First-Generation College Students

Vividly depicts the colorful, sometimes disreputable, inhabitants of a run-down area in Monterey, California

From the author of 1984, the classic semi-autobiographical story about the adventures of a penniless British writer in two cities. Down and Out in Paris and London follows the journey of a writer among the down-and-out in two great cities. Without self-pity and often with humor, this novel is Orwell at his finest--a sobering, truthful protrayal of poverty and society.

Traces the migration of an Oklahoma Dust Bowl family to California and their subsequent hardships as migrant farm workers.

For nearly a century, the original version of Upton Sinclair's classic novel has remained almost entirely unknown. When it was published in serial form in 1905, it was a full third longer than the censored, commercial edition published in book form the following year. That expurgated commercial edition edited out much of the ethnic flavor of the original, as well as some of the goriest descriptions of the meat-packing industry and much of Sinclair's most pointed social and political commentary.

This edition of Life in the Iron Mills opens up the novella to the consideration of a range of social and cultural issues within the ninteenth century through a broad selection of historical and cultural documents that focus on topics such as work and social class, moral and social reform, and the development of American art and industry.

Right from the start, Bigger Thomas had been headed for jail. It could have been for assault or petty larceny; by chance, it was for murder and rape. Native Son tells the story of this young black man caught in a downward spiral after he kills a young white woman in a brief moment of panic. Set in Chicago in the 1930s, Richard Wright's powerful novel is an unsparing reflection on the poverty and feelings of hopelessness experienced by people in inner cities across the country and of what it means to be black in America.