The 99% -- Most Readable Non-Fiction

Description
Non-fiction books about the lives of ordinary people that held your interest. Thumb down the ones you didn't like/didn't finish. Let's not mark books that we think are ideologically important, but we haven't enjoyed reading. Add titles as needed. Delete fiction I missed.
Based on tag
workers
1
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America
by Barbara Ehrenreich
10,732 members
209 reviews
½ 3.7
4 Members
schmootc, lahochstetler, aulsmith, cej1027
2
Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do
by Studs Terkel
2,077 members
19 reviews
4.2
2 Members
lilithcat, eromsted
3
Triangle: The Fire that Changed America
by David Von Drehle
1,188 members
33 reviews
3.9
2 Members
lilithcat, eromsted
4
Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea
by Barbara Demick
3,123 members
174 reviews
½ 4.4
Member
lahochstetler
5
Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream
by Barbara Ehrenreich
1,738 members
55 reviews
½ 3.4
Member
aulsmith
6
The Feminine Mystique
by Betty Friedan
4,446 members
47 reviews
3.8
Member
aulsmith
7
Coming of Age in Mississippi
by Anne Moody
1,585 members
29 reviews
4
Member
lahochstetler
8
Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China
by Leslie T. Chang
962 members
41 reviews
3.8
Member
cej1027
9
Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919-1939
by Lizabeth Cohen
330 members
1 review
4
Member
eromsted
10
A People's History of the United States
by Howard Zinn
14,514 members
151 reviews
4.2
Member
eromsted
11
Autobiography of Mother Jones
by Mother Jones
227 members
3 reviews
½ 3.7
Member
lilithcat
13
Labor's Untold Story
by Richard O. Boyer
280 members
2 reviews
3.9
Member
eromsted
14
Farmworker's Daughter: Growing Up Mexican in America
by Rose Castillo Guilbault
34 members
3.2
Member
lahochstetler
15
Bill Haywood's Book: The Autobiography of William D. Haywood
by William D. Haywood
74 members
3 reviews
4.2
Member
eromsted
16
Streets, Railroads, and the Great Strike of 1877
by David O. Stowell
30 members
1 review
½ 2.5
Member
eromsted
17
Divided We Stand: American Workers and the Struggle for Black Equality
by Bruce Nelson
41 members
4
Member
eromsted
18
We Can't Eat Prestige: The Women Who Organized Harvard
by John Hoerr
24 members
1 review
½ 4.7
Member
eromsted
19
Huelga: the first hundred days of the great Delano grape strike
by Eugene Nelson
15 members
½ 3.7
Member
eromsted
21
The Newark Teacher Strikes: Hopes on the Line
by Steve Golin
5 members
4
Member
eromsted
22
The People Together: One Hundred Years of Minnesota, 1858-1958
by Meridel Le Sueur
3 members
3
Member
eromsted
23
The Crowd In History
by George Rudé
137 members
1 review
½ 3.7
Member
eromsted
24
Teamster Rebellion
by Farrell Dobbs
87 members
½ 4.5
Member
eromsted
26
City of Women: Sex and Class in New York, 1789-1860
by Christine Stansell
284 members
1 review
3.9
Member
eromsted
27
Ravenswood: The Steelworkers' Victory and the Revival of American Labor
by Tom Juravich
32 members
½ 4.3
Member
eromsted
28
Allies Across the Border
by Dale Hathaway
30 members
4
Member
eromsted
29
The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure
by Juliet B. Schor
399 members
3 reviews
½ 3.7
Member
eromsted
30
Rise gonna rise: A portrait of southern textile workers
by Mimi Conway
33 members
½ 3.7
Member
eromsted
31
We Were There: Working Women
by Barbara M Wertheimer
83 members
3
Member
eromsted
32
The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
by Michael Pollan
13,678 members
346 reviews
4.2
Member
lahochstetler,schmootc
33
Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal
by Eric Schlosser
12,363 members
170 reviews
3.9
34
The Jungle
by Upton Sinclair
11,403 members
127 reviews
3.8
35
Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
by Anne Lamott
9,947 members
235 reviews
4.1
37
Waiter Rant: Thanks for the Tip--Confessions of a Cynical Waiter
by Steve Dublanica
1,287 members
89 reviews
½ 3.4
38
Harvesting Hope: The Story of Cesar Chavez
by Kathleen Krull
1,132 members
73 reviews
4.2
39
Someone Builds the Dream
by Lisa Wheeler
122 members
5 reviews
4
40
Rivethead: Tales from the Assembly Line
by Ben Hamper
515 members
10 reviews
3.8
41
Workers' Compensation Act Chapter 539
by Government of Ontario
7 members
43
Germinal
by Émile Zola
5,223 members
77 reviews
4.1
44
The Restraint of Beasts
by Magnus Mills
991 members
29 reviews
3.8
45
Brave Girl: Clara and the Shirtwaist Makers' Strike of 1909
by Michelle Markel
533 members
74 reviews
4.2
46
Richard Scarry's Busy Workers
by Richard Scarry
300 members
½ 3.7
47
Before We Eat: From Farm to Table
by Pat Brisson
175 members
7 reviews
4.2
49
I Want To Be A Doctor
by Dan Liebman
156 members
3
50
Weavers of Revolution: The Yarur Workers and Chile's Road to Socialism
by Peter Winn
79 members
1 review
½ 4.4
51
Hard Traveling: A Portrait of Work Life in the New Northwest
by Carlos A. Schwantes
18 members
52
Nothing Like It In the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869
by Stephen E. Ambrose
3,066 members
42 reviews
½ 3.7
53
The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women
by Kate Moore
2,918 members
187 reviews
4.1
54
Rosie Revere, Engineer
by Andrea Beaty
2,248 members
88 reviews
½ 4.5
55
Rosa
by Nikki Giovanni
2,066 members
165 reviews
4.2
56
Curious George Takes a Job
by H. A. Rey
1,698 members
12 reviews
4
57
I Stink!
