, to the point that when the TV series started I was horrified that Michael Landon was playing Pa--"he doesn't even have a beard!" (give me a break, I was seven)I was surprised in my adulthood to learn that two events on the show that were not in the books--the birth and death of the baby brother and the Ingallses running a hotel--actually happened. Pioneer Girl, Laura Ingalls Wilder's first manuscript on which the Little House books were based, was published a couple of years ago--heavily annotated, I might add--and boy, were those books cleaned up. The Ingalls family was extremely poor.
I loved Pioneer Girl, but it's not fiction in the same way the others are.
In the same vein, The Worst Hard Time, about the Dust Bowl and Great Depression, was wonderfully sobering and really put life into perspective.
Another one that's not fiction but reads like fiction, I can never recommend Mrs. Mike enough. It's about a young woman who, in the early 1900s, was recommended to go north to Canada (from Boston) for her health. She met and married a Mountie when she was 15 and they ended up moving up to the Yukon. It's one of my favorite books. It's not about poverty per se, but they definitely didn't have much and endured quite a lot.
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Another one that's not fiction but reads like fiction, I can never recommend Mrs. Mike enough. It's about a young woman who, in the early 1900s, was recommended to go north to Canada (from Boston) for her health. She met and married a Mountie when she was 15 and they ended up moving up to the Yukon. It's one of my favorite books. It's not about poverty per se, but they definitely didn't have much and endured quite a lot.
I love Mrs. Mike! Another sort of like that (this one's a novel, though) is Megan by Iris Noble, which is about a teenage Welsh orphan who gets adopted by a family emigrating to Alberta to farm. And the family is pretty poor since they went into debt to buy farm equipment; the father and brother have to go back to the coal mines to make money. I reread that book to TATTERS when I was thirteen!
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The Forever War. The main character goes from having nothing to having a lot.
Interesting to see how the compound interest is working.
But it's primarily a science fiction book, don't buy it just for the financial / poverty aspects.
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Ralph Moody's books, beginning with Little Britches. Kind of like the Little House books, but centered on a boy and ranching out west. "Eggs is eighteen cents a dozen!" became a family saying after my husband read these out loud to the kids.
<i>Five Little Peppers and How they Grew</i>
Sidney Taylor's <i>All-of-a-Kind Family</i> books. NYC's Lower East Side in the early 20th century. The central family is actually better off than many of their neighbours--they have a whole flat instead of a tenement--but the general environment is one in which everyone has to be careful with money.
Many of Joan Aiken's children's book, the <i>Wolves</i> Chronicles and others, feature plucky, intrepid hero(in)es whose poverty is one of their sources of strength.
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The Road by Cormac Mccarthy
I finished it a few days ago and it was one of the best books I've ever read. A father and his son pushing a grocery cart and trying to survive in a post apocalyptic world filled with cannibals. It really got to me, the relationship between the father and son. They REALLY appreciate what they have in the cart, for them it is a matter of living or dying.
Beautiful book. Made me cry.
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+1 to Dickens. They're always rags to riches to (usually) rags again.
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"A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" does such a great job describing appreciating what one has, it treads really close to romanticizing poverty.
"The Secret Life of Bees" Farm life in the South in the 60's(?)...It's been a while.
"The Help" was interesting in its juxtaposition of the poverty and life circumstances of the housekeepers vs the generally well-to-do the women they serve(d).
From the engaging non-fiction side: the "Call the Midwife" trilogy.
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1. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
All Huck and Jim had was the raft, and they stole that everything on it and lost even all that before the ending.
2. The Old Man and the Sea
Again, just a boat - oh, and a rotting fish and a dream- memory (which may never have actually occured.)
3. The Forsyte Saga
'Cause poverty is relative, don'cha know....
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The Road by Cormac Mccarthy
I finished it a few days ago and it was one of the best books I've ever read. A father and his son pushing a grocery cart and trying to survive in a post apocalyptic world filled with cannibals. It really got to me, the relationship between the father and son. They REALLY appreciate what they have in the cart, for them it is a matter of living or dying.
Beautiful book. Made me cry.
