Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, death, and hope in a Mumbai undercity
By Katherine Boo
Read by Sunil Malhotra
-
1 Format: Digital Download
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • NAMED ONE OF TIME’S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE “Inspiring . . . extraordinary . . . [Katherine Boo] 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 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 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 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 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
Learn More- Only $12.99/month gets you 1 Credit/month
- Cancel anytime
- Hate a book? Then we do too, and we'll exchange it.
Summary
Summary
A New York Times bestseller
A 2013 Pulitzer Prize Finalist for General Nonfiction
Winner of the 2012 National Book Award for Nonfiction
A Time Magazine Top 10 Book of the Decade in Nonfiction
Winner of the 2012 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Current Interest
A 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist
A 2012 Samuel Johnson Prize for Nonfiction Nominee
A 2012 Guardian First Book Award Finalist
A 2012 New York Times Book Review Top 10 Book of the Year
A 2012 USA Today Best Book for Nonfiction
A 2012 Wall Street Journal Best Book
A 2012 New Yorker’s Best Books
A 2012 Washington Post Top 10 Book for Nonfiction
A 2012 San Francisco Chronicle Best Book for Nonfiction
Winner of the 2012 Barnes & Noble Discover Award for Nonfiction
A 2012 People Magazine Best Book for Nonfiction
A 2012 Entertainment Weekly Best Book for Nonfiction
Newsday’s Favorite Books of the Year for Nonfiction, 2012
A 2012 Economist Best Book for Nonfiction
A 2012 Financial Times Best Book of the Year for Nonfiction
A 2012 Seattle Times Best Book for Nonfiction
A 2012 Salon Magazine Best Book
A 2012 Kansas City Star Top 100 Book for Nonfiction
A 2012 Slate Magazine Best Book for Nonfiction
A 2012 St. Louis Post-Dispatch Best Book
A 2012 Barnes & Noble Best Book for Nonfiction
A 2012 Publishers Weekly Best Book for Nonfiction
“Inspiring . . . extraordinary . . . [Katherine Boo] 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
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
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 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 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
Editorial Reviews
Editorial Reviews
Details
Details
Available Formats : | Digital Download |
Runtime: | 8.27 |
Audience: | Adult |
Language: | English |
To listen to this title you will need our latest app
Due to publishing rights this title requires DRM and can only be listened to in the Urban Audio Books app