Alex Kotlowitz's Books

An American Summer

Love and Death in Chicago

By: Alex Kotlowitz

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An American Summer

Love and Death in Chicago

By: Alex Kotlowitz

2020 J. ANTHONY LUKAS PRIZE WINNER From the bestselling author of There Are No Children Here, a richly textured, heartrending portrait of love and death in Chicago's most turbulent neighborhoods. The numbers are staggering: over the past twenty years in Chicago, 14,033 people have been killed and another roughly 60,000 wounded by gunfire. What does that do to the spirit of individuals and community? Drawing on his decades of experience, Alex Kotlowitz set out to chronicle one summer in the city, writing about individuals who have emerged from the violence and whose stories capture the capacity--and the breaking point--of the human heart and soul. The result is a spellbinding collection of deeply intimate profiles that upend what we think we know about gun violence in America. Among others, we meet a man who as a teenager killed a rival gang member and twenty years later is still trying to come to terms with what he's done; a devoted school social worker struggling with her favorite student, who refuses to give evidence in the shooting death of his best friend; the witness to a wrongful police shooting who can't shake what he has seen; and an aging former gang leader who builds a place of refuge for himself and his friends. Applying the close-up, empathic reporting that made There Are No Children Here a modern classic, Kotlowitz offers a piercingly honest portrait of a city in turmoil. These sketches of those left standing will get into your bones. This one summer will stay with you.

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306

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Anchor

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ISBN 10

0804170916

ISBN 13

9780804170918

The Spelling Bee

By: Alex Kotlowitz

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The Spelling Bee

By: Alex Kotlowitz

A selection from Alex Kotlowitz’s masterpiece of immersive reportage There Are No Children Here, the harrowing coming-of-age story of two children in Chicago’s Henry Horner Public Housing Complex. In “The Spelling Bee,” as Pharoah returns to school, his dreams come up against the realities of his neighborhood. Pharoah is small of stature, has a stutter, and frequently reads at night until his eyes hurt. He has his mother’s open and generous smile, and his father’s charm and keen intellect. As he enters fourth grade, he sets a solemn goal for himself: to become a spelling bee champion. Award-winning journalist Alex Kotlowitz follows Pharoah for two years, as he tries desperately to succeed at school while navigating the perils of his devastated neighborhood, a place marked by deep need and neglect, along with unrelenting violence. For Pharoah, spelling is just the beginning. This is a dramatic and groundbreaking portrait of poverty, the story of growing up in the other America. An eBook short.

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Vintage

Published Date

ISBN 10

110191033X

ISBN 13

9781101910337

The Other Side of the River

A Story of Two Towns, a Death, and America's Dilemma

By: Alex Kotlowitz

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The Other Side of the River

A Story of Two Towns, a Death, and America's Dilemma

By: Alex Kotlowitz

Bestselling author Alex Kotlowitz is one of this country's foremost writers on the ever explosive issue of race. In this gripping and ultimately profound book, Kotlowitz takes us to two towns in southern Michigan, St. Joseph and Benton Harbor, separated by the St. Joseph River. Geographically close, but worlds apart, they are a living metaphor for America's racial divisions: St. Joseph is a prosperous lakeshore community and ninety-five percent white, while Benton Harbor is impoverished and ninety-two percent black. When the body of a black teenaged boy from Benton Harbor is found in the river, unhealed wounds and suspicions between the two towns' populations surface as well. The investigation into the young man's death becomes, inevitably, a screen on which each town projects their resentments and fears. The Other Side of the River sensitively portrays the lives and hopes of the towns' citizens as they wrestle with this mystery--and reveals the attitudes and misperceptions that undermine race relations throughout America.