I watched the movie based on the book which scared the bejesus out of me - the cannibalism scene was pretty horrific. One is enough - how many times was that described in the book? *shivers*
I can imagine somewhere in the world (Democratic Republic of Congo?) this is a daily threat with the proliferation of bush meat and all that.
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The Road by Cormac Mccarthy
I finished it a few days ago and it was one of the best books I've ever read. A father and his son pushing a grocery cart and trying to survive in a post apocalyptic world filled with cannibals. It really got to me, the relationship between the father and son. They REALLY appreciate what they have in the cart, for them it is a matter of living or dying.
Beautiful book. Made me cry.
I watched the movie based on the book which scared the bejesus out of me - the cannibalism scene was pretty horrific. One is enough - how many times was that described in the book? *shivers*
I can imagine somewhere in the world (Democratic Republic of Congo?) this is a daily threat with the proliferation of bush meat and all that.
If cannibal themes creep you out, I would advise to steer well clear of The Three Stooges:
(http://threestoogespictures.info/wp-content/uploads/space-ship-sappy-three-stooges-cannibal-amazon-girlfriends.jpg)
not to mention Gilligan's Island
(https://jacksonupperco.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/screen-shot-2013-11-24-at-12-23-17-pm.png)
you've been warned...
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@bobechs Ha! I like that the ladies of the Gilligan crew are still striking a pose with their high heels.
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I can't believe no one mentioned "Where the Red Fern Grows." I thought of it immediately - I remember how a square of tobacco was a huge deal, though maybe a bit more because it was a kid buying it. But they were definitely living in poverty.
Oh yeah! And there's always "The Outsiders". YA, but I read the shit out of that book in middle school. "Nothing gold can stay."
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A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
The Book Thief - Markus Zusak
The Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
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I would have said The Good Earth and The Grapes of Wraith, somebody else already did,
My new addition would be The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
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Another one that's not fiction but reads like fiction, I can never recommend Mrs. Mike enough. It's about a young woman who, in the early 1900s, was recommended to go north to Canada (from Boston) for her health. She met and married a Mountie when she was 15 and they ended up moving up to the Yukon. It's one of my favorite books. It's not about poverty per se, but they definitely didn't have much and endured quite a lot.
Added to my wish list. In turn you might like Betty MacDonald's Anybody Can Do Anything (Great Depression), The Egg and I (chicken farm hard times), and Onions in the Stew (happy times after the war).
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"Down and out in Paris and London", G. Orwell
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_and_Out_in_Paris_and_London
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The Road maybe? Ha that's about extreme poverty
I like Growth of the Soil by Knut Hamsun. It's sort of about climbing out of poverty.
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Not a novel, although it sometimes reads like one: All Over But The Shoutin' by Rick Bragg.
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Angela's Ashes.
Poignant and funny. Things may be bad, but there's always someone who's worse off.
I absolutely second this! It's not fiction but a biography that reads as fiction. ....Man, I really want to talk about a spoiler here, but I'll keep it zipped.
Just finished this book. Now I'm curious what you think a spoiler might be.... :/
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Not my favorite but some interesting parts and def. has poverty :
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29983711-pachinko
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Great thread - I also love books like this. I second the Little House series- recently reread them and loved them just as much as when I read them as a girl. Also, maybe Hemingway's A Moveable Feast? Such good food scenes and there are definitely times when he's broke but enjoying life.
Not a novel, but try the memoir Life and Death in Shanghai by Nien Cheng. Beautifully done and so powerful. Per Amazon: "the haunting, inspirational account of Nien Cheng's six-and-a-half years as a political prisoner during Communist China's Cultural Revolution."
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Great thread - I also love books like this. I second the Little House series- recently reread them and loved them just as much as when I read them as a girl. Also, maybe Hemingway's A Moveable Feast? Such good food scenes and there are definitely times when he's broke but enjoying life.
Not a novel, but try the memoir Life and Death in Shanghai by Nien Cheng. Beautifully done and so powerful. Per Amazon: "the haunting, inspirational account of Nien Cheng's six-and-a-half years as a political prisoner during Communist China's Cultural Revolution."
If you like stuff regarding China during/just after the Cultural Revolution, the memoir Gang of One is also an interesting read.
