Good Reading...

Memorial Day, the unofficial start of summer, is almost here. It’s a time for barbecues, trips to the beach and afternoons by the pool. So kick back, relax and enjoy the summer with these books from The Union Shop Online:

• Paul Wellstone: The Life of a Passionate Progressive, by Bill Lofy
  In this biography of the late senator, Lofy tells the inspirational story of one of the most compelling figures in the history of American politics. The book chronicles Wellstone’s life and political career and includes an afterword by Bill Bradley.

• Taking on the Big Boys: Or Why Feminism Is Good for Families,
  Business and the Nation, by Ellen Bravo
  Bravo reports what’s really happening in today’s workplace with stories from offices, assembly lines and schools. She unmasks the patronizing, trivializing and minimizing tactics employed by “the big boys” (the powerful people who maintain the status quo) and their surrogates.

• The Global Class War, by Jeff Faux
  Faux, the founding president of the Economic Policy Institute, explains why America’s governing class has become so indifferent to the fate of its people. Faux argues that they now can find workers and investment opportunities elsewhere, America’s rich and powerful are abandoning the social contract that, until recently, had united the economic interests of all Americans.

• Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike,
  Martin Luther King’s Last Campaign, by Michael Honey
  The definitive history of the epic struggle for economic justice that became Martin Luther King Jr.’s last crusade. Honey describes King as undertaking a Poor People’s Campaign at the crossroads of his life, vilified as a subversive, hounded by the FBI and seeing in the working poor of Memphis his hopes for a better America.

• The Battle of Blair Mountain: The Story of America’s Largest Labor Uprising, by Robert Shogan
  This storey covers a 10-day battle that included at least 10,000 men, erupting in 1921 when West Virginia coal miners, who had been subjected to brutal exploitation for many years, marched against the powerful mine owners.

• The Chasm: An American Globalization Story, by David Ainsworth
  If you liked the TV series “The West Wing,” you will love this book. It is the only novel that dissects the growing impact of the global economy on Americans. America is a sitting duck, and the American Dream is the first casualty of the trade war that has already begun.

• Mother Jones: Fierce Fighter for Workers’ Rights, by Judith Pinkerton Josephson
  Mary Harris “Mother” Jones was once known as “the most dangerous woman.” This biography—aimed at young readers, ages 12 and up—is an account of the life and work of the outspoken labor organizer and reformer loaded with her own fiery words and indomitable spirit.

• Dreamland, by Kevin Baker
   A dazzling masterpiece of literary historical fiction, Dreamland delivers a sweeping, yet intimate, portrait of immigrant New York in the early part of the 20th century.

• ¡Sí, Se Puede! Yes, We Can!, by Diana Cohn
  This inspirational children’s story about the 2000 janitors’ strike in Los Angeles reminds us that victories can be won and the future lies with the children we can inspire.

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