English Working Class

Christopher ‘Pip’ Fallow was born in the coal-miner’s cottage where his family of eight lived, in a village near Durham. Pip was destined to join his father and brothers down the pit, but the closure of his village’s mine in the 1980s saw him at the back of the dole queue like the rest. This is Pip’s story of being ‘dragged up proppa’, living by his wits, working and travelling the world before finally settling a few miles from where he grew up.

A perfect stranger to have fun with during a masked ball? Check. A ruthless billionaire who wants to destroy my community? Check. A man who makes me fall for him? NEVER! Cassius Portman is the hot forty-year-old billionaire bachelor who all the tabloids have in their sights. An ideal distraction for one steamy night... And then, I return to working as a maid, helping out at the community center and taking care of my ailing father. Not to mention helping Chad and Rachel with their homework and doing house chores because my stepmother Brenda is too lazy for manual labor. But then my 'ideal ...

Inshallah United is the story of the first British-born son of a Pakistani family living in England’s second city. And geography is important, because if it wasn't for his mum and dad settling in Manchester rather than anywhere else in the world, so much of what makes up Nooruddean's identity could have been so different. As it was, he grew up as a Muslim, Manchester United supporting, Morrissey-loving, Maggie-hating, working-class Manc.

When Graham Caveney was in his early 20s, he began to suffer from what was eventually diagnosed as agoraphobia. What followed were decades of managing his condition and learning to live within the narrow limits it imposed on his life: no motorways, no dual carriageways, no shopping centres, limited time outdoors. Graham’s quest to understand his illness brought him back to his first love: books. From Harper Lee’s Boo Radley, Ford Madox Ford, Emily Dickinson and Shirley Jackson: the literary world is replete with examples of agoraphobics—once you go looking for them.

Trudy works nights in a linen factory, avoiding romance and sharing the care of her four-year-old niece with Trudy’s mother, Claire. Claire still pines for Trudy’s father, a St. Lawrence Seaway construction worker who left her 20 years ago. Claire believes in true love. Trudy does not. She’s keeping herself to herself. But when Jules Tremblay, aspiring daredevil, walks into the Jubilee restaurant, Trudy’s a goner.

Set against the bawdy life of a 1950s Aussie pub, young Chooka searches for his identity, and that of his underage girlfriend, Iris. Chooka’s alcoholic father dies and Eddie, the bar owner, takes him in. When Iris’s best friend Millie is murdered, Iris disappears, and Chooka’s nemesis, The Preacher, accuses him of the murder. Challenged by tragedy and tempered by humor, the search for identities intensifies until this raw young couple finally discovers what it truly means to love each other.

No Worries if Not is a funny, relatable coming-of-age story, that explores Soph Galustian's experiences of poverty, queerness, mental health, grief and community. She recounts her life from childhood, to teens, into adulthood through a mixture of short stories, spoken word, illustrations, and space for the listener to reflect (or draw tits...whatever you prefer).

This practical and entertaining book shows teachers how they can specifically bring more humor into students' lives, both live and in virtual settings because when they are laughing, they are learning. In Jamie Mason Cohen's super, easy-to-listen and entertaining style he applies the stories from his time at Saturday Night Live to his decade-long award-winning teaching career. It is a book that inspires yet is grounded in actionable strategies.

Starting with Rebecca Smith’s own family history – foresters in Cumbria, miners in Derbyshire, millworkers in Nottinghamshire, builders of reservoirs and the Manchester Ship Canal – Rural is an exploration of our green and pleasant land, and the people whose labour has shaped it. Beautifully observed, these are the stories of professions and communities that often go overlooked. Smith shows the precarity for those whose lives are entangled in the natural landscape. And she traces how these rural working-class worlds have changed.

In this comic mystery with a subcultural flavor, Lizzie Malley entertains her powerful and kinky clients on the old Melbourne-Williamstown Ferry. Her father Sandy is the union boss on the wharf. And her Mom, Babs, well, she's an Aussie mom who rules the roost from her kitchen, and who has her own secret, that of St. Robert's toe shared only with local priest Father Zappia. When disfigured bodies start popping up in the Yarra beside the ferry, tightly bound Paul Striker of CID, is confronted with the web of illegalities that pervades Williamstown, and the Malley family with its ties to ...