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337

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ISBN 10

0307814297

ISBN 13

9780307814296

There Are No Children Here

The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in The Other America (Helen Bernstein Book Award)

By: Alex Kotlowitz

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There Are No Children Here

The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in The Other America (Helen Bernstein Book Award)

By: Alex Kotlowitz

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A moving and powerful account by an acclaimed journalist that "informs the heart. [This] meticulous portrait of two boys in a Chicago housing project shows how much heroism is required to survive, let alone escape" (The New York Times). "Alex Kotlowitz joins the ranks of the important few writers on the subiect of urban poverty."—Chicago Tribune The story of two remarkable boys struggling to survive in Chicago's Henry Horner Homes, a public housing complex disfigured by crime and neglect.

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337

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ISBN 10

0307814289

ISBN 13

9780307814289

Never a City So Real

A Walk in Chicago

By: Alex Kotlowitz

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Never a City So Real

A Walk in Chicago

By: Alex Kotlowitz

This “clear-eyed” and “finely honed” account of an American city’s “mavericks” is filled with “captivating insights into Chicago history and culture” (Booklist). The acclaimed author of There Are No Children Here, which the New York Public Library named as one of the most important books of the twentieth century, takes us into the heart of Chicago by introducing us to some of the city’s most interesting, if not always celebrated, people. Chicago is one of America’s most iconic, historic, and fascinating cities, as well as a major travel destination. For Alex Kotlowitz, an accidental Chicagoan, it is the perfect perch from which to peer into America’s heart. Chicago, like America, is a kind of refuge for outsiders. It’s probably why Alex Kotlowitz found comfort there. He’s drawn to people on the outside who are trying to clean up—or at least make sense of—the mess on the inside. Perspective doesn’t come easy if you’re standing in the center. Never a City So Real is not so much a tour of a place as a chronicle of its soul, its lifeblood. It is a tour of the people of Chicago, who have been the author’s guides into this city’s—and in a broader sense, this country’s—heart. “Kotlowitz's characters—many of them throwbacks to the “rogues and roustabouts” who built the original pioneer town—evoke the character of his adopted city and, by inference, America itself, for he, like others before him, sees Chicago as this country's most representative city.” —The Washington Post

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166

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University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

022661915X

ISBN 13

9780226619156

The Other Side of the River

A Story of Two Towns, a Death, and America's Dilemma

By: Alex Kotlowitz

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The Other Side of the River

A Story of Two Towns, a Death, and America's Dilemma

By: Alex Kotlowitz

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337

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ISBN 10

0307814297

ISBN 13

9780307814296

There Are No Children Here

The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in The Other America (Helen Bernstein Book Award)

By: Alex Kotlowitz

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There Are No Children Here

The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in The Other America (Helen Bernstein Book Award)

By: Alex Kotlowitz

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337

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Anchor

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ISBN 10

0307814289

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9780307814289

An American Summer

Love and Death in Chicago

By: Alex Kotlowitz

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An American Summer

Love and Death in Chicago

By: Alex Kotlowitz

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306

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Anchor

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ISBN 10

0804170916

ISBN 13

9780804170918

Never a City So Real

A Walk in Chicago

By: Alex Kotlowitz

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Never a City So Real

A Walk in Chicago

By: Alex Kotlowitz

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166

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University of Chicago Press

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ISBN 10

022661915X

ISBN 13

9780226619156

Housing Policy in the United States

By: Alex F. Schwartz

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Housing Policy in the United States

By: Alex F. Schwartz

The most widely used and most widely referenced "basic book" on Housing Policy in the United States has now been substantially revised to examine the turmoil resulting from the collapse of the housing market in 2007 and the related financial crisis. The text covers the impact of the crisis in depth, including policy changes put in place and proposed by the Obama administration. This new edition also includes the latest data on housing trends and program budgets, and an expanded discussion of homelessnessof homelessness.

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Page Count

374

Publisher

Routledge

Published Date

ISBN 10

1135280096

ISBN 13

9781135280093

Families

Joys, Conflicts, and Changes

By: Alex Liazos

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Families

Joys, Conflicts, and Changes

By: Alex Liazos

Unlike other family textbooks that mostly emphasize conflicts and problems, this book also features the joys and pleasures of family living and its mutually nourishing qualities. Its perspective reflects polls, surveys, and student essays indicating that most people value their families. Families everywhere provide love, support, and sustenance to their members, but they do so in many different arrangements.Understanding the wide variety of families historically and across cultures gives the student a better basis for understanding how families change and a better grasp of more controversial changes such as the gradual acceptance by Westerners of same-sex marriage and child-rearing by single people. Liazos offers two poignant chapters not found in other texts. Family Living (Chapter Six) focuses on the social value of caregiving and family meals. Kin and Community (Chapter Seven) focuses on relationships among kin and the larger community.