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I just want to say thanks to all the participants of this thread! You guys have offered some brilliant suggestions here :)
I'll add: The Little Princess (yes the classic)
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Same kind of Different as me - About a homeless man and his relationship with a volunteer at a meal program.
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Not sure if Alcott's "Little Women" has been mentioned yet. I didn't like it at all as youngster but I tried it again last Christmas and just loved it.
Also, The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot. Once Mr. Tulliver goes bankrupt, the family is definitely thrown into poverty.
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It's great to have so many suggestions! I'm finally reading "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" and while I'm enjoying the writing style, I'm finding the plot a bit slow...
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Others have mentioned it, but I just read The Road by Cormac McCarthy.
I think the book is probably less... something than the film. I turned the film off after maybe 10 minutes a couple of years ago.
Some say the book is horror, rather than sci fi. I kept waiting for something really bad to happen... but the whole book is really bad. I mean, the setting is bad, the stuff that happens is mostly a grind with a few very disturbing events along the way.
A very fast read. ~300 pages I think but fairly large font.
Not sure quite what to make of it but it's very good. Horror, yes (I don't like horror). Moving. Depressing, sort've. Stark, bleak, beautiful (sort've).
Worth a read.
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The name of the Wind (Patrick Rothfuss)? The main character gets impoverished pretty soon into the story.
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A few more to add to your list...
Lila. Housekeeping. Both by Marilynne Robinson.
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The name of the Wind (Patrick Rothfuss)? The main character gets impoverished pretty soon into the story.
A friend of mine recommended it to me. So the character being impoverished is a big deal for him? He's frugal? A gambler?
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Flora Thompson's Lark Rise to Candleford is well worth reading. It was originally three books that were merged into one in 1945 and are her semi autobiographic writings about rural English life on a tenant farm and her first job after leaving home.
I didn't know this book was a TV series until I looked for the author's name.
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I'm surprised no one has mentioned Catherine Cookson - a bestselling author with 74 novels all about poverty.
Betty Smith wrote several other books - Tomorrow will be better and Joy in the Morning
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The name of the Wind (Patrick Rothfuss)? The main character gets impoverished pretty soon into the story.
A friend of mine recommended it to me. So the character being impoverished is a big deal for him? He's frugal? A gambler?
Was going to recommend the same book. Main character more or less starts as a homeless kid living on the streets. It's a fantasy genre if you enjoy that, but I thoroughly enjoyed the first two books.
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The name of the Wind (Patrick Rothfuss)? The main character gets impoverished pretty soon into the story.
A friend of mine recommended it to me. So the character being impoverished is a big deal for him? He's frugal? A gambler?
Was going to recommend the same book. Main character more or less starts as a homeless kid living on the streets. It's a fantasy genre if you enjoy that, but I thoroughly enjoyed the first two books.
Funny story. Today I went to my small local library with my wife and son like we are used to most weekends. I was browsing through a small box with books for sale. 2 dollars each. Most of the books were pretty boring, old autobiographies, cooking books, worn and torn childrens books. Maybe 5 books in english out of a 100 or so. There it was hiding. The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. After asking you about it just yesterday and out of the thousands of books the could have put there for sale. This one. Surely a sign from the mustachian god. I bought it without a second thought.
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The name of the Wind (Patrick Rothfuss)? The main character gets impoverished pretty soon into the story.
A friend of mine recommended it to me. So the character being impoverished is a big deal for him? He's frugal? A gambler?
Frugal by necessity, but also too clever for his own good. I don't want to give any spoilers, but it's pretty clear that the author knows a thing or two about pinching pennies.
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If you are interested in a fantasy setting with a bunch of witty social commentary, I recommend Terry Pratchett. My favorite bit from "Men at Arms" is very mustachian:
“The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.
Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.
But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.
This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness.”
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Not a novel but a published survey : Maud Pember Reeves' and Charlotte Webb's Round About a Pound a Week from 1913.
The mention of Vimes's boots made me think of it. It explains stuff like using the same piece of soap to bathe the baby as to clean the hearth and why bakery bread is preferred over porridge.
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The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls. And it's a movie now.
