18 books like Smoky crusade
A Dream of John Ball / A king's Lesson
The novel describes a dream and time travel encounter between the medieval and modern worlds, thus contrasting the ethics of medieval and contemporary culture. A time-traveller tells Ball of the decline of feudalism and the rise of the Industrial Revolution. A Dream of John Ball (1888) is a novel about the English peasants' revolt of 1381. It features the rebel priest John Ball, who appeared to…
Shares: Labor, Working class, History
Le droit à la paresse
The Right to be Lazy is an essay by Cuban-born French revolutionary Marxist Paul Lafargue, written from his London exile in 1880. The essay polemicizes heavily against then-contemporary liberal, conservative, Christian and even socialist ideas of work. Lafargue criticizes these ideas from a Marxist perspective as dogmatic and ultimately false by portraying the degeneration and enslavement of…
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Autobiography
“This story of the great financier’s childhood in Scotland and his early years and final success in America is a revelation of his geniality, indomitable cheerfulness, canny common sense, and idealism.”
— A.L.A. Catalog 1926
“Interesting as a frank and sincere recital of the early struggles and later successes of the well-known millionaire. Contains reminiscences of several noted persons,…
Shares: Working class, Biography & Memoir
The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner
A short story collection featuring, in the title story, one of Sillitoe’s very best. The story concerns a teenaged boy from a poor working class background who is sent to a borstal for robbery and takes up long-distance running as a way of temporarily escaping from both his present situation and his bleak future prospects. Seeing his natural ability the institution Governor enters him into a race…
Shares: Working class, Social life and customs
Torches Together
Not many people talk about "joy" these days. Emmy Arnold's memoir radiates just that - an enthusiasm for life and an unflagging optimism grounded in faith. In a genre awash in sordid sex and dysfunctional relationships, she offers a refreshing account of a hard life lived victoriously, of people brought together, despite their own weakness and turbulent times, to experience new levels of freedom,…
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The Jungle
Upton Sinclair's dramatic and deeply moving story exposed the brutal conditions in the Chicago stockyards at the turn of the nineteenth century and brought into sharp moral focus the appalling odds against which immigrants and other working people struggled for their share of the American dream. Denounced by the conservative press as an un-American libel on the meatpacking industry, the book was…
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Radical Soldier's Tale
First published in 1988, The Radical Soldier’s Tale is both an introduction to and a transcript of his ‘Memoirs’, written after his retirement in 1881. In this autobiography he presents his life as a soldier during the Sikh Wars, his life as a policeman, and the ideologies which divided people from each other in the societies he had known and read about. Carolyn Steedman introduces the ‘Memoirs’…
Shares: Working class, Biography & Memoir, History
Our Man in Havana
Wormold's daughter had reached an expensive age - so he accepted a mysterious Englishman's offer of extra income. All he has to do is run agents, file reports, and spy. But his fake reports have an alarming tendency to come true.
Shares: Working class, History
Studs Lonigan
[William V. Lipton][1] from Ann Arbor, MI says:
"This is both a coming-of-age novel and a social history. Set during the 1920s and 1930s, it follows Studs as he grows through his teen years in Chicago. It shows the influences on urban children, the stresses on families and the American society during that time. The characters and dialogue are captivating." ([on Flashlight Worthy][2])
[1]:…
Shares: Working class, History
Mary Barton
Mary Barton, the daughter of disillusioned trade unionist, rejects her working-class lover Jem Wilson in the hope of marrying Henry Carson, the mill owner's son, and making a better life for herself and her father. But when Henry is shot down in the street and Jem becomes the main suspect, Mary finds herself painfully torn between the two men. Through Mary's dilemma, and the moving portrayal of…
Shares: Working class, Social life and customs
Frontier Stories
Just where the red track of the Los Gatos road streams on and upward like the sinuous trail of a fiery rocket until it is extinguished in the blue shadows of the Coast Range, there is an embayed terrace near the summit, hedged by dwarf firs. At every bend of the heat-laden road the eye rested upon it wistfully; all along the flank of the mountain, which seemed to pant and quiver in the oven-like…
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The Library of American Biography
This book itself comprises and also is a collection of letters by varied political and social personalities in reference with the American Revolution. These letters are also concerned with the foreign relations of United States during the whole revolution. Also, it reflects the political framing in the United States.
Shares: Biography & Memoir
A history of autobiography in antiquity
This is Volume IV of 9 historical works from the International Library of Sociology. This is part one of two looking at the history of the autobiography. Appearing in isolation as they do, autobiographies demand for their description and appreciation, a comprehensive view of the development of the human mind. This volume covers the conception and the origin of autobiography, looking at ancient…
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Mr. Nice
This candid crime memoir by Britain's most famous drug baron is "frequently hilarious, occasionally sad, and often surreal" (GQ).
 
During the mid-1980s Howard Marks had 43 aliases, 89 phone lines, and owned 25 companies throughout the world. From local bars to recording studios to offshore banks—all of his "businesses" were in fact money laundering vehicles serving his one true business:…
Shares: Biography & Memoir
Autobiography
Saint Augustine of Hippo wrote ''Confessions'', the first Western autobiography ever written, around AD 400. Portrait by Philippe de Champaigne, 17th century.]]
Shares: Biography & Memoir
Two Sisters
Originally published in 1970 this fairly short novel (174 pages) contains, according to the blurb on the dust jacket of the first edition, “Gore Vidal’s singular speculations on love, sex, death, literature and politics.”
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Missing Persons
Auto/biography is currently one of the most popular literary genres, widely supposed to illuminate the study of the individual and his or her personal circumstances. Missing Persons suggests that auto/biography is, in fact, based on fictions, both about the person and about what it is possible to know about any one individual.
Organised into chapters which consider particular kinds of…
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Marse Henry : An Autobiography
"Marse Henry: An Autobiography" is a fascinating memoir by Henry Watterson, a prominent American journalist, and editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal. The book details Watterson's life from his birth in Kentucky in 1840 to his rise as a prominent political figure and newspaper editor in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Watterson's memoir is full of vivid anecdotes and colorful…
Shares: Biography & Memoir