Martha’s Vineyard Author Series

WBUR proudly sponsors the Martha’s Vineyard Author Series, which features nationally acclaimed authors speaking about their newly published books.  Focusing on leading authors and the important issues of the day, the series brings some of the country’s biggest thought leaders to the island.

This weekend the series welcomed Matthew Desmond, a Harvard sociologist and MacArthur "Genius".  His most recent work Evicted is a landmark work of scholarship and reportage that will forever change the way we look at poverty in America.  EVICTED: Poverty and Profit in the American City is a brilliant, heartbreaking book. Desmond takes us into the poorest neighborhoods of Milwaukee to tell the story of eight families on the edge.  He moved into a trailer park and then to a rooming house and diligently took notes on the lives of people who pay 70 to 80 percent of their incomes for homes that, objectively speaking, are unfit for human habitation. It is an astonishing book.  A special thanks to Bob Vila for providing the introduction.
Click here for more information on the Martha's Vineyard Author Series & Book Festival