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The Pursuit of Happyness might interest you.
It involves a guy going from being homeless to achieving financial success. He appreciates things a lot more and ends up being very generous with his money.
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+1 on Laura Ingalls Wilder books, especially The First Four Years, about her and Almanzo's married life beginning. Some terrible things happen, but they survived and thrived.
+1 on The Good Earth--it reminds me that at least I'm not eating dirt porridge or putting cardboard in my shoes
+1 Mrs. Mike and Lark Rise to Candleford, as well!
Anything written by Jane Austin or the Bronte sisters, as they knew the wolf at the door in real life.
It's been years since I read it, but I think Ender's Game qualifies.
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Big +1 to the Little House series, Little Women, and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.
I’ll also add Anne of Green Gables (the Cuthberts were not poor, but Anne herself had certainly been raised in poverty) and the Tillerman cycle by Cynthia Voight (7 young-adult novels, beginning with Homecoming and ending with Seventeen against the Dealer).
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Great suggestions so far.
I'll add:
House of Mirth
Christy
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The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy.
Here's a quote from the novel
He was exasperated because he didn't know what that look meant. He put it somewhere between indifference and despair. He didn’t know that in some places, like the country that Rahel came from, various kinds of despair competed for primacy. And that personal despair could never be desperate enough.
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The Kite Runner We were rich in another culture, but we're poor in America.
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A few more to add to your list...
Lila. Housekeeping. Both by Marilynne Robinson.
Lila is perfection. I said that about Gilead too. And then I loved Home. But Lila was just great.
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+1 for Glass Castle. I also really enjoyed Angela's Ashes. First post BTW.
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Nectar in a Sieve by Kamala Markandaya (Set in India)
This Burns My Heart by Samuel Park (Set in Korea)
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Midnight's Children- Salman Rushdie
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Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison
Educated by Tara Westover
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A tree grows in Brooklyn- One of my all-time favorite books about a girl growing up very poor in Brooklyn about 100 years ago, who loves to read
Maid - brand new memoir about a woman living in poverty with a young daughter
Evicted - really great book about people living in poverty in a Midwestern city, and how and why they are Evicted from their apartments. The author follows one of the landlords
Living Poor - memoir from someone in the Peace Corps in the 1970s or so. Living in extreme poverty in Ecuador I believe. Really well written. Unbelievable circumstances
I guess I like books on poverty also :)
Edit: whoops, I just noticed you said fiction. Only the first book is fiction.
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Road to Wigan Pier - George Orwell
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It's non-fiction, but I really liked "The Color of Water" by James McBride.
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1984 - George Orwell
I've read it about three times now, and I've perceived more depth behind the writing with each reading. I feel this book will never be lose significance in modern society.
If anything, as communication and connectivity become more central to modern society and our way of life, the stronger the message of this book.
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Ha'penny Chance series by Gemma Jackson
Follows incredibly poor Ivy in Dublin near the beginning of the last century. Her life is absolutely Dickensian, literally begging for a living. It shows how even the tiniest amounts of money (to us, today) made a huge difference in her life. For instance, 5 pounds was *one year's rent*.
+1 on Laura Ingalls Wilder and Anne of Green Gables. All of Lucy Maud Montgomery's books have a poverty element, or a juxtaposition of wealth levels. There's always a poor cousin in patched stockings or a made-over dress.
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Mary Lasswell's books, starting with her 1942 book Suds in Your Eye "described as "a crazy, funny story" about three impoverished but high-spirited and beer-loving elderly women." They are great models for enjoying life without spending a lot of money.
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In the 1940s Lois Lenski wrote the "American Regional" series of books for children that are well worth an adult's read. Each is about a family in a different part of the country, mostly rural, and the goal of the series was to introduce children to the variety of the American experience. The one I remember best is Cotton In My Sack, about a cotton sharecropping family. As a child of frugal parents, I was horrified by how each week the family got paid for their week of picking and then immediately spent all their money in town on eating out and "play pretties." Even at age 7 or 8, I knew this was not sustainable year round.
https://www.goodreads.com/series/80052-american-regional
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Would Charles Dickens count? Christmas Carol, Oliver Twist come to mind, maybe there are a couple more.
