65 Books Like Making a Real Killing

This gripping, cinematic tale of a watershed workplace disaster immerses you in the grueling, gritty world of young immigrant – Jewish and Italian – women workers in early-20th century New York City. The horrific fire in a shirt-waist factory saw workers jumping to their deaths, revealing that “a huge and vulnerable world existed far above the street.” It created a cauldron of outrage and empathy, bare-knuckle politics, and leftist ideology leading to reform. You most remember the gumption and survival instinct of these young women, far from home without even the right to vote, coming together in the Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union and making history.

In the early 1990s, Decatur, Illinois was a “time-battered” town, in the words of indefatigable labor journalist Steve Franklin, where factories hunkered amid grungy bars, a forlorn old motel, and prison. Unions had largely capitulated to global capital, as wages and jobs were slashed across the industrial heartland and families suffered in silence. In Decatur workers made a last stand at three eponymous employers – Firestone, Staley, and Caterpillar. Franklin – at the Chicago Tribune, one of the last labor journalists nationwide -- brings us evocatively to the front lines of these three strikes, weaving accessible socioeconomic analysis through the landscape of a bittersweet Bruce Springsteen song.

The name “Detroit” too often conjures images of poverty-porn: gorgeously crumbling buildings, post-apocalyptic urban decay, lost souls wandering cracked streets. Detroit: I Do Mind Dying shatters this image with unfettered energy. It chronicles the League of Revolutionary Black Workers in the auto plants of the 1960s-1970s, a refreshing reminder of the power of intersectional labor organizing; a raw look at the racism of the mainstream labor movement; and a very human chronicle of the struggles and flaws of courageous everyday workers at this critical time and place in history.

Despite so much depressing evidence to the contrary, professor Robert Ovetz argues that global workers' struggle is being reborn from the ashes of the old trade union movement. In this collection, international labor experts explain how Argentine truckers, Puerto Rican teachers, Chinese migrant laborers, Turkish delivery drivers, and other workers are analyzing geopolitical dynamics and seizing the levers of power in new and effective ways. Packed with analysis and charts like the “Credible Strike Threats Scorecard,” this is a gold mine for labor geeks who refuse to give up hope of overturning global capitalism.

Iverson’s memoir mirrors my own experience of growing up near nuclear weapons sites, only to find out later the dangers we were exposed to as children.

Iverson grew up near the Rocky Flats plant outside of Denver. It machined plutonium produced at Hanford into the cores of U.S. nuclear weapons. As she dug into the secret history of Rocky Flats, she uncovers family secrets—eerily like my own memoir. 

This book takes me to a part of the country I never wanted to see, introducing me to people I never wanted to meet. I’d probably shake my head driving by their trailers and shacks. But rendered in these pages, without judgment, the author has made it impossible for me not to “see” these folks who’ve chosen to live off the grid and to empathize with the choices and circumstances that have brought them here.

I’ve driven across the country several times before, on northern routes and southern routes, generally moving from one historic destination to the next. In this remarkable chronicle of American outsiders, I’m happy to have been shown something entirely unexpected: a very different picture of “America the Beautiful.”

Fajardo-Anstine does many remarkable things in Woman of Light, but three of those things just blew me away. First, she anchors the novel in a city (Denver, 1930s). Cities are the forgotten truth of the American West, and they shouldn’t be. Second, she brings to life the “Lost Territories,” the Hispanic/Indigenous lands of southern Colorado and northern New Mexico, long-cherished homes overrun by white settlement in the 19th century. Third, she builds the entire compelling narrative around a suite of Chicana/Indigenous women—and they are the strongest, liveliest characters you’ll ever meet. They work, they love, they breathe loyalty, they seek justice. This novel is a stylish eye-opener from start to finish. And it’ll forever change what you think you know about the region.

I love learning about people who dedicate themselves to helping others, and the eagerness of these two young ladies to share knowledge is so inspiring! I really like the personal connections in this book too – the author is writing about her own grandmother.

Dorothy Woodruff and Rosamond Underwood grew up in wealthy families, graduated from college, and wanted to be helpful and useful to people outside their own circles. So, they answered an advertisement for teachers at a new school in a rural Colorado community. Though neither of them had any teaching experience or training, off they went, armed only with their intelligence, determination, and willingness to do hard work. 

Perhaps the most widespread engagement by ordinary citizens in political relations is with the education of their children. School boards are increasingly regarded as a site of passionate political contest over what our children will learn, especially when it comes to learning history and its consequences for their understanding of their community and nation. Challenges of Ordinary Democracy reports on three years in the life of a local school board. The voices of administrators, teachers, parents, and the press are examined when dissent takes center stage in the school board’s deliberations. Given that ordinary citizens will disagree, often vehemently, Tracy asks us to consider the parameters of reasonable hostility and why reasonable hostility is important for the voices of ordinary citizens to matter in deciding issues that affect their lives.  

I love happy endings and that’s why I read romance—Western romance from simpler, not easier, times. There is always a struggle, an honest hero who is not afraid to fight for what is right and protect the helpless, and a woman who doesn’t want the rugged cowboy/lawman/rancher telling her what she can or cannot do. They are a perfect match but it takes at least one of them a while to figure it out.

That’s exactly what I found in Tamera Alexander’s From a Distance. I was repeatedly startled, anxious, sympathetic, and angry. Alexander is masterful at interlacing passion, promise, and pain in a way that ties up even unexpected loose ends. And I must say, this book had the best ending of all!