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Page Count

332

Publisher

Routledge

Published Date

ISBN 10

1317259718

ISBN 13

9781317259718

Becoming a Social Worker

By: Alex Abramovich,Tasha Blaine

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Becoming a Social Worker

By: Alex Abramovich,Tasha Blaine

A revealing guide to a career as a social worker based on the real-life experiences of three distinguished social workers—required reading for anyone considering a path to this profession. Becoming a Social Worker takes you behind the scenes to find out what it’s really like, and what it really takes, to become a social worker. Acclaimed authors Alex Abramovich and Tasha Blaine shadow three distinguished social work professionals to reveal how this compassionate field changes lives. Discover what it’s like to tirelessly advocate for victims of domestic violence and sex trafficking, investigate accidental drug overdose deaths in New York City, and assist clients in a full-time private practice. Gain insight from these social workers paths as they offer wisdom and insight from their years of service. Social workers have a common mission to serve people in need—here is how this life-changing job is actually practiced at the highest levels.

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Page Count

192

Publisher

Simon and Schuster

Published Date

ISBN 10

1982140402

ISBN 13

9781982140403

The Spelling Bee

By: Alex Kotlowitz

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The Spelling Bee

By: Alex Kotlowitz

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Vintage

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ISBN 10

110191033X

ISBN 13

9781101910337

Neighborhoods, Family, and Political Behavior in Urban America

Political Behavior & Orientations

By: Yvette Alex-Assensoh

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Neighborhoods, Family, and Political Behavior in Urban America

Political Behavior & Orientations

By: Yvette Alex-Assensoh

Undergirded by a multidisciplinary framework of political science, geography, and sociology, this book examines hte manner in which neighborhood economic resources and family structure shape individual political behavior among white and black citizens in urban America.

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160

Publisher

Routledge

Published Date

ISBN 10

1317945174

ISBN 13

9781317945178

Small Loans, Big Dreams

How Nobel Prize Winner Muhammad Yunus and Microfinance are Changing the World

By: Alex Counts

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Small Loans, Big Dreams

How Nobel Prize Winner Muhammad Yunus and Microfinance are Changing the World

By: Alex Counts

Microfinancing is considered one of the most effective strategies in the fight against global poverty. And now, in Small Loans, Big Changes, author Alex Counts reveals how Nobel Prize Winner Muhammad Yunus revolutionized global antipoverty efforts through the development of this approach. This book presents compelling stories of women benefiting from Yunus’s microcredit in rural Bangladesh and urban Chicago, and recounts the experiences of different borrowers in each country, interspersing them with stories of Yunus, his colleagues, and their counterparts in Chicago.

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Page Count

435

Publisher

John Wiley & Sons

Published Date

ISBN 10

0470285273

ISBN 13

9780470285275

Book's by Alex Kotlowitz

An American Summer

An American Summer

The Spelling Bee

The Spelling Bee

The Other Side of the River

The Other Side of the River

There Are No Children Here

There Are No Children Here

Never a City So Real

Never a City So Real

The Other Side of the River

The Other Side of the River

There Are No Children Here

There Are No Children Here

An American Summer

An American Summer

Never a City So Real

Never a City So Real

Housing Policy in the United States

Housing Policy in the United States

Families

Families

Becoming a Social Worker

Becoming a Social Worker

The Spelling Bee

The Spelling Bee

Neighborhoods, Family, and Political Behavior in Urban America

Neighborhoods, Family, and Political Behavior in Urban America

Small Loans, Big Dreams

Small Loans, Big Dreams

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