Common Reader

I am on a committee to select a common reader for the TAMU-T First Year Experience for next year. The theme is economic opportunity or maybe the lack thereof.

These books are scary and show the inequality in America and in the world in some cases. I think everybody should read one of these. I would suggest Robert Reich, Robert Putnam, or David Shipler for starters. Then read Barbara Ehrenreich. All are good sources. 

We are selecting from these books:

• Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America (Barbara Ehrenreich)
• Poverty in America: A Handbook (John Iceland)
• Hidden America: From Coal Miners to Cowboys, an Extraordinary Exploration of the Unseen People Who Make This Country Work (Jeanne Marie Laskas)
• Scarcity: The New Science of Having Less and How It Defines Our Lives (Sendhil Mullainathan & Eldar Shafir)
• Our Kids – The American Dream in Crisis (Robert Putnam)
• Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future (Robert Reich)
• What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets (Michael Sandel)
• The Working Poor – Invisible in America (David Shipler)