Will I love Poverty Safari?

This is a seamless combination of autobiography, psychology, and politics, with an emphasis on the role of emotion – and especially anger – in expressing our views. McGarvey is politically savvy and refreshingly critical of both the left and the right, but for me, it’s the sustained self-reflection and emotional intelligence that makes this book outstanding. He has witnessed how anger, as a default feeling in his community, entrenches positions and limits people’s willingness and ability to understand themselves and listen to others. McGarvey tells how his own story exemplifies this attitude and his account of his awakening is fascinating… show more.

In this 2018 Orwell Prize winner, McGarvey takes a deep dive into working-class culture (notably in Glasgow) but his themes of social injustice, communities devastated by economic disparity, and systematic poverty are universal. Poverty Safari excavates with forensic precision what it’s like to be working class in a world of vast social, economic, and cultural inequality. This book - part memoir part polemic - is raw, powerful, and unflinching.