Dave Newman’s fierce and jittery memoir reveals, in unsanitized detail and naked, smart reflection, the story of a working class casualty--or near casualty--that a less honest, less inquisitive writer might avoid. In this exquisitely paced, wrenchingly beautiful tale of addictions, of needing help, of helping and not helping, of fighting and surviving, of the will and wonder and work of loving hard, of brokenness and the precarious impulse to apply the glue and clamp ourselves back together, Newman proves that he is beyond truth-seeker. He is a truth be-er.

Hungry Two guys are hungry for each other but also for something more. Each want a relationship built on what they see in the movies. But, they’re not stupid—they know it comes at a price-trust. Warning: For mature readers only this erotic short story depicts graphic sex including anal, fingering, blowjobs and other taboo risqué subject not suitable to list on this write-up.

Charmain Bynoe, a council housing officer for the London borough of Southwark, inspired the nation when she appeared on the TV series Council House Britain. Now, in The Estate, she shines a light on the challenges faced by so many of our citizens and provides heartwarming and inspirational stories of how they have been helped to help themselves.

At three p.m. on a Saturday afternoon in 1911, Oskar Johansson is caught in a blast in an industrial accident. The local newspaper reports him dead, but they are mistaken. Because Oskar Johansson is a born survivor. Though crippled, Oskar finds the strength to go on living and working. The Rock Blaster charts his long professional life - his hopes and dreams, sorrows and joys. His relationship with the woman whose love saved him, with the labour movement that gave him a cause to believe in, and with his children, who do not share his ideals.

Do you belong to the working class? If so, have you ever thought about what working class success means? Listen to this short audiobook to discover the secrets of working class success.

Warwickshire, 1934. Deep in a hamlet in the Warwickshire countryside, Red Hollow Hall is a male-only sanitorium run by the charismatic psychiatrist Dr Moon. However, all is not well, and Dr Moon's patients are leaving Red Hollow in droves. Recent disturbances, which originally appeared to be pranks, have descended into something more sinister, and now the men believe they have a malevolent visitor - the mermaid of Red Hollow. The ghost of a murdered girl, they believe the mermaid, wreaks bloody revenge on unsuspecting men each time the hamlet floods.

When Graham Caveney was in his early 20s, he began to suffer from what was eventually diagnosed as agoraphobia. What followed were decades of managing his condition and learning to live within the narrow limits it imposed on his life: no motorways, no dual carriageways, no shopping centres, limited time outdoors. Graham’s quest to understand his illness brought him back to his first love: books. From Harper Lee’s Boo Radley, Ford Madox Ford, Emily Dickinson and Shirley Jackson: the literary world is replete with examples of agoraphobics—once you go looking for them.

The working-class painter Terry Godden was on the brink of his first success. After a violent crisis, he finds himself outcast. Nearing 60 and with modest means, he has retreated to a small island. The island seems to be a closed, cold place. As the seasons turn, Terry comes to see that he is one of many people who have sought refuge here. These independent outsiders, all with their own considerable struggles, have made a precarious home. The island is owned by the businessman and art collector Alex Kaplan.

MM | GAY I love watching two guys share protein. There’s just something about it that turns me on beyond belief. These two guys are together and bored—which always is a good combination when you want to watch them get in trouble. Young, dumb and full of . . . . Cause it’s always fun to make protein shakes. Warning: For mature readers only this erotic short story depicts graphic sex including anal, fingering, blowjobs and other taboo risqué subject not suitable to list on this write-up.

Weaving the brackish humor of Chuck Palahniuk with the empathy of Barbara Ehrenreich, J. R. Helton brings to life an obscured underside of the American psyche in this unflinching account of life inside the working class of Texas in the 1980s. We first meet Helton as a struggling writer succumbing to the bleak reality of what it means to support himself and a wife. That despair is transformed into resilience as Helton insightfully narrates his wayward years, enduring hateful employers and mind-numbing manual labor.