Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member Latest Breaking News Editorials & Other Articles General Discussion The DU Lounge All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

hedgehog

(36,286 posts)
Wed Jun 6, 2012, 10:11 AM Jun 2012

I need a stealth selection for my book club -

we have some members who have drunk deeply of the Fox kool-aid and are convinced people on welfare are middle class - after all, they have cell phones and cable TV, don't they?

I was thinking of Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich, but that may be too obvious.

Any suggestions?

9 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
I need a stealth selection for my book club - (Original Post) hedgehog Jun 2012 OP
Lionel Shriver's So Much for That MountainLaurel Jun 2012 #1
Deer Hunting with Jesus dixiegrrrrl Jun 2012 #2
Nickel and Dimed is a good one, as it's interesting LuckyLib Jun 2012 #3
hmmmmm fe6252fes Jun 2012 #4
Nickel and Dimed is hardly a stealth selection. SheilaT Jun 2012 #5
A book to give you something to talk about Mcubed1945 Jun 2012 #6
Confederates in the Attic freesqueeze Jul 2012 #7
I think I found it - fiction with a lot of non-fiction snuck in - hedgehog Nov 2012 #8
Awesome MountainLaurel Nov 2012 #9

MountainLaurel

(10,271 posts)
1. Lionel Shriver's So Much for That
Wed Jun 6, 2012, 02:27 PM
Jun 2012

About a guy about to retire and the evils of the American healthcare system and their effects on middle-class Americans.

LuckyLib

(6,891 posts)
3. Nickel and Dimed is a good one, as it's interesting
Mon Jun 11, 2012, 10:00 PM
Jun 2012

and provokes great conversations. I don't think there's a woman who can't relate to something Ehrenreich talks about. Go for it. It will make folks in the group think twice about throw-away comments, and may even develop some empathy in folks as to how hard people work for what little they get.

 

SheilaT

(23,156 posts)
5. Nickel and Dimed is hardly a stealth selection.
Sun Jun 17, 2012, 11:35 PM
Jun 2012

If your group has drunk deeply of the kool-aid, anything non fiction written to show how depsicable the current right-wing is, might even be rejected outright by the group.

Plus, having read that book, I don't think it's one that would convince anyone who is deep into the Fox News mentality. They'd look at everyone she writes about and conclude that each and every person is responsible for his or her own situation, and not see the larger picture.

"The Jungle" could be a good choice, and you can push it as a classic that everyone ought to read. "It Can't Happen Here" is another possibility. The problem with many of those books is that it could be too easy for a modern right-wing reader to simply conclude that they represent an era long gone, and one that has no meaning today. Which is, of course, the heart of the problem: Those who do not remember history . . .

Two recent non-fiction books might possibly work. "A Train in Winter" by Caroline Moorhead tells the story of a group of French Resistance fighters, women, who were captured by the Nazis and sent off to the death camps early in the war. It's about what they did to resist the Nazis in the first place, how they were captured, what they endured, and how some of them survived. It brings back the full horror of the Nazi era, which is being lost, sincfe those who lived through it are mostly gone now.

A book I'm reading right now (almost finished) is "In the Garden of Beasts" by Erik Larson, subtitled Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin. William Dodd was a college history professor when he got tapped by Franklin Roosevelt in 1933 to be ambassador to Berlin. Several other men had turned down the post prior to his selection. Dodd, his wife, son, and daughter arrived in Berlin in July of 1933, when many thought that Hitler could not possibly stay in power more than a year. They witnessed first-hand the awful change in German society and the German people as laws were passed restricting Jews' rights to hold a job, go to school, and so on. The book really only covers the Dodds' first year there (he served until 1937) but it clearly shows what happens when extremists take over a country, totally control the media, and set forth unchallenged lie after unchallenged lie.

Again, it is entirely possible that the point of either of those two books will be too subtle for your group. It will take a lot more than one book, or one movie, or even one personal encounter of some kind (like losing health care and needing serious medicine/surgery, etc) to change people like this. If they don't stop watching Fox, there's no real hope for them.

Mcubed1945

(9 posts)
6. A book to give you something to talk about
Wed Jun 20, 2012, 07:55 PM
Jun 2012

You might want to look at Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow. I just finished it. Not only did leave aghast at the racial slant of the war on drugs, I was truly astounded by just how much our supreme court has eroded the fourth amendment to the constitution since the beginning of the Reagan administration. I think the book speaks ill of politicians from both parties. The book leaves the reader with no clear solutions, but certainly sets the stage for some honest debate about to correct the problem.

freesqueeze

(1,384 posts)
7. Confederates in the Attic
Tue Jul 17, 2012, 10:59 PM
Jul 2012

Seems like the story of a person getting sucked in with civil war recreators, but slips quietly into a scathing report on redneck america.

hedgehog

(36,286 posts)
8. I think I found it - fiction with a lot of non-fiction snuck in -
Thu Nov 8, 2012, 12:34 PM
Nov 2012

Flight Behavior - Barbara Kingsolver

n what may be the first novel to realistically imagine the near-term impact of “global weirding,” Barbara Kingsolver sets her latest story in rural Appalachia . In fictional Feathertown, Tennessee, Dellarobia Turnbow--on the run from her stifling life--charges up the mountain above her husband’s family farm and stumbles onto a “valley of fire” filled with millions of monarch butterflies. This vision is deemed miraculous by the town’s parishioners, then the international media. But when Ovid, a scientist who studies monarch behavior, sets up a lab on the Turnbow farm, he learns that the butterflies’ presence signals systemic disorder--and Dellarobia's in-laws’ logging plans won’t help. Readers who bristle at politics made personal may be turned off by the strength of Kingsolver’s convictions, but she never reduces her characters to mouthpieces, giving equal weight to climate science and human need, to forces both biological and biblical. Her concept of family encompasses all living beings, however ephemeral, and Flight Behavior gracefully, urgently contributes to the dialogue of survival on this swiftly tilting planet. --Mari Malcolm

http://www.amazon.com/Flight-Behavior-Novel-Barbara-Kingsolver/dp/0062124269

Latest Discussions»Culture Forums»Non-Fiction»I need a stealth selectio...