History · Similar reads
Books like The Road to Wigan Pier
The best books like The Road to Wigan Pier are A People's History of the United States, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, and Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis. The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell is about working class, poverty, class consciousness. If that's what drew you in, here are 12 books that share its DNA — each summarized on Superbook, and ready to chat with in the app.
- A People's History of the United States
01
A People's History of the United States
Howard Zinn · History
Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, first published in 1980, retells American history from the perspective of those who rarely appear in conventional textbooks: Native Americans, enslaved people, industrial workers, women, immigrants, and dissidents of various kinds.
A kindred history read.
Read the summary → - Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City
02
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City
Matthew Desmond · History
Evicted is Matthew Desmond's account of eight Milwaukee families — tenants and landlords — living through the American housing crisis at its most basic level: the cycle of eviction.
Both dig into poverty.
Read the summary → - Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
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Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
J. D. Vance · Memoir
Hillbilly Elegy is J.
A kindred history read.
Read the summary → - Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right
04
Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right
Arlie Russell Hochschild · Politics
Strangers in Their Own Land is Arlie Russell Hochschild's attempt to understand the American Right from the inside — specifically, why working-class white Louisianans who live in a state ravaged by the petrochemical industry vote for politicians who oppose the regulations that might clean it up.
A kindred history read.
Read the summary → - Poverty, by America
05
Matthew Desmond · Economics
Poverty, by America is Matthew Desmond's follow-up to Evicted, and it makes a more explicit and polemical argument: poverty in the United States is not a natural condition or a problem of insufficient resources.
Both dig into poverty.
Read the summary → - Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity
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Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity
Katherine Boo · History
Behind the Beautiful Forevers is Katherine Boo's account of three years spent in Annawadi, a Mumbai slum built on reclaimed land next to the international airport.
Both dig into poverty.
Read the summary → - Angela's Ashes
07
Frank McCourt · Memoir
Angela's Ashes is Frank McCourt's memoir of a catastrophically impoverished Irish Catholic childhood, first in Brooklyn and then in Limerick, during the 1930s and 1940s.
Both dig into poverty.
Read the summary → - Finding Me: A Memoir
08
Viola Davis · Memoir
Finding Me is Viola Davis's account of her childhood in extreme poverty in Central Falls, Rhode Island, and her path from that starting point to becoming one of the most decorated actors in the history of American theater and film.
Both dig into poverty.
Read the summary → - Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption
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Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption
Bryan Stevenson · Memoir
Bryan Stevenson's memoir of his career as a capital defense attorney in Alabama, and specifically of his years working on the case of Walter McMillian — a Black man wrongly convicted of murder and sentenced to death in Monroe County, Alabama — is simultaneously a riveting legal narrative and a sustained moral argument about the American criminal justice system's treatment of the poor and of Black defendants.
Both dig into poverty.
Read the summary → - Mountains Beyond Mountains
10
Tracy Kidder · Biography
Tracy Kidder's portrait of Paul Farmer — the physician and anthropologist who co-founded Partners in Health and spent decades treating tuberculosis, AIDS, and cholera in rural Haiti and among the poorest communities of the world — is one of the most compelling biographies of a contemporary American figure.
Both dig into poverty.
Read the summary → - Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much
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Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much
Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir · Psychology
Scarcity is Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir's argument that the experience of having too little — of any resource — produces a predictable cognitive syndrome with consequences that extend far beyond the original deficit.
Both dig into poverty.
Read the summary → - The Divide
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Jason Hickel · Economics
The Divide is Jason Hickel's argument that global poverty is not a natural condition that development has failed to fully remedy, but a product of policies — colonial extraction, debt regimes, trade rules, and structural adjustment — that wealthy countries have imposed on poor ones.
Both dig into poverty.
Read the summary →
Books like The Road to Wigan Pier: quick answers
What are the best books like The Road to Wigan Pier?
The best books like The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell are A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J. D. Vance, Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right by Arlie Russell Hochschild, Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond, plus 7 more below. Each was chosen for themes it shares with The Road to Wigan Pier, such as working class, poverty, class consciousness.
What should I read after The Road to Wigan Pier?
A natural next read after The Road to Wigan Pier is A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn. A kindred history read. Other strong choices are Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J. D. Vance, Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right by Arlie Russell Hochschild.
What books are similar to The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell?
The Road to Wigan Pier centers on working class, poverty, class consciousness. Books with a similar feel include A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J. D. Vance, Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right by Arlie Russell Hochschild, Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond, Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo — all free to read and chat with on Superbook.