A Tale of Two Cities. Lots of poor folks (and rich ones). Extreme wealth gap was a root cause of the revolution.
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I just read Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward and it was incredible - very strong Southern Gothic and Faulkner-esque vibes. Main characters are quite poor; dealing with hunger, drug abuse, and prison system in the contemporary south (and ghosts!).
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I just read Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward and it was incredible - very strong Southern Gothic and Faulkner-esque vibes. Main characters are quite poor; dealing with hunger, drug abuse, and prison system in the contemporary south (and ghosts!).
Hillbilly Elegy is a contemporary book about the poor and their problems.
IDK if it's a novel.
I haven't read it
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Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman was an interesting read.
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Hillbilly Elegy is a contemporary book about the poor and their problems.
IDK if it's a novel.
I haven't read it
It could hardly be your favorite then!
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Other people recommended it already, but I can't help but put in another good word for A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. One of my all-time favorite books. I must have read it 5 or 6 times, and I'm really not one to re-read books. The writing style just draws me into that world.
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Hillbilly Elegy is a contemporary book about the poor and their problems.
IDK if it's a novel.
I haven't read it
It could hardly be your favorite then!
And it's also not a novel.
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1984 - George Orwell
+1. Also Darkness At Noon by Arthur Koestler.
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In the 1940s Lois Lenski wrote the "American Regional" series of books for children that are well worth an adult's read. Each is about a family in a different part of the country, mostly rural, and the goal of the series was to introduce children to the variety of the American experience. The one I remember best is Cotton In My Sack, about a cotton sharecropping family. As a child of frugal parents, I was horrified by how each week the family got paid for their week of picking and then immediately spent all their money in town on eating out and "play pretties." Even at age 7 or 8, I knew this was not sustainable year round.
I loved these books, and I remember just what you're talking about. Strawberry Girl is another one I recall had some pretty pointed lessons in it.
https://www.goodreads.com/series/80052-american-regional
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Angela's Ashes, though not a novel, an absolute treasure.
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The Tin Flute by Gabrielle Roy. A story of poverty and desperation, set in the slums of Montreal during the Great Depression and early WWII years.
Also, +1 to The Glass Castle. Not a novel, but a memoir of a woman who grew up in extremely poor and difficult circumstances, with neglectful/nomadic parents who fancied themselves free spirits. It's really good.
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Angela's Ashes, though not a novel, an absolute treasure.
It's been a very long time, but this book kinda pissed me off. IIRC, Angela never stood up for herself. Who teaches women that taking this kind of abuse is the right thing to do?
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I recommend Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts. It's a quazi-true story of a man who escapes from prison in Australia and starts from nothing in the slums of Mumbai, India.
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Angela's Ashes, though not a novel, an absolute treasure.
It's been a very long time, but this book kinda pissed me off. IIRC, Angela never stood up for herself. Who teaches women that taking this kind of abuse is the right thing to do?
The Catholic church and its anti-divorce stance gives the bully absolute power.
Anecdote from my own family: my grandfather was a functioning alcoholic and occasional wife-beater. One time after getting hit, my grandmother fled the house and encountered a policeman in the streets. When she asked for help, he turned her away saying, "Woman, be glad you have a husband." Happened in a city in America in the 1920s.
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Angela's Ashes, though not a novel, an absolute treasure.
It's been a very long time, but this book kinda pissed me off. IIRC, Angela never stood up for herself. Who teaches women that taking this kind of abuse is the right thing to do?
The Catholic church and its anti-divorce stance gives the bully absolute power.
Anecdote from my own family: my grandfather was a functioning alcoholic and occasional wife-beater. One time after getting hit, my grandmother fled the house and encountered a policeman in the streets. When she asked for help, he turned her away saying, "Woman, be glad you have a husband." Happened in a city in America in the 1920s.
LaineyAZ, I was writing during a bout of insomnia and didn't have the brain power to make a cogent argument, but I could not agree more. Thanks for phrasing it so pithily. I do feel the need to add that this phenomenon is not limited to the Catholic Church. It happens everywhere that women are oppressed, or even simply lack economic opportunity.