by Kate McMullan
1,518 members
64 reviews
4.1
58
Bullshit Jobs: A Theory
by David Graeber
1,291 members
36 reviews
4
59
Building a House
by Byron Barton
873 members
19 reviews
4.1
60
The Cold Millions
by Jess Walter
693 members
40 reviews
4.1
61
The Tortilla Factory
by Gary Paulsen
587 members
10 reviews
3.9
62
Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy
by Barbara Ehrenreich
481 members
2 reviews
3.8
63
Clothesline Clues to Jobs People Do
by Kathryn Heling
455 members
11 reviews
3.9
64
Do Not Open This Book!
by Michaela Muntean
445 members
29 reviews
4.1
65
Career Day
by Anne Rockwell
371 members
21 reviews
3.8
66
Marvelous Mattie: How Margaret E. Knight Became an Inventor
by Emily Arnold McCully
272 members
28 reviews
4.2
67
Voices from the Fields : Children of Migrant Farmworkers Tell Their Stories
by S. Beth Atkin
252 members
8 reviews
½ 4.3
68
The Hidden Injuries of Class
by Jonathan Cobb
251 members
1 review
½ 3.6
69
Captain Swing
by Eric Hobsbawm
237 members
1 review
½ 3.3
70
Workers: An Archaeology of the Industrial Age
by Sebastião Salgado
234 members
1 review
½ 4.6
71
The Bobbin Girl
by Emily Arnold McCully
226 members
18 reviews
½ 4.3
72
Out to Work: The History of Wage-Earning Women in the United States
by Alice Kessler-Harris
172 members
1 review
73
Police Officers on Patrol
by Kersten Hamilton
160 members
12 reviews
4
74
Whose Shoes?: A Shoe for Every Job
by Stephen R. Swinburne
137 members
5 reviews
3.1
75
Amoskeag: Life and Work in an American Factory-City
by Tamara K. Hareven
125 members
½ 3.5
76
The Battle of Blair Mountain: The Story of America's Largest Labor Uprising
by Robert Shogan
123 members
2 reviews
3.2
77
Subterranean Fire: A History of Working-Class Radicalism in the United States
by Sharon Smith
122 members
½ 4.6
79
Sesame Street: People in Your Neighborhood
by Jeffrey Moss
110 members
1 review
4
81
Working-Class New York
by Joshua Benjamin Freeman
85 members
4
82
A Picture Book of Cesar Chavez
by David A. Adler
83 members
20 reviews
½ 3.7
83
In America
by Eve Arnold
78 members
1 review
½ 3.7
84
Food, Inc. [2008 film]
by Robert Kenner
77 members
6 reviews
½ 3.6
85
Good Morning, Snowplow!
by Deborah Bruss
72 members
2 reviews
3.8
87
The Photographs of Margaret Bourke-White
by Margaret Bourke-White
66 members
4.2
89
Decade of Betrayal: Mexican Repatriation in the 1930s
by Francisco E. Balderrama
59 members
5
91
Women and Work: Photographs and Personal Writings
by Maureen R. Michelson
45 members
92
Black Detroit and the Rise of the UAW
by August Meier
37 members
3
95
Abolish Restaurants: A Worker's Critique of the Food Service Industry (PM Pamphlet)
by Prole
35 members
2 reviews
½ 3.5
96
Working Knowledge: Skill and Community in a Small Shop
by Douglas Harper
30 members
½ 2.5
97
Salt of the Earth [1954 film]
by Herbert J. Biberman
29 members
½ 4.3
98
Steeltown, USSR: Soviet Society in the Gorbachev Era
by Stephen Kotkin
27 members
3
99
A Busy Day at Mr. Kang's Grocery Store (Our Neighborhood)
by Alice K. Flanagan
26 members