With a scant four shopping days left until Christmas it’s no surprise that the shops are rammed full of people looking for the perfect gift for that special someone. Well, if that’s you, you need look no further. I thought I’d recommend a few book titles. Now you can treat someone you love (or yourself!) to a good read over the festive season instead of yet another Patricia Cornwell or John Grisham.
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Estates by Lynsey Hanley
This book tells the story of housing estates in Britain. It challenges the stereotype reputations that estates have, and asks a very important question: Why was it that homes built to improve people’s lives ended up, in many cases, doing the opposite.
Urban Harvest by Roy Joslin
Written in the early eighties, this book still has a lot to offer over twenty five years later. Joslin examines the history of the class struggle and the failure of the church to keep in tune with the working classes. He argues biblically as well as from experience. A very readable account of the impact of the gospel on the working classes. Roy Joslin was pastor of a Baptist Church in Walworth, south London.
The Likes of Us (A Biography of the White Working Class) by Michael Collins
I loved this book! As Collins (A TV producer and journalist) digs into his own family history in and around Bermondsey, he argues that white working class culture is intimately linked to both the environment and a strong concept of home. It’s a fascinating examination of the past, present and future of London’s white working class.
Educational Failure & Working Class White Children in Britain by Gillian Evans
I loved this book even more!! The book takes the reader on a journey round the estates of Bermondsey meeting people we may well know (You can’t be sure because she uses pseudonyms for people and places).It takes us into a world where middle class values are challenged and a working class pride is revealed. Gillian Evans lived in Bermondsey for many years and is a lecturer in Social Anthropology.
The Uses of Literacy, Aspects of Working Class Life by Richard Hoggart
This is a modern classic. Drawing partly from his own experiences in northern England’s vanishing working class communities Hoggart offers a fascinating and vivid view of working class ways. When he weaves this together with his views on consumerist pop culture, this book becomes essential reading both as a historical document and as a brilliant commentary on issues of class, poverty and the media.
Faith in the Poor by Bob Holman
This powerful book tears at your emotions. Author Bob Holman, who turned his back on his career as professor of social policy to serve the people of Easterhouse Glasgow, allows people who live in poverty and hardship, to write about their daily struggle to survive in the face of overwhelming difficulties. What emerges from these often moving and painful accounts is that, far from being a ‘scrounging, feral, underclass'; we encounter individuals who demonstrate an enormous amount of strength, energy and ingenuity just to survive in a world where it seems everything is stacked against them.
Happy reading.
