UP - United Professionals

Share this on:

Share |

BookShelf

Our list of relevant books written or recommended by UP members and directors.

Bright-sided

Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America

A sharp-witted knockdown of America’s love affair with positive thinking and an urgent call for a new commitment to realism

Americans are a “positive” people—cheerful, optimistic, and upbeat: this is our reputation as well as our self-image. But more than a temperament, being positive, we are told, is the key to success and prosperity.



Bait and Switch

by Barbara Ehrenreich

Bait and Switch highlights the people who’ve
done everything right — gotten college degrees,
developed marketable skills, and built up impressive
resumés — yet have become repeatedly vulnerable to
financial disaster, and not simply due to the
vagaries of the business cycle.
Order from Powells.com


Fired!: Tales of the Canned, Canceled, Downsized, and Dismissed

by Annabelle Gurwitch

A collection of hilarious but true tales from people who’ve all gotten the ax, the boot, or been canned at some point in their lives.
Order from Powells.com


Are There Any Good Jobs Left?: Career Management in the Age of the Disposable Worker

by R. William Holland

This book is for and about the millions of people who are between jobs (code for out of work), have been between jobs, or know of someone who has been.

Order from Powells.com


Strapped: Why America’s 20- and 30-Somethings Can’t
Get Ahead

by Tamara Draut

For the 60 percent of people aged 18-34 who find
themselves consistently behind the financial eight
ball, Strapped offers a groundbreaking look
at the new obstacle course facing young adults as
they try to build careers, buy homes, and start
families.

Order from Powells.com


The Culture of the New Capitalism
(currently not available as a premium member benefit)

by Richard Sennett

Sennett surveys major differences between earlier
forms of industrial capitalism and the ever more
mutable version of capitalism that is taking its
place. He shows how these changes affect everyday
life and what he calls ‘the specter of uselessness’
that haunts professionals as well as manual workers.

Order from Powells.com



All Together Now: Common Sense for a Fair Economy

by Jared Bernstein

As the new century unfolds, we face prodigious
economic, but thus far the
dominant vision has failed to develop a hopeful narrative about how these challenges can be
met in way that uplifts the majority.  This is
an alternative
vision with a simple message: we’re all in this
together.
Order from Powells.com

A Country that Works cover A Country that Works

by Andy Stern

Today’s average American household is deeply in debt, has set aside inadequate retirement savings, and may or may not have health insurance. More than ever, we are living paycheck to paycheck and too many of us are only one illness or accident away from bankruptcy. SEIU President Andy Stern examines these realities and presents his ideas for reforming our political and social systems to meet the 21st century needs of everyday working Americans.

Order from Powells.com

A Country that Works cover SOLIDARITY DIVIDED: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path toward Social Justice

Bill Fletcher, Jr. and Fernando Gapasin

Candid, incisive, and accessible, Solidarity Divided is a critical examination of labor’s current crisis and a plan for a bold new way forward into the twenty-first century. Bill Fletcher and Fernando Gapasin offer a remarkable mix of vivid history and probing analysis. They chart changes in U.S. manufacturing, examine the onslaught of globalization, consider the influence of the environment on labor, and provide the first broad analysis of the fallout from the 2000 and 2004 elections on the U.S. labor movement.

Order from Powells.com

A Country that Works cover High Wire: The Precarious Financial Lives of American Families

Peter Gosselin

The U.S. economy is wrapping up twenty-five years of some of the strongest, smoothest growth in its history-a performance so sweet economists have given it a name: “the Great Moderation.” So why have so many of us, even those making hundreds of thousands of dollars, arrived at the new century with a gnawing sense that events are moving against our families and ourselves? Drawing on interviews with hundreds of Americans and new statistics he developed, Peter Gosselin traces a quarter-century shift of economic risk from the broad shoulders of business and government to the backs of working people.

Peter Gosselin is national economics correspondent for the Los Angeles Times in the Washington bureau and isa visiting fellow at the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C.

Order from Powells.com

A Country that Works cover Crunch: Why Do I Feel So Squeezed (And Other Unsolved Economic Mysteries)

Jared Bernstein

Is Social Security really going bust, and what does that mean to me? If I hire an immigrant, am I hurting a native-born worker? How much can presidents really affect economic outcomes? Why does the stock market go up when employment declines? What’s a “living wage?” Why do I feel so squeezed?

If you’d like to know the answers to these questions, premier economist Jared Bernstein is here to help. In “Crunch” he answers these as well as dozens of others he has fielded from working Americans by email, on blogs, and at events where he speaks. Chances are if there’s a stumper you’ve always wanted to ask an economist, it’s solved in this book.

Jared Bernstein is a senior economist at the Economic PolicyInstitute.

Order from Powells.com

A Country that Works cover The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker

Steven Greenhouse

“Steve Greenhouse has written the essential economic book for 2008. Long before most analysts noticed the downturn, Greenhouse was reporting how troubled our economy looked from the bottom-up. A hugely talented reporter with a passion for justice, a shrewd student of the new economy and a brilliant guide to the contemporary labor movement, Greenhouse writes with clarity, energy and grace.”—E. J. Dionne Jr.

Steven Greenhouse is the labor and workplace reporter for the New York Times and is one of the few remaining full-time labor reporters in the country.

Order from Powells.com

Reclaiming the Ivory Tower cover Reclaiming the Ivory Tower: Organizing Adjuncts to Change Higher Education

Joe Berry

Reclaiming the Ivory Tower examines the situation of adjunct professors in U.S. higher education today, describes the process of organizing them to improve their conditions of work, and puts forward an agenda around which adjunct labor can mobilize and transform the universities.

Joe Berry teaches labor education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and chairs the Chicago Coalition of Contingent Academic Labor.

Order from Powells.com

Access to Unemployment benefits cover Access to Unemployment Insurance Benefits for Contingent Faculty: A manual for applicants and a strategy to gain full rights to benefits

Joe Berry, Helena Worthen, and Beverly Stewart

Read more and download

Unemployed title Unemployed: A Memoir

Reginald L. Goodwin

A downsized engineer recounts his life growing up in an urban ghetto juxtaposed at midlife with the loss of his career and the pursuit of the American Dream.

Reginald Goodwin is an expert on unemployment. Three years and eleven months to be exact. Laid off from his position in the semiconductor industry as a Senior Product Engineer at the birth of a spin-off company, Reggie went through a dark time of denial, anger, despair; self-doubt and finally: blogging!

Read more

Saving is for Suckers SAVING Is for Suckers

Unless You’re Spending On Purpose*

Bill Mackay

Every dollar you save carries a liability as the government prints more and more money to reverse the greatest financial crisis of a generation.

Protect your hard-earned income from inflation by leveraging your most responsive lifestyle-creating asset—your spending! This is a radical twist on budgeting based on spending your way to living your dreams (not saving as others dutifully counsel). This is your insurance for uncertain times.

Spending On Purpose* is the only strategy that defends against inflation or deflation and gives you a relevant new way to manage the credit-based consumption your lifestyle (and our economy!) depends on.
www.billmackay.net

Powells contributes a small commission to UP for each book sold through our site. We encourage you to order any of these books directly from Powells.com.


© Copyright 2009 United Professionals
Contact Us