Free Downloads Behind The Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, And Hope In A Mumbai Undercity
In this brilliant, breathtaking book by Pulitzer Prize winner Katherine Boo, a bewildering age of global change and inequality is made human through the dramatic story of families striving toward a better life in Annawadi, a makeshift settlement in the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport. As India starts to prosper, the residents of Annawadi are electric with hope. Abdul, an enterprising teenager, sees “a fortune beyond counting” in the recyclable garbage that richer people throw away. Meanwhile Asha, a woman of formidable ambition, has identified a shadier route to the middle class. With a little luck, her beautiful daughter, Annawadi’s “most-everything girl,” might become its first female college graduate. And even the poorest children, like the young thief Kalu, feel themselves inching closer to their dreams. But then Abdul is falsely accused in a shocking tragedy; terror and global recession rock the city; and suppressed tensions over religion, caste, sex, power, and economic envy turn brutal. With intelligence, humor, and deep insight into what connects people to one another in an era of tumultuous change, Behind the Beautiful Forevers, based on years of uncompromising reporting, carries the reader headlong into one of the twenty-first century’s hidden worlds—and into the hearts of families impossible to forget. Winner of the National Book Award | The PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award | The Los Angeles Times Book Prize | The American Academy of Arts and Letters Award | The New York Public Library’s Helen Bernstein Book Award NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times • The Washington Post • O: The Oprah Magazine • USA Today • New York • The Miami Herald • San Francisco Chronicle • Newsday NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New Yorker • People • Entertainment Weekly • The Wall Street Journal • The Boston Globe • The Economist • Financial Times • Newsweek/The Daily Beast • Foreign Policy • The Seattle Times • The Nation • St. Louis Post-Dispatch • The Denver Post • Minneapolis Star Tribune • Salon • The Plain Dealer • The Week • Kansas City Star • Slate • Time Out New York • Publishers Weekly NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “A book of extraordinary intelligence [and] humanity . . . beyond groundbreaking.”—Junot Díaz, The New York Times Book Review “Reported like Watergate, written like Great Expectations, and handily the best international nonfiction in years.”—New York“This book is both a tour de force of social justice reportage and a literary masterpiece.”—Judges’ Citation for the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award “[A] landmark book.”—The Wall Street Journal “A triumph of a book.”—Amartya Sen “There are books that change the way you feel and see; this is one of them.”—Adrian Nicole LeBlanc “[A] stunning piece of narrative nonfiction . . . [Katherine] Boo’s prose is electric.”—O: The Oprah Magazine “Inspiring, and irresistible . . . Boo’s extraordinary achievement is twofold. She shows us how people in the most desperate circumstances can find the resilience to hang on to their humanity. Just as important, she makes us care.”—People
Hardcover: 256 pages
Publisher: Random House; 1st edition (February 7, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 9781400067558
ISBN-13: 978-1400067558
ASIN: 1400067553
Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 1.1 x 9.5 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1,958 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #56,349 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #21 in Books > History > Asia > India #26 in Books > Textbooks > Humanities > History > Asia #71 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Poverty
"Embedded journalism" is often applied only to military journalists, but it's not a new style at all. Author Katherine Boo basically embedded herself in this slum of Mumbai, India, so readers could see, hear, and - to a degree - understand the lives of the residents. Her 'characters' face daily lives that I don't think an American could deal with for five minutes.The book succeeds because it lacks sympathy - which is a good thing. The girls, boys, men, women are fully-realized people, not cariactures of "poor, pathetic Indians." In an author's Q+A, Boo says conveying that was important to her, and she did succeed. So the narrative is harsh, depressing, uncompromising, and sad - but it's uplifting, because the girls, boys, and adults in Boo's book are going to keep on living the best they can. They aren't begging for my or your help - they're getting up in the morning and doing what they can do to make it through each day, though some don't make it. I felt like I learned about their individual stories and lives, and about the Mumbai slums - a place I'll never see - at least a little bit, and without being preached at.The details came from Boo's close observations of events she witnessed, and hundreds of interviews after the fact. An argument could be made, "how reliable could interviews with slumdwellers be?" Well, how reliable are you, when somebody asks about your life? People are people, and I'm sure once they got to used to Boo's presence, they liked having somebody new to talk to. I've embedded with the military as a journalist, and after a few days even soldiers who dislike the media stop seeing reporters as the "press," and as just another guy. I'm sure it was the same here.
The interwoven stories of some of the 335 families in a tiny half-acre slum surrounded by luxury hotels at Mumbai's international airport reach out and grab the reader and pull you right in for a ride that I found to be intense and at times very painful. The author did intensive years-long research, interviewing,videotaping, finding records, and hanging around until she was just part ofthe environment. She makes herself invisible, not injecting her presence,which I really enjoyed. Her point of view is clear, however.The people in these slums are mostly from other states in Indiabesides Maharasthra, where Bombay is located, and many are either of theuntouchable caste, or Muslim. Rather than forming a community to tryto fight to survive and prosper, the adults fight among themselves,trying to cheat and steal from each other. The young people seem lessvicious and corrupt, as they have more hope and less understanding ofhow calamities can come out of nowhere, just as things seem to begetting better, and tear everything down again. The police, the localgovernment, and the poor people are alike in their corruption,demanding money from the desperate to fix things. The lack ofcompassion and any sense of justice was distressing. The conditionof the women and girls was horrible. A serial killer may have beenpicking off garbage scavenger boys, but the police record theirdeaths as being from illness, so they don't have to bother lookingfor a killer.Children are not allowed by law to work, even if that's the only way they caneat. The law is only enforced as a way for the police to extort moneyfrom them.
Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity Lrg Rep Edition by Boo, Katherine published by Large Print Press (2013) Paperback Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity J. D. Robb CD Collection 2: Rapture in Death, Ceremony in Death, Vengeance in Death (In Death Series) Blessed with a Lifetime of Forevers: A Christian Romance Story House Beautiful The Home Book: Creating a Beautiful Home of Your Own (House Beautiful Series) Left Behind Series Prequel Set (The Rising, Anarchist is Born Before they were Left Behind/ The Regime, Evil Advances Before they were Left Behind/ The Rapture,In the Twinkling of an Eye Countdown to the Earth's Last Days) Life After Death and Modern Day Miracles: Over 50 True Accounts of Life After Death, Modern Miracles, and Angelic Visitations The Death of Money: How to Survive in Economic Collapse and to Start a New Debt Free Life (dollar collapse, prepping, death of dollar, debt free, how to ... how to make money online, shtf Book 1) Violins of Hope: Violins of the Holocaust--Instruments of Hope and Liberation in Mankind's Darkest Hour Hope For Fitzwilliam (Hope Series Trilogy Book 2) Naming the Child: Hope-Filled Reflections on Miscarriage, Stillbirth, and Infant Death Circle of Hope: A Child Rescued by Love from a Medical Death Sentence Ben Behind His Voices: One Family's Journey from the Chaos of Schizophrenia to Hope A Coloring Book for Adults and Children - Secret Village: Extra Large Edition - Beautiful Underground Houses, Secret Cottages and Garden Hiding Places (The Most Beautiful Coloring Books) (Volume 1) The Most Beautiful Villages and Towns of the Pacific Northwest (The Most Beautiful Villages) Beautiful Me: Finding Personal Strength & Self Acceptance (Essential Health: Strong Beautiful Girls) The Most Beautiful Country Towns of Tuscany (Most Beautiful Villages Series) The Most Beautiful Country Towns of England (Most Beautiful Villages Series) Beautiful LEGO 2: Dark (Beautiful LEGO Series) Beautiful LEGO (Beautiful LEGO Series)
