This Labor Day, we turned to our Lit Society community and tapped into its broad, deep well of knowledge and reading experience. We found two socially minded members, Lauren Roland and Amanda Hart, whose recommendations explore work, class, race, poverty, and the systems that shape American life.
The books they selected look at labor from different angles—the daily realities of low-wage work, the fight for worker protections, the long shadow of class mobility, the economic forces behind migration and housing instability, and the policies that determine who is afforded a real safety net. Read more about what Lauren and Amanda have to say about these recommendations—and the critical insights they offer—below.
1. On The Clock by Emily Guendelsberger
Recommended by Lauren Roland
Guendelsberger takes a series of difficult, low-paid jobs in this book, including work at a call center, an Amazon warehouse, and McDonald’s. She exposes—or perhaps confirms—the conditions these employees face and how dehumanizing they can be. You’ll read things you already know about service work, like the fact that it is underpaid, as well as things you may not have heard before, like call centers timing bathroom breaks down to the second.
2. A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn
Recommended by Amanda Hart
American history told from the perspectives of workers, women, Native Americans, enslaved people, and other groups often overlooked, A People’s History of the United States explores the lives of workers, women, enslaved people, Native Americans, immigrants, and activists. Seeing history through their experiences gives you a broader understanding of how the United States developed as a new nation.
3. FDR by Jean Edward Smith
Recommended by Lauren Roland
I want to leave you with this quote from FDR from 1937: “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little… I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.” I think this quote speaks for itself. Nearly 90 years later and we’re still in the same boat. FDR realized the people of America needed a safety net and worked to create one. This all-encompassing biography—over 500 pages—spares no detail, even the not-so-good things FDR did in office.
4. The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson
Recommended by Amanda Hart
The Warmth of Other Suns explores the Great Migration and the ways this movement reshaped America. Wilkerson follows the lives of three Black Americans who left the Jim Crow South for the North and West in search of greater freedom, safety, and opportunity. It reads like a novel because it follows the lives of real people. I gained a personal understanding of how the Great Migration reshaped modern America and how the search for better work and greater opportunity was deeply connected to the search for freedom.
5. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
Recommended by Amanda Hart
This book provides historical context for the ways the criminal justice system has shaped racial inequality in the United States. It is an essential Labor Day-adjacent read because work is not only about having a job. It is also about whether people are granted access to work, stability, citizenship, and a future after contact with the criminal legal system. Many readers say the book changed the way they think about mass incarceration and criminal justice. Even readers who disagree with some of Alexander’s conclusions find it valuable for the important questions it raises and the deeper discussion it encourages.
6. The Melancholia of Class by Cynthia Cruz
Recommended by Lauren Roland
A beautifully written book about class mobility, The Melancholia of Class explores the “melancholy” of leaving a working-class background behind to enter the middle and upper classes. Cruz argues that working-class people are often made to feel invisible, hidden in the shadows of the middle class. This book advocates for uplifting working-class identity and empowering those who hold it.
7. How the Other Half Eats by Priya Fielding-Singh
Recommended by Lauren Roland
Priya Fielding-Singh spends the majority of this book following four families of various income levels. She wants to understand how income and class status affect the way people eat. What she discovers is not only that income affects the quality of the food we eat (of course!) but also our cultures. She challenges the idea that food deserts are the sole cause of nutritional deficits; the issue is much deeper than that. If you love food like me and cherish the time around a table, eating and talking with the people you love, this book will change your perspective on the value of food itself.
It's a valuable Labor Day choice because wages determine far more than whether a bill gets paid. They shape family life, the choices people can make, and whether our meals can be a source of pleasure rather than worry.
8. The Injustice of Place: Uncovering the Legacy of Poverty in America by H. Luke Shaefer, Kathryn Edin, and Timothy J. Nelson
Recommended by Lauren Roland
We often hear about poverty in major cities, where it is more visible to the naked eye. In this book, however, sociologists and public policy experts Shaefer, Edin, and Nelson argue that the most disadvantaged places are rural, not urban. Using places like Appalachia and the Deep South, Edin describes how systemic racism and policy failures have created deep poverty.
9. When We Walk By by Donald W. Burnes and Kevin Adler
Recommended by Lauren Roland
When We Walk By: Forgotten Humanity, Broken Systems, and the Role We Can Each Play in Ending Homelessness in America inspired me to volunteer with Kevin Adler’s nonprofit, Miracle Messages, where you can become a phone buddy via their Miracle Friends program, for someone experiencing housing instability. The organization aims to challenge the stereotype of what we think of when we hear “homeless.” Adler has spent time talking with people living on the street and, in this book, humanizes the very neighbors we walk by each and every day.
10. The Privatization of Everything by Donald Cohen and Allen Mikaelian
Recommended by Lauren Roland
If we go back to the days of our dear friend FDR, we were sort of heading in a direction where the government was providing crucial services for citizens. At some point (cough, Reagan era, cough), the government decided they didn’t want to be in the business of, you know, using tax dollars to help citizens. Federal assistance for housing, mental health, etc. was severely cut in the 1980s. Cohen and Mikaelian describe the following decades and how constant defunding of public services diminishes our democracy and worsens inequality. The author duo also argue that when the government steps out of the picture, private enterprises make a profit—see for-profit prisons, for example.
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